Time to try taming the trace elements dragon?

[FurianSurvivor]

Hello Reefers!

I am newer to the aquarium hobby of about a year now and I need some help interpreting where to go with my most recent ReefLabs ICP test results.


The tank:
I have the RedSea Reefer S-1000 mixed reef aquarium and
- Water changes are weekly 30 gallons with tropic marin pro reef salt (~11%);
- Top off and freshwater is 0 TDS RODI from BRS 7 stage pro.
- ESV Bionic 2 part dosing (20ml buffer, and 23ml daily calcium)
- 10ml/day white vinegar for carbon dosing (to bring down nitrates and phosphates since I have run out of things to clean that I can reach).
- 0 fish . (second fight with marine velvet despite quarantine setup - think it was too close to original aquarium so we are fallow for now)

Temp: 76 degrees Fahrenheit
Alk: 8.7dkh
nitrate: 2.5ppm
PH: 8.2-8.4

Here are the results of the icp test and the alerted "Important Warnings":

Element	Status	Measured	Optimal Range	Possible Effect	Correction
Potassium	deficient	363.2 mg/L	380 - 480 mg/L	poor coloration, nutrient control problems	macro element additives
Manganese	deficient	not detected	0.0001 - 0.002 mg/L	reduced polyp extension, poor growth	trace element additives
Nickel	deficient	not detected	0.003 - 0.008 mg/L	poor growth and reduced coloration	trace element additives
Vanadium	deficient	not detected	0.002 - 0.008 mg/L	poor coloration, growth and nutrient uptake	trace element additives
Zinc	deficient	0.001 mg/L	0.002 - 0.006 mg/L	poor growth and coloration, accumulation nutrients	trace element additives

Important Ratios which help to maintain a healthy ionic balance​

Description	Your Sample Value	Optimal Range	Correction
Magnesium to Calcium Ratio	3.0	2.9 - 3.1	no correction needed
Chloride to Sodium Ratio	1.9	1.7 - 1.9	no correction needed
Chloride to Sulfate Ratio	18.7	20.1 - 22.1	water change

​

​

Calculated Values from your test results​

Description	Your Sample Value	Optimal Range	Correction
Salinity	34.8	34 - 36ppt	no correction needed
Phosphate	0.123	0.02 - 0.06mg/L	water change, GFO, or PO4 removal resin

 

[Someshmuk]

Presently? Nothing you aren't already doing.

Your water change schedule will be taking care of your trace elements.

If you haven't gotten a protein skimmer or ATS/refugium those would be the next systems to pursue/research.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Your water change schedule will be taking care of your trace elements.

Will they? His ICP would seem to suggest otherwise.

Rapidly depleting elements will never be maintained at levels in the new salt water by water change.

We can argue about what levels are actually needed, and whether foods and water changes provide enough so that trace elements are not limiting to growth, but that's a complex question that, IMO, has not been answered.

 

[Someshmuk]

Will they? His ICP would seem to suggest otherwise.

Rapidly depleting elements will never be maintained at levels in the new salt water by water change.

We can argue about what levels are actually needed, and whether foods and water changes provide enough so that trace elements are not limiting to growth, but that's a complex question that, IMO, has not been answered.

I'd err on that the ICP test would need at least 2 datapoints to test for depletion. But I'd also posit that the ICP tests vendors will yields varying results so it might be measurment error. At least for the salt being used, the tank's getting all the trace elements that are being depleted. Most likely not at the rate of tank consumption but the alternative solution involves following a moonshiners regiment which is a pretty hefty penny.

Tropic Marin ICP results, interested in opinions.

Hi all, I got ICP results back from Tropic Marin, some interesting results. Firstly Mg is measuring 1540, I am measuring 1350 on salifert, alarming difference. I will try a different test kit on this. The other major elements were close to my own measurements. I did an aquaforest icp about 2...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There are plenty of middle ground approaches between dosing nothing and full bore icp based dosing of lots of elements.

 

[Big E]

Here is what I would do..............get your Mg up to 400 and that's it for elements.

- Establish a base line by getting an ICP on your fresh mixed Tropic Marin Pro.

-Stop carbon dosing..........you're nutrients will continue to drop with no fish in the system. If they drop from current levels especially P04 I would dose known foods like Reefroids. If you have to dose Nitrates try to focus on only doing this short term

- Continue with your current maintenance.

- Until you have a fish population it's not wise to do anything more than the above. Revisit all this once you have a steady state with a fish population.

In 3-4 months after establishing a fish population then you can go back to getting an ICP test.
------------------------------
You want to focus on the top down............major elements have to be in place first and nutrients at steady state with fish.

You're a good six months away from focusing on micro elements.

 

[jda]

I am with Ed. If you are fallow, I would focus on getting more available forms of building blocks to the corals and not worry about traces just yet. Ammonium is a good start - there is no guarantee that your corals can use nitrate to get nitrogen and even if some can, they have to covert it back to ammonia to use at a large cost of energy of 30-70% extra (nobody know for sure). Do you have a CUC making waste? Fish waste and the things that immediately eat fish waste are the best way to get nutrients of all kinds to your corals, it seems - carbon too. Remember that no3 and po4 are waste products and not quite nutrients - nitrate and phosphorous are nutrients.

If you are feeding fish in QT, pour some of the frozen food juice into this tank. It can help.

No way to know for sure, but food for fish could have had a lot of these traces in it. Bottles from supplement companies and salt mix are not the only way to get traces into the tank.

Lastly, there are plenty of threads to browse and chew on, but if ReefLabs is OES and not MS, then they don't have the precision to know if your .001 zinc is not actually .002 or .003. Even MS cannot really do this very well.

I would spend the rest of the time until your fish are back and thriving figuring out if you believe that many of these elements are actually useful... and if they are, if there are any set points that you can trust... or ICP is good enough to detect them. I am of the opinion that regular water changes, my calcium reactor and dosing iron for chaeto is all that I need... if there is something else that makes corals better (I am all SPS and clams with limited softies and LPS), then I have not seen it. I tried potassium, iodine, broad based element additives and nothing changes when I stopped dosing. To be fair, the CaRx does melt more than just the big three, so it does add some other stuff when I use natural media. If you look at it, the comprehensive supplements have been around since the 1990s... the names and faces change, but if they all work so much, then why is Kent Marine Essential Elements and Coral Vite not used like like the hot products of this year? They all fade and new ones replace them with slightly tweaked promises. If you want to dose something, then get both of those kent products and squirt in 1/2 the recommended dose - cheaper and easier than a full-on regiment from some other company and probably 1/3 the cost of a single ICP test. If you see any changes, then see about dosing more traces - but you will have to use and then stop again to know for sure.

 

[Big E]

Typo------meant to say K to 400