Do we really need all those traces? Do we really need to keep water with the exact elementos of the ocean?

[Reef and Dive]

I´ve been questioning myself a lot lately: do we really need to replenish all those traces? Do we really need to keep our water as close as we can to sea water?

Long ago there were lots of thriving tanks while nobody even knew or talked about trace elements, many were R2R amazing featured reefs. Many were kept with very few or no water changes, just replenishing calcium, alkalinity and often magnesium.

Recently people talk a lot about keeping aquarium water exactly like ocean water. My doubt is, is all that essential for coral? Are we feeding anything else?

It is a fact that algae thrives in healthy coral reefs in the ocean... It is also a fact that mature reefs are much easier to keep and most of the time (not always of course) and show a much less algae problems. It seems that coming to equilibrium in terms of microbiology is very important; could this be it all about that?

Have we ever questioned if the subtraction of certain elements could actually be beneficial for what we aim in our reef tanks? One simple example of that: dinoflagellates blooms. One method that helps controlling them is just avoiding water changes, stop dosing traces and doing frequent manual removal of concentrated dinos in some areas. With that method we might be removing important ions for dino metabolism and disfavoring their growth (not talking here about best methods, just one method that has been used with or without others over the years).

Could, maybe, those mature thriving reefs lack some elements from repeated removal of nuisance algae and lack of replenishment? Could that subtraction from the water actually benefit the animals we aim to keep in this closed environment?

No doubt we need to keep our main parameters as stable as possible, but I´ve been questioning myself a lot if we really need to care so much about all elements, those ICPs details, single elements dosing...

It seems there are many important elements that we should replenish, and many of those are not even traces, like potassium, iron, iodine, and manganese for example, but do we really need to dose all the other traces?

Keeping water is like keeping the air we breathe, but we do not need those 78% nitrogen available for important metabolic functions, in this case it just occupies some space. Could the same be true for some of the traces we call important?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

While I do think it is a safe bet to attempt to keep our water similar to the oceans I also think you may be onto something here. We don't currently understand how all of the oceans elements work but there are some that don't seem to do much at all

Rubidium or barium anyone?

 

[Reef and Dive]

Anyone else??? I wonder if what I´m saying could be pure nonsense...

@Randy Holmes-Farley
@Lasse
@Roberto Denadai

I would love to hear your opinions.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Guess I'm just chopped liver

 

[Keiki]

I don't add trace elements and all my corals did great. They had good polyp extension and color. I agree that before all these additives came out people were able to grow corals very well.

 

[HuduVudu]

I have been reefing for 25 years and I have been in the hobby for 35 years. First off the old days were laughable. There was a center of innovation in the U.S. That center was LA. Germany had solid innovation, but they may as well have been on Mars for what it mattered to 99% of hobbiests. Sorry, there were other places that had solid people that had made head way in their particular areas but there was no internet, there was no easy transfer of knowlege, good or bad. Those that have come to this hobby within the last 10 years take this fact for granted. I just want to put that out there, because I see way too many people thinking that the old days had it better ... 100% they didn't. We have terrible surviorship bias when it comes to this. Remember it is only the dedicated that are here today to tell the tale.

When I first started out in reef keeping there were and are the same manufactures producing the same tests, with one exception ... Hanna. Hilariously, none of their quality has changed. There were the same now as they were then. The advent of automated testing is very very new, and the actual availability of lab testing to hobbyists is really new. In 1995 measuring the sodium or rubidium or even the potassium of my tank was akin to me flying to the moon for a vacation. We water changed. When in doubt water change it out. Closed systems where mythical beasts akin to the Loch Ness monster. Nobody talked or thought about it because why? There was no way to even know if you dosed something that it was even near seawater much less that your tank was even consuming it. Sure Universities may have had the equipment to test but even then it was only the specialized areas in large Universities with matching budgets that could even dream of this. Now I can pay $40 and ICP will tell me dang near everything that I want to know and as others have done on this board, you can even coerce them into testing for crazy things like Rubidium. I think I have made my point. We are just now even able to see the parameters much less chase them. You see these old solid systems with the few aquarists that have made it through the years. They built their successful systems on trail and error. Not on feedback from testing.

To your particular question about trace elements. Here is the problem ... when we were in school we "learned" the base principal of something. Then we advanced in grades and built on this base principle. Always moving forward they said. The problem is that we never really got the base principle. I see it in everything. Nobody wants to do the dumb old boring thing that all of the disgusting noobs do. They want to get to the kewl thing that they can show off to their friends. Sadly because they didn't truly understand the principles they were working with they fail when the advanced idea required them to have an advanced understanding of the dumb ole noob stuff. In learning Spanish my teacher said learn to pronounce the vowels. Do it until you can do it in your sleep. I have. My Spanish is not gringo Spanish, because I concentrated on the basics. It is amazing how the basics permeate all of the upper levels of understanding. Ok, tea ... china ... what's the point. Very few in this hobby can master the basics. Let me re-iterate. Very few can master the basics. Why? Because the basics aren't kewl. You can't show off to your friends. You can't tell everyone how smart you are. When I started I started with a Niger Trigger in a 10 gallon tank with an undergravel filter and Penn Plax hood and airstones. You have to go through all of the steps and learn each step to get to the next. We believe that we can skip past these dumb old processes because ... interwebz. We can not and we fail.

So what does this all mean. First Salt water is a small hobby, Fish only is the the vast majority of that hobby. Coral is a specialty and stony corals are a smaller part of that specialty, it goes down from there but I want to stop here because at this point my guesstimate is that we are at 5% of a very small hobby. Yikes. There are many that try to grow coral and many that start in the hobby and see how hard it is to grow these coral and think, I can do that those other people they aren't as smart as me, I will succeed where they have failed. I don't think I need to elaborate from there. The reason I point this out is because there is a lot of debate even among those that can carry all of this out. Also there is a huge scientist hobbiest divide. This exacerbates already contentious subjects. This is the bleeding bleeding edge of this hobby. The problem is that many people see these debates (because now they can) and they think this sounds like it can solve the problem that I am having with my aquarium and they pull the debate out of context and try to use it. I am actually an AnCap so I am accept this as neccessary and important, but for many this is confusing and it creates a cacophony of hopeless disinformation. The only good thing I can say about the old days is that it wasn't easy to publish a book, so if a book was published at least something to bring to the table. Now anyone can say anything on any forum and there will be no vetting process whatsoever (as I believe it should be). This however brings it's own problems.

My personal view of trace elements is this. You must be able to properly mineralize your tank before you can even fathom or contemplate working with trace elements to even determine their efficacy. There are few IMO on this board that I think would be capable. I am not one of them. I am still trying to get the big three down. But as I start to refine my process I can see those that want to take it beyond where I am just starting to arrive because they have been here for years. It is a refinement. If you have looked to provide a razor sharp edge to a knife, you know that you can't start with the finest grit possible and get anywhere. You have to go through the various grits each time making the blade sharper and sharper. Plenty of new and novice people will talk about things that are refinement process and they will try to apply them to the current problems that they are solving. Maybe one in a million will do something interesting or new, or more likely they will just fail and have to fall back to the actual boring old methods that have worked in the past to solve their current problems. But who wants to do something as dumb as that.

My 2 cents.

 

[flampton]

Just an FYI you’re describing an interesting issue and one that is somewhat arbitrary. For instance look for a trace product or salt that contains silica at sea water levels.( not counting specialized sponge enhancing products). Not going to find it, so yeah.

Then you must consider food, which will have the trace minerals required for health. However will it be enough? Probably for certain animals but not others...

So in summation I supplement trace elements but I use less than manufacturer recommendations. And maybe one day I’ll run a ICP, however more for fun as they’re not the most useful thing. I mean it doesn’t tell you any information on what molecules are in your tank. And that is what truly matters.

 

[ca1ore]

R2R hasn’t been around long enough to qualify as ‘long ago’. I’d actually suggest that adding trace elements was more common 20 years ago than it is now. It fell out of vogue, usually argued along the lines of ‘don’t add what you cannot measure’. OK, some modern approaches that eschew water changes require significant additions of versions elements, but I think reefers today add less than they did ‘long ago’.

Its almost certainly true that there are some elements in NSW that corals don’t need, or in such tiny quantities that they never get depleted. Trouble is, what are they? I’d imagine there are studies that can tell you to exact composition of coral skeletons .... but that seems like a lot of work. Much easier, IMO, to just target NSW levels and call it a day.

Or you can just use a CaRx and dissolve coral skeletons back into the water with the necessary elements in the correct proportions. That’s what I do.

 

[flampton]

R2R hasn’t been around long enough to qualify as ‘long ago’. I’d actually suggest that adding trace elements was more common 20 years ago than it is now. It fell out of vogue, usually argued along the lines of ‘don’t add what you cannot measure’. OK, some modern approaches that eschew water changes require significant additions of versions elements, but I think reefers today add less than they did ‘long ago’.

Its almost certainly true that there are some elements in NSW that corals don’t need, or in such tiny quantities that they never get depleted. Trouble is, what are they? I’d imagine there are studies that can tell you to exact composition of coral skeletons .... but that seems like a lot of work. Much easier, IMO, to just target NSW levels and call it a day.

Or you can just use a CaRx and dissolve coral skeletons back into the water with the necessary elements in the correct proportions. That’s what I do.

I understand supplementing for the coral skeleton but what about the actual animal?

 

[ca1ore]

Assume you mean the coral polyps .... as opposed to fish? Answer is probably the same though. Feed the fish, feed the corals.

 

[flampton]

Assume you mean the coral polyps .... as opposed to fish? Answer is probably the same though. Feed the fish, feed the corals.

Yes I agree that’s the hope, but that’s why I hedge with a bit of trace elements. It may be completely superfluous though so yeah I truly have no strong argument against skipping trace elements in those that feed their aquarium well

 

[Reef and Dive]

I have been reefing for 25 years and I have been in the hobby for 35 years. First off the old days were laughable. There was a center of innovation in the U.S. That center was LA. Germany had solid innovation, but they may as well have been on Mars for what it mattered to 99% of hobbiests. Sorry, there were other places that had solid people that had made head way in their particular areas but there was no internet, there was no easy transfer of knowlege, good or bad. Those that have come to this hobby within the last 10 years take this fact for granted. I just want to put that out there, because I see way too many people thinking that the old days had it better ... 100% they didn't. We have terrible surviorship bias when it comes to this. Remember it is only the dedicated that are here today to tell the tale.

When I first started out in reef keeping there were and are the same manufactures producing the same tests, with one exception ... Hanna. Hilariously, none of their quality has changed. There were the same now as they were then. The advent of automated testing is very very new, and the actual availability of lab testing to hobbyists is really new. In 1995 measuring the sodium or rubidium or even the potassium of my tank was akin to me flying to the moon for a vacation. We water changed. When in doubt water change it out. Closed systems where mythical beasts akin to the Loch Ness monster. Nobody talked or thought about it because why? There was no way to even know if you dosed something that it was even near seawater much less that your tank was even consuming it. Sure Universities may have had the equipment to test but even then it was only the specialized areas in large Universities with matching budgets that could even dream of this. Now I can pay $40 and ICP will tell me dang near everything that I want to know and as others have done on this board, you can even coerce them into testing for crazy things like Rubidium. I think I have made my point. We are just now even able to see the parameters much less chase them. You see these old solid systems with the few aquarists that have made it through the years. They built their successful systems on trail and error. Not on feedback from testing.

To your particular question about trace elements. Here is the problem ... when we were in school we "learned" the base principal of something. Then we advanced in grades and built on this base principle. Always moving forward they said. The problem is that we never really got the base principle. I see it in everything. Nobody wants to do the dumb old boring thing that all of the disgusting noobs do. They want to get to the kewl thing that they can show off to their friends. Sadly because they didn't truly understand the principles they were working with they fail when the advanced idea required them to have an advanced understanding of the dumb ole noob stuff. In learning Spanish my teacher said learn to pronounce the vowels. Do it until you can do it in your sleep. I have. My Spanish is not gringo Spanish, because I concentrated on the basics. It is amazing how the basics permeate all of the upper levels of understanding. Ok, tea ... china ... what's the point. Very few in this hobby can master the basics. Let me re-iterate. Very few can master the basics. Why? Because the basics aren't kewl. You can't show off to your friends. You can't tell everyone how smart you are. When I started I started with a Niger Trigger in a 10 gallon tank with an undergravel filter and Penn Plax hood and airstones. You have to go through all of the steps and learn each step to get to the next. We believe that we can skip past these dumb old processes because ... interwebz. We can not and we fail.

So what does this all mean. First Salt water is a small hobby, Fish only is the the vast majority of that hobby. Coral is a specialty and stony corals are a smaller part of that specialty, it goes down from there but I want to stop here because at this point my guesstimate is that we are at 5% of a very small hobby. Yikes. There are many that try to grow coral and many that start in the hobby and see how hard it is to grow these coral and think, I can do that those other people they aren't as smart as me, I will succeed where they have failed. I don't think I need to elaborate from there. The reason I point this out is because there is a lot of debate even among those that can carry all of this out. Also there is a huge scientist hobbiest divide. This exacerbates already contentious subjects. This is the bleeding bleeding edge of this hobby. The problem is that many people see these debates (because now they can) and they think this sounds like it can solve the problem that I am having with my aquarium and they pull the debate out of context and try to use it. I am actually an AnCap so I am accept this as neccessary and important, but for many this is confusing and it creates a cacophony of hopeless disinformation. The only good thing I can say about the old days is that it wasn't easy to publish a book, so if a book was published at least something to bring to the table. Now anyone can say anything on any forum and there will be no vetting process whatsoever (as I believe it should be). This however brings it's own problems.

My personal view of trace elements is this. You must be able to properly mineralize your tank before you can even fathom or contemplate working with trace elements to even determine their efficacy. There are few IMO on this board that I think would be capable. I am not one of them. I am still trying to get the big three down. But as I start to refine my process I can see those that want to take it beyond where I am just starting to arrive because they have been here for years. It is a refinement. If you have looked to provide a razor sharp edge to a knife, you know that you can't start with the finest grit possible and get anywhere. You have to go through the various grits each time making the blade sharper and sharper. Plenty of new and novice people will talk about things that are refinement process and they will try to apply them to the current problems that they are solving. Maybe one in a million will do something interesting or new, or more likely they will just fail and have to fall back to the actual boring old methods that have worked in the past to solve their current problems. But who wants to do something as dumb as that.

My 2 cents.

WOW thank you for the long and very detailed answer.
I think you have got exactly to the point. It is important to keep the big 3, some traces might be needed but maybe not all and maybe not really perfect sea levels.

R2R hasn’t been around long enough to qualify as ‘long ago’. I’d actually suggest that adding trace elements was more common 20 years ago than it is now. It fell out of vogue, usually argued along the lines of ‘don’t add what you cannot measure’. OK, some modern approaches that eschew water changes require significant additions of versions elements, but I think reefers today add less than they did ‘long ago’.

Its almost certainly true that there are some elements in NSW that corals don’t need, or in such tiny quantities that they never get depleted. Trouble is, what are they? I’d imagine there are studies that can tell you to exact composition of coral skeletons .... but that seems like a lot of work. Much easier, IMO, to just target NSW levels and call it a day.

Or you can just use a CaRx and dissolve coral skeletons back into the water with the necessary elements in the correct proportions. That’s what I do.

It seems just dissolving coral skeletons back into the water does not provide all traces and not the so called “recommended” levels.
But I totally agree it would provide more than what’s really necessary.

 

[Lasse]

Four years ago - I decided to follow the "no regular WC" path. The reason why I did that decision was the evolution of ICP testing. Suddenly you had a tool to evaluate which elements that was "taken up" and which was accumulating in your water. Remember that "trace elements" is just trace elements - many of them are essential in the right concentration but deadly if the concentration exceed certain values. I have learned the hard way what´s can happen if you dose trace elements without WC and not knowing the final concentrations. There is dosing systems where the dose of combined trace elements is knitted to the consumption of Calcium - but - IMO - this is a tool that is not very good if you do not do regular WC. In this case - dosing trace elements and continue with regular WC - the WC become a tool for not getting too high concentrations of trace elements (and some macro too - as potassium which can be deadly for fish and CUC).

In the world of freshwater aquarium with plants - a method named PMDD is common.That method include dosing of both phosphate and nitrate together with "micro nutrients" (our trace elements). They do not measure anything - instead they schedule a weekly WC based on the dose on order to get the right amount of compounds in the water.

With the development of ICP testing - we suddenly get a tool to measure the consumption of different elements not only based on the three big elements - instead based on around 30 - 40 other elements. For me - natural levels are only a point of reference - not the goal.

People says that ICP do not get the real compounds - therefore it is worthless - I do not agree in that. It is true that you only get the elements - not the compounds - but your reference levels is based on the same technique - ICP measurements in natural salt water. You are comparing apples with apples and if there is no extreme pH differences - it is a good tool because the composition of compounds based on single elements should be nearly the same in both NSW and your aquarium water

If you look at this curve of my Iodine concentrations during the last 4 years you will see that I seldom hit the wanted concentration (around 60 µg/L) but I dose on a daily basis - it means that I get a flux through the system without building up "waste" concentrations of Iodine. If the concentration approaching 0 - I just raise the daily dose with 1 ml and wait for the next analyse.

​

If I dose something on a daily basis - I am not very concerned if I get a figure below the NSV level of the element in question - I know that I have a flux of the element through the aquarium. after received the analyse - I normally add elements that´s not on the daily schedule. I also try to evaluate my result and decide if I need to dose any more elements and maybe it is time to dose something else on a daily schedule now. I run a lot of dosing pumps - for the moment I run 16 pumps + 1 for top off. On a daily schedule - I dose the following elements or compounds
Elements;
Strontium -> 9 ml/Triton
Iodine -> 6 ml/Salifert
Manganese -> 7 ml/ Triton (its much but I got no reading on the ICP yet)
Vanadium -> 0.1 ml/Triton
Iron -> 5 ml/Triton
Rubidium -> 0,6 ml/Oceamo

Basic dose a day

Core 7 Triton method - Around 50ml of all 4/day /Triton

Compounds

NH4 -> If needed/own mix
PO4 -> If needed / Own mix
NO3 -> If needed /own mix
Ethanol -> if needed for denitrification / 4 %

Are all of this needed?

Elements?

Maybe - maybe not. But I can see that some off them disappear with time - it could not harm to get them dosed by day

Basic Dose

Some type of adding the three big must be done

Compounds

If the feeding is not enough - definitely IMO

Maybe my answer is not the best - because we really do not know but if you run a not scheduled WC system - at least you need to dose up the trace elements (and macro substances) that are consumed IMO. The NSW - IMO - is a good reference point but not the holy book.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[jda]

I am going to speak in generalities... nobody really know what set point is perfect for traces. For some, we have discovered that many times the value in NSW is fine (tin, lithium) through just normal process of keeping a tank with no issues and having test kits. For others, we don't know as much. For the macro elements, this is pretty well known, IMO.

What most people are not smart enough to understand are the things that die along the way and are chalked up to "oh well." If these were observed and reported well enough, we would all see that not all tanks with all different types of maintenance and replenishment will result in different types of things that you can keep. Just because what you have thrives in your tank does not mean that all things will thrive.

I use melted coral skeletons (or calcite when not available) which have decent range of macro elements along with water changes to get the rest. This is combined with near NSW levels of nearly everything. There is nothing that I cannot keep. The smart type of limited-water-change folks can do the same thing.

You will see some posts about no water changes where the person is just lazy and does nothing for a few years (not to be confused with DSR or other "smarter" types of limited water changes systems which are not lazy in the slightest bit) and while they might post that everything in their tank "is fine" it is a subset of what can grow in other tanks and yet they have absolutely no idea.

The same is true with tanks with high N and P, hypo, hyper salinity, etc.

What makes this really hard, other than no money or appetite for studies, is that most of the people posting the anecdotes do not have the breath and depth of knowledge to know what they are really seeing (which is hard enough), but also what they are not seeing (which is impossible for them). Most just think that the last thing that they did made all the difference with no mental capability to factor in that it could have just been a breaking point in maturity and that time is usually the common denominator in most cases where things go from bad to sustainable.

Given all of this, what choice do we have other than to just go with what has worked? I am not bleeding edge with my acropora and clams, some of which I likely could not get back again if they died. Show me something that has worked for a decade, or at least five years, and then have it attached to a few people who can understand what they are seeing, and not seeing, and then I will pay attention and see if it is for me. Then, I can make a choice. For example, I see that DSR mostly works - I have decided that I don't want to work that hard, so I still change water. ...but it takes time and smart dudes like Lasse, Salstrom and the like for me to really want to pay attention and dig in deep.

 

[ca1ore]

It seems just dissolving coral skeletons back into the water does not provide all traces and not the so called “recommended” levels.
But I totally agree it would provide more than what’s really necessary.

How do you know? I find my CaRx is able to maintain appropriate levels of almost everything; though I do dose iron and iodine. I suppose if the CaRx is undersized then getting to target levels may be tough.

 

[Roberto Denadai]

I am not a chemistry expert, but I have learned a few things over time.

I've been keeping sps tanks for a long time and what I learn is that less is more

Just do the basics well and everything will be fine. Don't worry about elements that you can't control and measure.

IMHO ICP is a joke. The standard deviation is so big and the error is so huge when some elements are close to LDO that IMHO ICP is just a waste of money and time.

I don´t care about trace elements. I just care about what I can control ( alk, ca, mg, salinity, temperature , light and flow ). I keep my alk around 8 and I do a 10% WC monthly and that´s all about.

Besides that , I believe that results are what really matter in this hobby. Some people know all about the hobby and literature but cannot keep an SPS alive for 6 months

Basically, I'm keeping my tank with tropic marin carbocalcium only and you can see the result in the video below :



I already had good sps tanks with kalkwasser, calcium reactor, Balling and etc and I never care about traces.

Cheers

 

[Reef and Dive]

Four years ago - I decided to follow the "no regular WC" path. The reason why I did that decision was the evolution of ICP testing. Suddenly you had a tool to evaluate which elements that was "taken up" and which was accumulating in your water. Remember that "trace elements" is just trace elements - many of them are essential in the right concentration but deadly if the concentration exceed certain values. I have learned the hard way what´s can happen if you dose trace elements without WC and not knowing the final concentrations. There is dosing systems where the dose of combined trace elements is knitted to the consumption of Calcium - but - IMO - this is a tool that is not very good if you do not do regular WC. In this case - dosing trace elements and continue with regular WC - the WC become a tool for not getting too high concentrations of trace elements (and some macro too - as potassium which can be deadly for fish and CUC).

In the world of freshwater aquarium with plants - a method named PMDD is common.That method include dosing of both phosphate and nitrate together with "micro nutrients" (our trace elements). They do not measure anything - instead they schedule a weekly WC based on the dose on order to get the right amount of compounds in the water.

With the development of ICP testing - we suddenly get a tool to measure the consumption of different elements not only based on the three big elements - instead based on around 30 - 40 other elements. For me - natural levels are only a point of reference - not the goal.

People says that ICP do not get the real compounds - therefore it is worthless - I do not agree in that. It is true that you only get the elements - not the compounds - but your reference levels is based on the same technique - ICP measurements in natural salt water. You are comparing apples with apples and if there is no extreme pH differences - it is a good tool because the composition of compounds based on single elements should be nearly the same in both NSW and your aquarium water

If you look at this curve of my Iodine concentrations during the last 4 years you will see that I seldom hit the wanted concentration (around 60 µg/L) but I dose on a daily basis - it means that I get a flux through the system without building up "waste" concentrations of Iodine. If the concentration approaching 0 - I just raise the daily dose with 1 ml and wait for the next analyse.

​

If I dose something on a daily basis - I am not very concerned if I get a figure below the NSV level of the element in question - I know that I have a flux of the element through the aquarium. after received the analyse - I normally add elements that´s not on the daily schedule. I also try to evaluate my result and decide if I need to dose any more elements and maybe it is time to dose something else on a daily schedule now. I run a lot of dosing pumps - for the moment I run 16 pumps + 1 for top off. On a daily schedule - I dose the following elements or compounds
Elements;
Strontium -> 9 ml/Triton
Iodine -> 6 ml/Salifert
Manganese -> 7 ml/ Triton (its much but I got no reading on the ICP yet)
Vanadium -> 0.1 ml/Triton
Iron -> 5 ml/Triton
Rubidium -> 0,6 ml/Oceamo

Basic dose a day

Core 7 Triton method - Around 50ml of all 4/day /Triton

Compounds

NH4 -> If needed/own mix
PO4 -> If needed / Own mix
NO3 -> If needed /own mix
Ethanol -> if needed for denitrification / 4 %

Are all of this needed?

Elements?

Maybe - maybe not. But I can see that some off them disappear with time - it could not harm to get them dosed by day

Basic Dose

Some type of adding the three big must be done

Compounds

If the feeding is not enough - definitely IMO

Maybe my answer is not the best - because we really do not know but if you run a not scheduled WC system - at least you need to dose up the trace elements (and macro substances) that are consumed IMO. The NSW - IMO - is a good reference point but not the holy book.

Sincerely Lasse

Thank you a lot. For those elements I’ve not yet convinced myself on the role of Vanadium, Rubidium or other minor not cited...

For strontium It seems to be incorporated by coral Skeleton, but wouldn’t it just occupy a place that would simply be filled by Calcium?
Could we find thriving reefs lacking those? I am not sure about the answer.

Thank you a lot for taking some time to answer that.

 

[Reef and Dive]

How do you know? I find my CaRx is able to maintain appropriate levels of almost everything; though I do dose iron and iodine. I suppose if the CaRx is undersized then getting to target levels may be tough.

Check this topic on this discussion:

Calcium Reactor and Trace Elements

I know that the CalRx media I'm dissolving is basically coral skeleton, so are trace elements included in this? Do I need to dose any trace elements in addition to using the CalRx? This question was posed to me, and I was thinking it would be a good one to ask here. :)

www.reef2reef.com

That’s not a final answer but it makes sense...

 

[Reef and Dive]

I am not a chemistry expert, but I have learned a few things over time.

I've been keeping sps tanks for a long time and what I learn is that less is more

Just do the basics well and everything will be fine. Don't worry about elements that you can't control and measure.

IMHO ICP is a joke. The standard deviation is so big and the error is so huge when some elements are close to LDO that IMHO ICP is just a waste of money and time.

I don´t care about trace elements. I just care about what I can control ( alk, ca, mg, salinity, temperature , light and flow ). I keep my alk around 8 and I do a 10% WC monthly and that´s all about.

Besides that , I believe that results are what really matter in this hobby. Some people know all about the hobby and literature but cannot keep an SPS alive for 6 months

Basically, I'm keeping my tank with tropic marin carbocalcium only and you can see the result in the video below :



I already had good sps tanks with kalkwasser, calcium reactor, Balling and etc and I never care about traces.

Cheers

That’s exactly my point! I believe we need to understand better our real needs...
Amazing tank BTW!

 

[blasterman]

No, what matters more is two guys with baseball caps on YouTube pushing trace elements so they can sell product.

We dont even have a concensus on what defines 'trace elements.