Red Sea Trace Colors for LPS?

[Enad]

Hi all

Recently I've become curious about dosing trace elements for coloration but I'm not sure it's right for my tank so I wanted to ask here.

I don't really dose much right now. I do my weekly water changes, Lugols, Restor and Microbacter7 weekly, Phyto a few times a week. My tank is entirely LPS with some softies as well. I have some tiny SPS frags that I've gotten for free with some online orders, but they aren't my priority.

Ultimately, I'd be looking to color up my LPS but I just don't know if it's necessary with my weekly water chances or if it's even a worthwhile investment just for LPS. I know the Red Sea stuff is typically dosed via some calcium calculation, but I don't dose calcium.

Tank is about 2 years old and doing great, just looping for small ways to improve. Let me know what you all think!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How do you maintain anlk and calcium?

 

[Enad]

Weekly water change keeps everything in check. Never really needed to dose anything with my water change routine, which I find easier than dosing anyway.

The only coral that doesn't do super well in my tank are Goni's and Alve's. I have a few healthy frags but they just don't seem to grow much. Otherwise, everything is healthy and I get strong growth on all my other LPS. To be clear, I'm NOT trying to boost growth. I like the growth rate I have now and don't want to a growth boom.

Just got curious about trace colors, wondering if they'd even make a difference with my tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Weekly water change keeps everything in check. Never really needed to dose anything with my water change routine, which I find easier than dosing anyway.

The only coral that doesn't do super well in my tank are Goni's and Alve's. I have a few healthy frags but they just don't seem to grow much. Otherwise, everything is healthy and I get strong growth on all my other LPS. To be clear, I'm NOT trying to boost growth. I like the growth rate I have now and don't want to a growth boom.

Just got curious about trace colors, wondering if they'd even make a difference with my tank.

Basing doses of trace elements on needed doses of calcium obviously fails in a scenario like yours. I have no way of knowing if you will benefit from trace elements or not, but your choices are to get an icp-ms test to help see if you need trace elements, try a supplement based on gallons and not calcium demand, or guess a typical calcium demand and dose the Red Sea product at that dose.