Trace element dosing a la carte reacting to ICP test

[carri10]

Hiya.
Consensus seems to be only dose the trace elements you see are lacking in ICP.
That rules out any trace element mixes, unless you are lucky.
Therefore, this conclusion is to dose specific elements.
I don’t want to buy a range of expensively made up solutions, when I can get the raw chemicals and mix myself.
if I want to make a multi element stock (make once for about a year supply), how do I know if there will be precipitation issues?
Is there a resource I can be pointed to?
My chemistry knowledge tells me that chloride salts are usually a good bet for solubility, but that’s where my knowledge starts to get a bit scketchy.

At this moment, I’m specifically lacking Cr and Co

Thanks for guidance.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hiya.
Consensus seems to be only dose the trace elements you see are lacking in ICP.
That rules out any trace element mixes, unless you are lucky.
Therefore, this conclusion is to dose specific elements.
I don’t want to buy a range of expensively made up solutions, when I can get the raw chemicals and mix myself.
if I want to make a multi element stock (make once for about a year supply), how do I know if there will be precipitation issues?
Is there a resource I can be pointed to?
My chemistry knowledge tells me that chloride salts are usually a good bet for solubility, but that’s where my knowledge starts to get a bit scketchy.

At this moment, I’m specifically lacking Cr and Co

Thanks for guidance.

I do not generally agree with that premise. A mix may be fine ( exact levels are neither needed nor justified) and one certainly should not dose everything that is "low". Some ICP companies might have you believe you can know the bioavailability from a concentration, but even if accurate, you cannot. Chemical form is also very important and ICP lacks any chemical form information.

That said, I provide DIY recipes for many elements in this thread, including those two:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-chemistry-archive.987116/

 

[carri10]

Thanks @Randy Holmes-Farley
I frequently see ‘don’t dose without ICP tracking’, the inference being don’t dose everything, only those that you need, otherwise you might end up ‘overdosing’.

Given the inherent difficulties with ICP testing that you mentioned, what is your view on how to dose?
If ICP can’t be used to manage dosing (accuracy, relevancy, reproducibility) then what to do?

I’m keen to learn, as a relative noobie, but a curious one.

And thanks for recipes!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks @Randy Holmes-Farley
I frequently see ‘don’t dose without ICP tracking’, the inference being don’t dose everything, only those that you need, otherwise you might end up ‘overdosing’.

Given the inherent difficulties with ICP testing that you mentioned, what is your view on how to dose?
If ICP can’t be used to manage dosing (accuracy, relevancy, reproducibility) then what to do?

I’m keen to learn, as a relative noobie, but a curious one.

And thanks for recipes!

well, everyone using products like All For Reef are dosing trace elements and not generally having tox issues. Icp is a relatively new reefing tool, while trace element mixes have been around for decades.

 

[carri10]

That is a fair point.

 

[rtparty]

Tropic Marin A and K elements. Will cover the majority of what you need. I ran the BRS balling hybrid method with A and K elements added into my 2 part for close to 2 years on the tank below. I sent off multiple ICP reports over the years and nothing was ever “out of whack”

 

[Reefering1]

Tropic Marin A and K elements. Will cover the majority of what you need. I ran the BRS balling hybrid method with A and K elements added into my 2 part for close to 2 years on the tank below. I sent off multiple ICP reports over the years and nothing was ever “out of whack”

Did you mix it with the alk/ca parts or dose separately? How much of each did you use per gallon?

 

[bandando]

It would be possible to use TM A and K with ATI balling Essential Plus?
Could it help for ionic balance?

 

[rtparty]

Did you mix it with the alk/ca parts or dose separately? How much of each did you use per gallon?

Added to alk and calcium. At the end I was adding the high consumption which is 330ml per gallon I think. Something like that.

 

[UMALUM]

Added to alk and calcium. At the end I was adding the high consumption which is 330ml per gallon I think. Something like that.

What was your daily alk consumption?

 

[rtparty]

What was your daily alk consumption?

Don’t know. I was dosing 3000ml of kalkwasser and like 150ml of soda ash per day

 

[Reefering1]

Don’t know. I was dosing 3000ml of kalkwasser and like 150ml of soda ash per day

In a....? (/gallon system)

 

[rtparty]

In a....? (/gallon system)

Around 250 gallons

 

[UMALUM]

Don’t know. I was dosing 3000ml of kalkwasser and like 150ml of soda ash per day

I was just trying to wrap my head around what BRS considered a low, medium, high demand system with TM blindly recommending 1 ml per 25g.

 

[rtparty]

I was just trying to wrap my head around what BRS considered a low, medium, high demand system with TM blindly recommending 1 ml per 25g.

TM’s recommendation is tank volume. The hybrid system is based on additive. It’s 330ml per gallon of additive, not 330ml per gallon of tank.

Just want to clarify

 

[UMALUM]

Yeah I understand that. I'm just trying to figure out how TM can recommend 1ml. Per 25g without knowing the level of demand one is experiencing. If I went off the 1 ml per gallon recommendation in relation to the ml or oz of daily alk consumed I would come up with 256 ml needed TM per gallon of 2 part. Do you think that would be a better method to dial in over the 80 - 160 - 330?

 

[ingchr1]

Yeah I understand that. I'm just trying to figure out how TM can recommend 1ml. Per 25g without knowing the level of demand one is experiencing. If I went off the 1 ml per gallon recommendation in relation to the ml or oz of daily alk consumed I would come up with 256 ml needed TM per gallon of 2 part. Do you think that would be a better method to dial in over the 80 - 160 - 330?

Here some thoughts I recently had on this in another thread:

I think ICP is probably the way to go. Maybe do an ICP, go through a gallon of solution, then do another ICP and adjust.

The 80/160/330 comes from BRS, which I do think they worked with TM on.

Here are TM's instructions, which I take as 1-2 ml per 100l of aquarium water daily.

I don't think either method is ideal without ICP, so at least you have some idea of how you are trending.

Following TM instructions, I'm currently at 2ml/day of each Elements. Based on my daily dosing rate of Alkalinity/Calcium, that is 175ml of Elements into a gallon. I was at 1.7ml/day (140ml/gal), but my last ICP was low in most elements. So, I bumped it up. Will see where I'm at once this gallon is done. I'm looking for ballpark, not precision.

For reference my tank has ~31 gallons of water in it and currently consumes ~2dKH/day. I dose 47ml/day of each Part.

 

[rtparty]

Yeah I understand that. I'm just trying to figure out how TM can recommend 1ml. Per 25g without knowing the level of demand one is experiencing. If I went off the 1 ml per gallon recommendation in relation to the ml or oz of daily alk consumed I would come up with 256 ml needed TM per gallon of 2 part. Do you think that would be a better method to dial in over the 80 - 160 - 330?

I think there is a lot of educated guessing going on with any of them. ICP testing is far from reliable IMO so even that isn’t fool proof in any way.

I’ve always gone by the mantra of “some is better than none but less is better than more” when it comes to trace elements. What I mean is if 5ppm is good, that doesn’t mean 10ppm is better. 5ppm might be better than 1ppm depending on the element but usually 1ppm is better than 0ppm. Again, specific element matters.

So I think the 1ml per 25g from TM is a very middle of the ballpark guess that likely works for the majority of systems out there

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yeah I understand that. I'm just trying to figure out how TM can recommend 1ml. Per 25g without knowing the level of demand one is experiencing. If I went off the 1 ml per gallon recommendation in relation to the ml or oz of daily alk consumed I would come up with 256 ml needed TM per gallon of 2 part. Do you think that would be a better method to dial in over the 80 - 160 - 330?

All trace element methods that do not rely on testing every individual element before dosing suffer the same issue, whether based on mL per gallon per day, or based of alk or calcium demand per day.

I think we are lucky that there is a pretty wide window between just enough and clearly too much for most trace elements, and so exact levels are probably not too important.

Another important factor is that the higher the concentration of most ions, the faster they will deplete, providing a negative feedback loop on over or underdosing.

 

[Hooz]

Just wanted to chime in and say that dosing individual elements based on regular ICP testing is what the Reef Moonshiner's Method is based on. If you're serious about it, that's where you should start.

Personally, I've had great luck with both All for Reef (traces "built in") and adding A and K elements to 2-part. I just started at the "low uptake" amount (80ml/gallon) and adjusted from there as I went based on random ICP tests. Unless you're dosing equal parts of alk and calcium, you'll be getting different amounts of A or K elements, so you may need to adjust one or the other, or both. I feel like quarterly ICPs will keep you in the ballpark. Once things are cruising, maybe only a few times a year.