It is my first ICP test, I sent it in with ATI. I need a bit of help understanding them. If anyone wants to look over them and give me a bit of help sorting through them .
ICP Test - Help with Results
- Thread starter ilikefish69
- Start date
It's pretty self-explanatory. In your case it looks like your biggest issues would be to get some iodine in the tank and significantly reduce Phosphate.
I'm not a huge numbers person, but that Phosphate is pretty crazy.
Are you feeding pellets and/or frozen foods?
I'm not a huge numbers person, but that Phosphate is pretty crazy.
Are you feeding pellets and/or frozen foods?
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Iodine I thought was for dipping corals that needed to help with a bacterial issue, but I will definitely read up on the addition to the display. What about the vanadium and mangan ? the results had those on the recommendations also.
I am super surprised about the phosphate, I was thinking 0.2 at the highest. I am using the tropic marin phosphate test, and thought I was pretty good at it. I always read about people strugging with keeping this parameter down, and I was ignorantly blissful that mine were in ok ranges. Excited to see what the tank looks like with them depleted.
Stupid question, does chaeto pull out phosphates ? Is the only other way to remove with large WC ? I have a larger system about 150 gallons total volume
I feed 1 pinch of flakes, new life spectrum pellets, a mix of nori and frozen brine and mysis all mixed together soaked in sea chem vitamins.
I have a reactor that I run carbon and GFO in, I guess I should think about adding a bit more GFO in the reactor.
The RODI results also had silicon in it, but the silicon level in the seawater was ok.
Iodine is a necessary element for a variety of things in the tank. For example, shrimp need it in order to molt. I believe it also helps with the red coloration of corals (I might be remembering that wrong).
GFO will help lower phosphates, but do it slowly. You can help reduce what you're adding to the tank by dumping the water that's used to thaw out your frozen foods. Basically you put a strainer in the water, throw the food in the strainer, then lift the thawed food out and dump the water.
If you have silicon in your RODI, then it's time to replace your DI resin, even if you're getting 0 TDS.
The other minor elements can be replaced with waterchanges. OR, you can do what I do, and that's the Reef Moonshiner's Method, where you don't do waterchanges and you dose the individual elements based off ICP testing.
Phosphate elevated and simply add a pouch of chemipure blue or elite to gradually bring it down and monitor with Hanna Phos test kit.
Iodine low but simply add 2-3 drops per day and have it tested bi weekly until you are in range
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Is chemi pure blue/elite better than GFO?
Elite contains GFO
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I've ran two pouches before but after looking at what is in them it seems to be a mix of carbon gfo and resin, and at LFS its close to $60 for a pouch meant for 100 gallons, so I resorted to using carbon pouch and GFO pouch, but didn't add the resin in. Is Lugol's iodine good enough for the 2-3 drops ? I have seen it many times before but the "advanced aquarists only" on it always freaked me out. I also picked up some magnesium supplement, I am gonna try and get it closer to 1450-1500 , see what that does to deter the algae once the phosphate is in check
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