First ICP- please help with trace elements

[mjk42]

Hi everyone,

My tank has been up for 7 months now and is 115g including sump. I use Red Sea blue bucket salt and dose BRS Ca/Alk/Mg and do 10% water change per week. Have doses nitrate and phos when needed to keep good levels. The fist “trial” SPS corals I put in with a few acros, birds nest and monte all died with STN after losing color. I wasn’t sure why so I decided to send an Oceamo ICP test. I have torches and hammers and some other LPS doing well.

It looks like my trace elements are low and this could be the cause? Iodine is very low.

Advice on home to start a trace dosing plan? I was looking at tropic Marin A and K or Red Sea as possible options. I want to avoid dosing each element on its own if possible with a system like reef moonshine where I got the ICP test.

I appreciate any help!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Are you using Balling Part C with that two part? If not, here's a better recipe:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-balling-method-recipe.1098905/
Phosphate seems too low and nitrate is borderline low so I would feed more or dose N and P.

If you continue with that type of two part, I'd recommend a trace element supplement, such as Tropic Marin A and K, which you can put into the parts of the two part.

 

[mjk42]

Are you using Balling Part C with that two part? If not, here's a better recipe:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-balling-method-recipe.1098905/
Phosphate seems too low and nitrate is borderline low so I would feed more or dose N and P.

If you continue with that type of two part, I'd recommend a trace element supplement, such as Tropic Marin A and K, which you can put into the parts of the two part.

I have not done part C. Just went based of the BRS 2 part with magnesium as 3rd solution. I think I was actually dosing to much of the magnesium solution as I didn’t reduce as I needed to dose less alk and Ca and my levels on Hanna and salivary were >1500. I want to get it to the point where I never need to check the magnesium level as you outlined on prior posts but am having a hard time figuring out what ratio to dose to “set it and forget it”.

If I make the part C with tropic Marin I would just add my premade BRS magnesium solution to that container and dose 1:1:1? That seems like it would be easy for sure. Otherwise I add the tropic Marin A to the Alk solution and the K to my calcium solution and would just keep my magnesium as my separate 3rd doser. The A and K option may make it easier for me to dose separate to “catch up” the deficiencies prior to setting a new steady state?

Appreciate your help!

 

[Christoph]

Hello,


The primary issue to address is nutrient deficiency. Set your skimmer to a drier setting and increase feeding. If your fish stocking level does not allow for increased feeding, consider dosing a suitable nitrogen source and phosphate. If you choose to dose nutrients, it is best to do so several times throughout the day, as nutrient turnover can be very rapid in reef aquariums. If you are running any adsorber media like GFO: remove them.


Several biologically relevant trace elements are below our recommended levels. For this reason, I recommend dosing these elements daily, as many trace elements can be rapidly removed from the water through precipitation, biological uptake, or skimming.


Best regards,
Christoph

 

[mjk42]

Hello,


The primary issue to address is nutrient deficiency. Set your skimmer to a drier setting and increase feeding. If your fish stocking level does not allow for increased feeding, consider dosing a suitable nitrogen source and phosphate. If you choose to dose nutrients, it is best to do so several times throughout the day, as nutrient turnover can be very rapid in reef aquariums. If you are running any adsorber media like GFO: remove them.


Several biologically relevant trace elements are below our recommended levels. For this reason, I recommend dosing these elements daily, as many trace elements can be rapidly removed from the water through precipitation, biological uptake, or skimming.


Best regards,
Christoph

Thank you! I appreciate the detail and clarity of the report you sent! I will adjust the protein skimmer as you suggested. I dose neo-phos to generally keep between .03-.05 with Hanna checkers but recently it has been lower requiring more frequent dosing. I have some pineapple sponges in the sump and from what I read these can cause phos to lower so maybe this is the change I am seeing. Goal now is to figure out the trace elements to get that stable before I make any new coral attempts or additions. Will certainly be sending you more ICP tests!