Red Sea Trace Colors dosing

[GoVols]

Thanks! I haven't even looked at the bottle yet. Just deferred to the instructions on the website. Which are more complicated than they need to be for a dum-dum like myself.

Although that brings up another interesting conundrum... My tank is not consuming Ca for some reason. Which means I'm also not dosing Strontium and Barium as a result. Hmmm... Maybe I just keep dosing Ca anyway and let the whole thing hopefully balance itself out Mg is around 1350 and my nutrients are at appropriate levels for an SPS tank (0.06 and 8). Head scratcher. Don't want to derail this thread though.

Forget the derail…

If your calcium levels are spot on then I would not dose it up.

If your reef is not in taking cal and alk, then you would not want to dose trace elements.

Was your reef intaking calcium and alk?

 

[DeputyDog95]

Forget the derail…

If your calcium levels are spot on then I would not dose it up.

If your reef is not in taking cal and alk, then you would not want to dose trace elements.

Was your reef intaking calcium and alk?

It was using Ca, then it wasn't. Then it was using Ca, then it wasn't.

So weird...

I started with Red Sea (RS) initially as that's what I've used in the past. The tank is about 14 months old, mostly SPS frags and 7 or 8 torch heads. A few months after I added the SPS frags, it got funky.

I actually switched A/B solutions thinking it was a RS issue, but it ended up exhibiting the same behavior except the Alk supplement spiked my K due to it being K based instead of sodium based like most. I was also using that company's individual trace element line and repeated ICPs, but that felt like the tank was turning into a part time job keeping up. Hence moving over to RS's trace element program.

So I put my RS A/B back online a couple days ago and I'm still adjusting the dosage to get my Alk back to 8.5 using the Red Sea liquid. The other liquid I was using was requiring 35ml per day and I'm up to about 22ml with the RS right now but it's only at 8.2. So I'm waiting to see where it will land with the Red Sea now to keep me stable at about 8.5 dkh. Of course as soon as I put the Ca back online, I'm sure that will suppress the Alk a bit and I'll have to adjust up a bit to get it to finally balance. Assuming the tank starts eating Ca again

 

[Smoke-Town]

I'll be starting to dose this stuff next week after I send a new icp test out. And i love the idea of just dosing based on ca consumption for equal dosing of these minor and trace elements... but how can this apply to different types of reef tanks?

Wouldn't the potassium and iron get used more with acros, Monti, and anemones,

While iodine and manganese be used more for euphylia and flower pots?

So if a tank is dominant in one of those directions or the other, wouldn't consumption of the elements be at different rates and therefore risk overdosing the lesser used elements over a long period of time?

I'm sure quarterly or biannual icp tests would catch these trends well before they could become a toxicity issue, but I imagine iron for example could build up to dangerous levels more quickly if consumption is low.

 

[DeputyDog95]

My tank did eventually balance out, more or less. I keep tinkering with lighting etc, so I need to just leave it alone and let the tank do it's thing.

I still dose K, Fe, and Bio trace elements or whatever it's called from the Red Sea line. However, I stopped with their Iodine. I was following the trace elements instructions and dosing all 4 according to Ca consumption, but my Iodine went through the roof. It's been a couple of months since I stopped with the Iodine, but I kept on with the other 3.

I had another ICP test yesterday and the Iodine was just fine without dosing it and doing two or three water changes per month (around 15%). The K and Fe were also good with the K being a touch low, but nothing I would worry about it. I was however deficient with the following. I do run a fuge with a small ball of chaeto, so that may be responsible for sucking up some of this stuff. I'm consistently low with the following. I am going to put all this stuff on a doser this week, so I might be able to play w dosing amounts in very small increments to see if I can correct the deficiencies. Right now I'm "hand dosing" 3x a week to save time (splitting the 7 days into 3), and it's hard to be precise that way. I mean you can, it's just a lot of work. At least on a doser I can drip traces every day and make small adjustments up and down individually to suit my ICP results.

Boron	deficient	3.853 mg/L	4 - 5		trace element additive
Potassium	deficient	369.5 mg/L	380 - 480	poor coloration, nutrient control problems	macro element additives
Manganese	deficient	not detected	0.0001 - 0.002	reduced polyp extension, poor growth	trace element additives
Nickel	deficient	not detected	0.003 - 0.008	poor growth and reduced coloration	trace element additives
Sulfur	deficient	796.1 mg/L	850 - 960	RTN, STN	water change
Silicon	deficient	not detected	0.1 - 0.2	poor sponge or clam growth	trace element additives
Vanadium	deficient	0.001 mg/L	0.002 - 0.008	poor coloration, growth and nutrient uptake	trace element additives
Zinc	deficient	0.001 mg/L	0.002 - 0.006	poor growth and coloration, accumulation nutrients	trace element additives