All For Reef - Trace Element Custom Recipe

[Biologic]

Hey All,

I dose 32 ml per 100 liters in a 24 hour period split up in equal doses. I am showing I am low on two key elements. IODINE and IRON. I do water changes every week with 10% fresh mixed Tropic Marin Pro Mix. This is my second test that shows low iodine and low iron.

I have a SPS dominate tank, mostly acropora and montipora. Great polyp extension. Decent growth.

Colors look.... ok, but could be better. I do keep my PO4 and NO3 which are around 0.05 and 3 ppm respectively. I run a very white light. For example, I notice my pinks and blues are faded, and its not because of light or nutrients. They lack some intensity and saturation. For example, on a turquoise stag horn, I'd expect purple growth tips. Or my Leng Sy Purple rim montipora does not have a purple growth margin. It's a saturated green but not growing even.

I am wondering if it would be better to add more Trace A- (maybe 25% more) for Iodine and only 15% more Trace K+ to keep up with Iron, which also addresses some of the other low elements.

 

[Ls7corvete]

Brightwell Aquatics Chaeto GRO and Iodine perhaps? Are you running chaeto or other macro?

I am curious to see what the more experienced suggest.

 

[Biologic]

Brightwell Aquatics Chaeto GRO and Iodine perhaps? Are you running chaeto or other macro?

I am curious to see what the more experienced suggest.

I have thought this too. That’s my fall back. I do not run a refugium. Just a big skimmer for this tank. A Deltec MCE601. 4 times the rating for this tank, which I only run at night

My ultimate goal is automatic dosing single head dosing. Which is why I went for DIY A4R. It’s a great solution. Definitely underrated method. As popular as it is, it should be *much more popular* than it is.

It can be customized to certain extend. I don’t dose as much magnesium as the recipe calls for. Half in fact. My water changes take care of it. Adding more trace elements would be interesting.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Hey, thanks for your very good questions!

The symptoms you describe fit very well in my experience with low iodine concentrations. Other symptoms are retracted polyps in gorgonians and bad expansion of some leather corals, I noticed it mainly in a white Sinularia. I adscribe these symptoms to iodine because I had low iodine concentrations at that time and increasing the dosage of A- Elements improved the conditions of the corals a lot. Improved blue and bluegreen colors where amongst the first signs that conditions got better. The brown colors of the corals got deeper and growth improved. Foliose Montipora also grew thicker plates. After the obviously improved color of the zooxanthellae also fluorescent colors improved, although some colors temporarily seemed to get weaker while the brown got darker.

In my opinion, it is nearly impossibel to be low in iron for the corals. The iron demand of corals is quite low and higher than the absolutely necessary iron concentration mainly benefits cyanobacteria and algae. I recommend to ignore that iron may be below the detection limit of ICP-OES.

 

[Biologic]

Hey, thanks for your very good questions!

The symptoms you describe fit very well in my experience with low iodine concentrations. Other symptoms are retracted polyps in gorgonians and bad expansion of some leather corals, I noticed it mainly in a white Sinularia. I adscribe these symptoms to iodine because I had low iodine concentrations at that time and increasing the dosage of A- Elements improved the conditions of the corals a lot. Improved blue and bluegreen colors where amongst the first signs that conditions got better. The brown colors of the corals got deeper and growth improved. Foliose Montipora also grew thicker plates. After the obviously improved color of the zooxanthellae also fluorescent colors improved, although some colors temporarily seemed to get weaker while the brown got darker.

In my opinion, it is nearly impossibel to be low in iron for the corals. The iron demand of corals is quite low and higher than the absolutely necessary iron concentration mainly benefits cyanobacteria and algae. I recommend to ignore that iron may be below the detection limit of ICP-OES.

Thank you sincerely for your reply!

You gave me a pretty good idea of where I can go with producing my own recipe. Since my previous ICP test, I actually haven’t done any water changes and I am allowing only All For Reef to handle everything. Therefore I am expecting when I send in my next test I’ll have even lower concentrations of the ones I am currently deficient in. I am hoping I can figure out a value to add in more A- and K+ .

https://www.icp-analysis.com/ is the website I use for ICP-OES. They measure to ppb accuracy, but they recently added a new service of mass spectrometry which they will measure to ppt accuracy. Parts per trillion. And they will now measure 70 different elements.

My only issue of adding more A- is potentially adding more halides (Fluorine and Bromine)that I may not need.

 

[Biologic]

Hey, thanks for your very good questions!

The symptoms you describe fit very well in my experience with low iodine concentrations. Other symptoms are retracted polyps in gorgonians and bad expansion of some leather corals, I noticed it mainly in a white Sinularia. I adscribe these symptoms to iodine because I had low iodine concentrations at that time and increasing the dosage of A- Elements improved the conditions of the corals a lot. Improved blue and bluegreen colors where amongst the first signs that conditions got better. The brown colors of the corals got deeper and growth improved. Foliose Montipora also grew thicker plates. After the obviously improved color of the zooxanthellae also fluorescent colors improved, although some colors temporarily seemed to get weaker while the brown got darker.

In my opinion, it is nearly impossibel to be low in iron for the corals. The iron demand of corals is quite low and higher than the absolutely necessary iron concentration mainly benefits cyanobacteria and algae. I recommend to ignore that iron may be below the detection limit of ICP-OES.

Also to test this I will make a small 250 mL batch and do a ICP-OES or Mass Spec to see if this would be worth while to try.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Thank you for testing this. In my opinion, when you already notice signs of iodine deficiency, doulbing of the iodine dosage should be no big problem.

From 25 % more I expect not great effect, I would go to 50 % more and check later.

The reason is, deficiency means the iodine concentration has decreased significantly. Raising the iodine concentration will improve growth and in this way iodine consumption. This is a kind of negative feedback lowering the increase of iodine concentration.

 

[Biologic]

Thank you for testing this. In my opinion, when you already notice signs of iodine deficiency, doulbing of the iodine dosage should be no big problem.

From 25 % more I expect not great effect, I would go to 50 % more and check later.

The reason is, deficiency means the iodine concentration has decreased significantly. Raising the iodine concentration will improve growth and in this way iodine consumption. This is a kind of negative feedback lowering the increase of iodine concentration.

Thank you for the advice, my local store is https://www.facebook.com/CoralFeverLLC/

Shane has been a great help. He pretty much uses this on most of his client tanks! @Lou Ekus

 

[dr1271]

Has anyone mixed A- and K+ together to dose together through one dose pump? All my other three pump heads are currently dosing the TM Balling Method but I have one standalone Doser sitting around.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Has anyone mixed A- and K+ together to dose together through one dose pump?

Mixing K+ and A- together will result in unwanted reactions of elements and precipitates. We do not recommend it.

Rather mix the K+ and A- Elements into the Original Balling solutions. You can mix K+ Elements into Original Balling Part A and A- Elements into Original Balling Part B, 5 % of the final solution.

For example, when Mixing Original Balling Part A take 4.5 liters of RODI water, 380 g of Original Balling Components Part A and 250 ml (= 5 % of 5 l) of K+ Elements, mix and dissolve and fill up with RODI water to 5 liters.

 

[Biologic]

Mixing K+ and A- together will result in unwanted reactions of elements and precipitates. We do not recommend it.

Rather mix the K+ and A- Elements into the Original Balling solutions. You can mix K+ Elements into Original Balling Part A and A- Elements into Original Balling Part B, 5 % of the final solution.

For example, when Mixing Original Balling Part A take 4.5 liters of RODI water, 380 g of Original Balling Components Part A and 250 ml (= 5 % of 5 l) of K+ Elements, mix and dissolve and fill up with RODI water to 5 liters.

This is not mentioned enough when people talk about Balling Method in the US. I think this is a cost effective and convenient solution to addressing Trace Elements. I will likely go with The Balling Method when I upgrade to a ~600 liter system.

I am going to send in my last ICP-OES test this week before I switch to www.icp-anylsis.com 's mass spec testing, which will test more elements for my little experiment that we discussed above.

 

[dr1271]

This is not mentioned enough when people talk about Balling Method in the US. I think this is a cost effective and convenient solution to addressing Trace Elements. I will likely go with The Balling Method when I upgrade to a ~600 liter system.

I am going to send in my last ICP-OES test this week before I switch to www.icp-anylsis.com 's mass spec testing, which will test more elements for my little experiment that we discussed above.

I ageee!!! Looks like I’ll be returning the 1600g A4R and buying some more Balling Method powder.

Just a heads ICP Analysis is going through an issue with their new QR code system. Lost a test I sent in last week.

 

[Dr. Jim]

Mixing K+ and A- together will result in unwanted reactions of elements and precipitates. We do not recommend it.

Rather mix the K+ and A- Elements into the Original Balling solutions. You can mix K+ Elements into Original Balling Part A and A- Elements into Original Balling Part B, 5 % of the final solution.

For example, when Mixing Original Balling Part A take 4.5 liters of RODI water, 380 g of Original Balling Components Part A and 250 ml (= 5 % of 5 l) of K+ Elements, mix and dissolve and fill up with RODI water to 5 liters.

Would mixing the A and K in a large volume of water (salt or RO/DI) alleviate the problems with unwanted reactions and precipitates? If so, would you recommend saltwater or RO/DI and how large a volume would be needed for 100 ml each of A and K?

The problem I have with mixing the A and K with Alk and Ca solutions is that I rarely end up using the same amounts of each of them. (Usually more Alk is needed, so that would throw off the ratios of A:K.)

Thank you.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Sorry for my late repyl!

I haven't tried that yet, to mix K+ and A- Elements in a large volume of water, so I don't know a definite answer.

I think it is easier to either reduce the dosage of A- Elements in the Alk solution, if an analysis shows iodine is high, or to accept that also the dosage of A- Elements is a little bit higher.

In general, neither the absolute dosage nor the ratio of K+ and A- Elements is very fixed but can be handled quite flexibly depending on consumption. Most trace element concentrations are also variable in natural reefs and corals and other reef organisms can adapt to varying concentrations. Otherwise it would be hardly possible to keep corals in tanks.