Help me understand my Triton ICP results

stanleo · Mar 9, 2021

Not sure how this works copying the URL but here it goes.

Triton Applied Reef Bioscience are the world leaders in professional sea water analysis.

Empowering aquarists around the world since 2008. Click to view shared sea water analysis.

www.triton-lab.de

I have a couple questions. Why doesn't it post anything about alkalinity, salinity, or nitrates?

In the DATA tab, it shows my phosphorous/phosphate as 11 µg/l and 0.03366 mg/l and the setpoint for those values are 6 - 23 µg/l and 0.018 - 0.07 mg/l. Correct me if I am wrong but those numbers are right in range which should be perfect right? Then why is the report recommending that I dose phosphate because my phosphorous/phosphate is too low?

It is recommending that I dose my magnesium because that too is low. I am already dosing mag 10 ml daily. It says it is low but it is 1323 mg/l and the setpoint is 1320 - 1500 mg/l. Granted it is almost out of range but it's not concerning right? I shouldn't do anything, right?

My lithium is high. Not sure about that yet.

My potassium and iodine are low. Should I do what this suggests and dose both or is this an issue with water changes not being frequent enough? Should I maybe dose micro elements.

All in all I think this report is pretty good. And the Magnesium and calcium numbers on this are not far off of what I get with my Red Sea tests. And The Phosphate is the exact number I get with my Salifert test. I really wish there was alkalinity and nitrates on this report so I can compare those as well. What do you guys think if you have the time, please?

stanleo · Mar 9, 2021

Not sure how to show you the PDF .

inktomi · Mar 9, 2021

Triton doesn't report on Alk, or nitrates, etc. Not with the normal test, at least. So that's why you don't have data on those.

My lithium is also always high - I wonder if it's an issue with the Triton tests maybe - but either way I have never seen any negative impact from it so I haven't tried to do anything.

Iodine is important, particularly if you have a lot of soft corals. It doesn't stick around in the water all that long either, so dosing it is important, or, you can get it via water changes. It's probably easier to start some low level Iodine dosing.

It looks good though overall! With some increased feeding you'd raise the Phosphate numbers automatically, and your fish would no doubt appreciate it too.

JCM · Mar 9, 2021

inktomi said:
Triton doesn't report on Alk, or nitrates, etc. Not with the normal test, at least. So that's why you don't have data on those.

My lithium is also always high - I wonder if it's an issue with the Triton tests maybe - but either way I have never seen any negative impact from it so I haven't tried to do anything.

Iodine is important, particularly if you have a lot of soft corals. It doesn't stick around in the water all that long either, so dosing it is important, or, you can get it via water changes. It's probably easier to start some low level Iodine dosing.

It looks good though overall! With some increased feeding you'd raise the Phosphate numbers automatically, and your fish would no doubt appreciate it too.

This is all very good advice.

Courtney Aldrich · Mar 9, 2021

This is the best ICP test results I've seen. Everything looks nearly perfect. I would keep doing whatever you're doing. I've seen some people have high lithium from dosing trace elements.

stanleo · Mar 10, 2021

inktomi said:
Triton doesn't report on Alk, or nitrates, etc. Not with the normal test, at least. So that's why you don't have data on those.

My lithium is also always high - I wonder if it's an issue with the Triton tests maybe - but either way I have never seen any negative impact from it so I haven't tried to do anything.

Iodine is important, particularly if you have a lot of soft corals. It doesn't stick around in the water all that long either, so dosing it is important, or, you can get it via water changes. It's probably easier to start some low level Iodine dosing.

It looks good though overall! With some increased feeding you'd raise the Phosphate numbers automatically, and your fish would no doubt appreciate it too.

Thank you so much. So what do you think? Dose just iodine? What about potassium? I seem to remember that being pretty important as well. What are some good products out there? I found this one from BRS https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-coral-colors-abcd-4-pack.html

Obviously I would just use the iodine and potassium parts. I have an auto dose with another pump on it but I don't think I can use that one pump for both. Is it ok to dose these once weekly? I can remember a weekly manual dose of something but I guarantee you I wouldn't remember to do it every day.

Courtney Aldrich · Mar 10, 2021

I would just do regular water changes. You need very little additional iodine (20 micrograms or 0.02 mg per liter), but a lot more potassium (100 mg/L) in terms of absolute amounts. I think both are personally in fairly good ranges, but if you want to dose, then by all means do, but make sure to slowly dose over weeks to get to your new levels (as a chemist, I personally love adding chemicals!). The Red Sea kit will give you plenty of iodine, but may not have enough to bring your potassium up to the suggested level. You can buy potassium chloride here (https://www.loudwolf.com/storefront/index.php?route=product/category&path=728) and make your own solution. There are other potassium salts such as potassium (bi)carbonate, but these will affect your alkalinity. I have been reading and your slightly elevated lithium doesn't appear to be a problem either and can likely be addressed through routine water changes. The elevated lithium could be from your salt mix and is sometimes found in magnesium salts, especially if you're making a DIY 2-part using salts for de-icing, etc....

Biokabe · Mar 10, 2021

Be careful with adding iodine - you might be better off manually adding it until it gets to the right level. A little iodine goes a very long way, too much iodine and you'll start killing your inverts.

Also, be careful about following their recommendations. Not that their advice is bad - I'm sure it's just fine. But in the amounts that they give you, they're using their own products as the recommended item - so, for example, on the Iodine, they want you to dose 4.03 ml of Triton's Iodine product. If you try to dose the same amount with someone else's product - which may be more or less concentrated than Tritons - then you could end up putting the wrong amount in with potentially harmful repercussions.