Red Sea Two Part
- Thread starter Badboyan93l
- Start date
Hi Reefers,
Does the Red Sea liquid two part (foundation A and B) contain trace elements like EVS BIONIC?
Thanks
A few comments and a less than perfect answer...
Just to clarify, ESV B-ionic has most elements in it, but it DOES NOT supplement these. There is a critical distinction, and ESV B-ionic may actually lower any element that is already above NSW levels when using it and maintaining salinity. In that sense, it is exactly like doing a very tiny water change with natural seawater each day.
That does not mean the major, minor and trace elements in it are not desirable. They are.
But if there is consumption by an organism such as a coral or algae, ESV B-ionic is not going to offset that drop. You would need a different product to do that.
In short, here's what ESV B-ionic does. It supplies calcium chloride and sodium carbonate. Corals use up the calcium and carbonate, and leave sodium and chloride.
If that is all you did, sodium chloride would rise a lot, and salinity would rise.
if you dropped the salinity back to normal (whatever normal is for you), then everything drops, including potassium, iron, zinc, etc.
In order for that salinity correction to not drop these other ions, ESV adds them back in the same proportion that they would drop after the salinity correction. It does not add any to offset the addition drops that may come when organisms consume these other ions.
OK, all that said, Red Sea Foundation ABC is not a traditional two/three part. since it is not designed for 1:1 dosing. It won't be even close, while most other products are.
They do not make it clear in their product literature whether they take the approach ESV does, but they do say this:
Red Sea’s Foundation Elements provides a complete solution for maintaining and replenishing the foundation building blocks of the reef aquarium by providing complete and balanced supplements, formulated to work together for long term use and without changing the ionic balance of the water.
That last part about not changing the ionic balance SHOULD mean it takes the ESV approach, but Red Sea has sometimes claimed things that cannot be literally true, and I'm concerned it may be a marketing or translation issue that is only relying on not changing the relative amounts of alk, calcium, and magnesium and strontium to say those words in red, rather than a true unchanged full ionic balance.
I'd say ask them, but I've also gotten incorrect information from a Red Sea tech rep in the past, and would not assume they will fully understand the question and required depth of the answer.
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