Are you dosing trace elements in your tank?

[sgdnycct]

Same here with no water changes.

IMO, water changes get credit for boosting trace elements when in reality, they cannot possibly keep up with those that are rapidly depleted, unless the salt mix has vastly more of those elements than the target level. If iron or manganese deplete in a few days, how could a small water change once every couple of weeks actually maintain it?

But the big offsetting addition of trace elements that really gets no love are foods. Foods add far more of many trace elements than do typical water changes.

I recall seeing something about good and trace elements. Is it a particular kind of food that works best or vary on ratios? I feed mostly frozen. Would pellets or flake have more since they tend to pack in vitamins?

 

[Biff0rz]

I dose daily (shiners method), but my tank is sps dominant. I recently started mixing all of my own elements so I no longer pay retail prices. It's amazing how little it costs to mix your own!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Oh ok Randy, I had seen a post of another reef keeper on here that has beautiful tanks, so that was the basis of my switch. That and a lot of old time reef keepers used it. Based on what you are telling me, I wont recommend it anymore but I probably will finish up the box as it is not cheap. I can alternate between it and AFR every other week.

Without getting into my usual statements about how I think it cannot be true, and how even their written claims about what is added are not what I would want added, a reef2reef member did a test with a cube in a beaker of new salt water as well as RO/DI. It dissolved into both.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a-test-on-sea-lab-no-28-claims.1029676/

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I recall seeing something about good and trace elements. Is it a particular kind of food that works best or vary on ratios? I feed mostly frozen. Would pellets or flake have more since they tend to pack in vitamins?

I don't know what foods might be best or worst with respect to trace elements. A study of what is in them, such as some folks have done in the past) does not really say how much of what is released to the water when the food is metabolized. Companies do not need to add them to the food for them to provide many elements, since most are already an integral part of the things used as the food components (such as shrimp or nori).

My main reason to post here was to remind folks that water changes and dosing are not the only ways trace elements get in, so that someone doing neither of these is still adding trace elements. :)

 

[FrugalReeferJon]

Brightwell Replenish once a week. But anybody who feeds their fish, whether they know it or not, is dosing trace elements.

 

[sgdnycct]

I recall seeing something about good and trace elements. Is it a particular kind of food that works best or vary on ratios? I feed mostly frozen. Would pellets or flake have more since they tend to pack in vitamins?

I don't know what foods might be best or worst with respect to trace elements. A study of what is in them, such as some folks have done in the past) does not really say how much of what is released to the water when the food is metabolized. Companies do not need to add them to the food for them to provide many elements, since most are already an integral part of the things used as the food components (such as shrimp or nori).

My main reason to post here was to remind folks that water changes and dosing are not the only ways trace elements get in, so that someone doing neither of these is still adding trace elements. :)

Got it! Thanks!

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I dose daily (shiners method), but my tank is sps dominant. I recently started mixing all of my own elements so I no longer pay retail prices. It's amazing how little it costs to mix your own!!

Tell me more about mixing your own to match RMS.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

For those folks who have not regularly followed the Reef Chemistry question of the day, I thought I'd copy and paste one here:

And the answer is...

Which adds more iron to a 100 L reef tank that is completely depleted in iron:

1. A 100% water change with natural seawater, which we will assume for this purpose has a concentration of 0.5 nM or 28 ng/L = 0.028 ug/L
2. 1 medium shrimp (size 41-60/pound)
3. Nori sheet 7" x 8"
4. 1 whole sardine (2-2/3" x 1/2" x 1/4")


The values quoted vary a lot, but the best I can come up with is:

4>3>2>>1

sardine has most
nori is second
shrimp is third
and even a 100% water change is way, way below all of these.

THere's more info and discussion here:

Reef Chemistry Question of the Day #298: Where are those trace elements coming from?

Reef Chemistry Question of the Day 298 We all know that organisms from bacteria to whales require many different trace elements for the biochemical processes of life. One of the things we don't always have a good handle on in a reef tank is where they are coming from and where they are going...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[56longroof]

I dose AFR and kalk. Occasionally Ill add some iron and manganese.

 

[Roatan Reef]

I dose Red Sea Trace Elements ABCD(Iron, Potassium, Iodine, Bioactive Elements) Brightwell Replinish, Manganese and Brightwell Revive every other day.

I run Kalk every other night, and always top off with Mag next morning.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

NM - going to validate more.

 

[ReefGeezer]

Irregular water changes + Calcium Reactor + 6 ml Tropic Marin A&K Elements daily in my 90 Reef.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Despite daily water changes, I add it as I have an increase in SPS

 

[Science/G]

Along with AFR, I dose potassium/ bromine/fluorine (Red Sea Trace colors part B) iodine/boron (Red Sea Trace colors part A) a little bit of iron, and recently Strontium.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Along with AFR, I dose potassium/ bromine/fluorine (Red Sea Trace colors part B) iodine/boron (Red Sea Trace colors part A) a little bit of iron, and recently Strontium.

See any tank change from the strontium dosing change?

 

[MadreeferNJ]

I only dose calc, Mag and Alk.

 

[Maho.B]

I used to dose. At about 2 years in I started to dose tropic marin A and K in an sps dominant reef (about 70/30 sps/lps) along with biweekly water changes and assorted frozen foods. No ICP tests, zero science behind doing so but my corals never looked better or grew faster after doing so. Not sure if it was related to dosing, but the change was visually significant.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No ICP tests, zero science behind doing so but my corals never looked better or grew faster after doing so. Not sure if it was related to dosing, but the change was visually significant.

Just to make sure we understand correctly, the corals grew faster and looked better when dosing the TM A and K compared to when not doing so?

 

[MIKE NY]

I’m currently dosing 8 ml of TM A & K in a heavily stocked mixed tank, predominantly SPS …based on ICP test results. I also weekly test Alk, more often when I remember, mag, cal along with phos and nitrate. I will manually dose them if needed.

 

[AlexandraDreadlocksPanda]

I haven't and don't plan on it... just whatever is included in AFR and is refreshed by weekly 10% water changes. I don't plan on going down the ICP rabbit hole and don't like the idea of dosing something blindly.

AFR has quite a lot of TE elements added, so you are in fact dosing them, just not separately. 10% Water changes will never be enough to maintain TE levels, Dr.Randy Holmes-Farley has explained this fully on numerous occasions…