Red Sea Color Program:
So I had time to finally break out the Red Sea color program. Here's all the stuff I ordered:
Almost looks like an advertisement for their stuff! I went ahead and just got the 500ml bottles of each as I looked at how much would be needed for my TWV. Those 500ml bottles of Reef Energy may only last a little over 2 weeks.
Test Kits:
I started out with the test kits for Iodine (really iodide & iodate), Iron, and Potassium. I liked the Red Sea kit as it tests for both iodide and iodate. For a good read on testing iodine and its forms go here:
Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iodine in Marine Aquaria: Part I — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
There is a LOT of stuff in this combined test kit and if you thought testing Mg was a pain, wait until you try the K test with the filter paper, 4 reagents, and 25 minute total waiting time:
At least the Potassium kit is a titration test. The others involve color cards. Iron is the easiest test. Iodine is the next most complicated and the Potassium is the most complicated test I've seen yet. The kit comes with a lot but it could use an extra 5ml syringe and a couple more test tube type bottles. I had a few extras lying around so I put them in another test kit case so I could do all 3 tests at ones and have my waiting times overlap. A couple of cheap stopwatches wouldn't hurt either. Otherwise, there is a lot of waiting, rinsing, and waiting some more as the reagents do their thing. If you want some more details on the steps involved and how to do the tests you can find them online here along with some YouTube video links:
Red sea Coral Colors Multi test kit (I,K,Fe)
Side note, I was checking for information regarding the accuracy of the kits and there are different numbers given on different vendor websites. I'll just go by the margin of error listed on the Red Sea website and if my numbers are within the margin of error, I will leave them alone.
My Starting Parameters:
I had completed my 10% water change in the morning (25 gallons based on 250g TWV) and, in the evening my starting parameters (and method of testing) are as follows:
Salinity: 35ppt (Hanna Digital Refractometer & Apex Conductivity Probe)
Temperature: 78F (Apex Temp Probe, drain side)
pH: 8.19 (Apex pH probe)
Ammonia: Undetectable (API)
Nitrite: Undetectable (API)
Nitrate: Undetectable (API)
Alkalinity: 8.5 dKh (Red Sea Pro)
Calcium: 430 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Magnesium: 1360 (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate: 0.00 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Iodide & Iodate: 0.045
Iron: 0.00 ppm
Potassium: 410ppm
My current dosing regimen is to autodose 150ml of
BRS Recipe 1 Alkalinity and 180ml of
BRS Calcium daily. I also dose
BRS Magnesium daily but forgot to write down what it is.
Reef Colors Dosing:
Based on my test results, it looks like I have good starting levels of Iodine and Potassium although that could be due to the recent water change. I couldn't really tell whether my Iodine was at 0.03 or 0.06 so I averaged it out. I will test again at the end of 5 days to see if there is a change and figure out dosing of Reef Colors "A" and "B" at that time. Because my iron levels are not detectable, I started with the recommended dosage of 50ml of Reef Colors "C" to bring it up 0.05ppm which is the most they say to raise it in a day. I will test iron daily until I get iron levels in-range.
Reef Colors "D" only gives dosing instructions based on your usage of Red Sea's calcium supplement or a Calcium reactor. I went conservative on this and am only adding 15ml a day.
I suppose the iron deficiency may be limiting my macroalgae and may be contributing to some of stubborn areas where cyano has not gone away. I found these articles to be a good primer on iron and the reef aquarium:
Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iron In A Reef Tank — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
Chemistry And The Aquarium: Iron: A Look At Organisms Other Than Macroalgae — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog
If I notice a difference with this dosing, I see a Vertex Libra in my future
. I guess I would just build a stand for the Vertex, have the bottles under the stand, and run the dosing tubes out of my equipment area like what I've done with the Bubble Magus. I'd go with a Vertex for the higher accuracy of the pumps . . . and because it is new and looks cool.
Reef Nutrition:
Red Sea's instructions call for 2 ml/day per 25 gallons of water for each of their Reef Energy "A" and Reef Energy "B" supplements for growth when you have higher "foundation" elements (Alk, Ca, Mg) and 4ml/day per 25 gallons for ULNS and better coloration with lower "foundation" elements. I never really thought of myself as running a ULNS as I feed daily but my numbers seem to fall in-line with ULNS plus the GFO reactor and constant skimming. I have opted for 30ml/day of each as a starting point.
Note that this stuff also needs to be refrigerated after opening. You know you are a reef geek when 1/2 your freezer is full of frozen fish food you got a good deal on and bottles of phyto and other reef stuff starts crowding out your own food in the fridge . . . but I digress . . .
So this stuff is a radioactive nuclear highlighter yellow that Homer Simpson would be proud of. After adding it to my tank, my water looked like this:
You are supposed to leave your skimmer off but keep flow on for 15 - 30 minutes so I have dedicated Feed Mode "D" on my Apex to just shutting down the skimmer for 30 minutes. There is a 5 minute Defer command at the end of my skimmer program so it will be off for a total of 35 minutes when feeding this stuff.
I noted that my skimmer cleaned-up the water pretty quickly and gathered lots of skimmate after feeding so it should have removed the excess.
I will update this as testing, dosing, and with my results, if any.
