Trace elements and overdosing ultimately lead to a tank crash!

SBB Corals

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Hello Everybody,

I hope you are all well and enjoying your summer! We want to start a discussion about trace elements, Triton ICP tests, and dosing. Trace elements and overdosing ultimately lead to a tank crash.

As a lot of you know, we are doing red sea ABCD at 5ML per day in our 550 Gallon SPS system. We use ESV Ionic 2 Part alk and calc, which claims to have trace elements, and do water changes with tropic marine pro salt at 18 percent per week.

Now, the question is, how do we dose trace elements to keep up with the coral demands? Our tank is packed rim to rim with tenuis colonies making our up-and-down seesaw crazy. Since we dose ABCD and really have no idea what is in it as well as Tropic Marine Pro salt and ESV 2 part, we decided to send in Triton ICP Tests for each of the A B C and D red sea bottles: ESV Ionic Alc, ESV Ionic Calc, as well as the Tropic Marine pro salt, all attached in this thread. Feel free to download and review all of the results.

We are all watching for trace elements for various reasons. Here are some of them:

We are watching Iodine for SPS Tenuis Corals as we feel Iodine at 0 is generally bad for our tanks. We know that Iodine in the 80-100 Range is ideal while Iodine at 0 can cause Bleaching, Slow Growth, and RTN. After doing our research, it seems that nobody is able to pinpoint why Iodine is important but Forums like those below show that many users experience the same problem. Lack of Iodine causes issues while then dosing iodine shows favorable results within weeks. The link below is a good read for this.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/effects-of-iodine-in-sps.254065/

We are watching Strontium as we feel that Strontium Levels for Sps Tenuis Corals should be in the range of 10-12 to promote healthy corals; when SPS corals are fragged at these higher strontium levels, the corals heal up faster.

Here is a good read on Strontium:

https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-chemistry-strontium-and-the-reef-aquarium/

We are watching many other developments and will discuss them in future topics. Let us know which trace elements you are monitoring and dosing along with what effect they have on SPS corals.

Now, back to our topic. Our recent triton test showed that we were high on some trace elements, but we didn't realize why. For example, we are always testing high on Potassium, Iron, and a few other things so we decided to send in triton tests for everything we are dosing plus the salt mix. What we have found is that a lot of the A, B, C, and D red sea products have many of the same elements and using multiple ones can easily and quickly lead to overdosing.

Two examples are highlighted below:

First, let’s look at a study of Potassium. The bottle labeled A, which is Iodine, has a ton of Potassium - at 4171 MG/L, it’s off the charts. bottle B labeled Potassium has 8778 MG/L, while ESV 2 Part Calcium has 2723 MG/L, and Tropic Marine Pro has 352 MG/L. We were also dosing Brightwell Neontiro which also has a ton of Potassium; we since stopped and are now dosing pure Sodium Nitrate, because we don't want to dose more potassium – LOL. In our 550 Gallon system, our Potassium levels are 718 MG/L. With all of these trace elements being dosed, you can see how easily the Potassium can rise and lead to overdosing. I am concerned that a lot of Hobbyists are flying blind and start dosing too many of these products and eventually have a tank crash as a result of a build-up.

Let's go through yet another example. In our 550 Gallon system, another Element that is always high for us is Iron. Currently, our Iron is at 5.6 UG/L. This is relatively high, and we had no idea why, until we sent in a Triton ICP test for everything we are using and dosing. Starting with the red sea ABCD products, the bottle labeled A Iodine has 464 UG/L Iron, B Potassium has 172 UG/L Iron, C has 281733 UG/L iron, and finally, the bottle Labeled D Bioactive Elements has 2056 UG/L Iron. Tropic Marine Reef pro has 47 UG/L Iron. As you can, it is no wonder that we have high Iron. This is just another example of how dosing blind can lead to the overdosing and crashing of a tank.

Another thing to note is that we are only dosing 5ML per day of Red Sea ABCD which is much less than the recommended dose. Since our tank is packed with Tenuis Colonies, these trace elements are reduced. Keep in mind that we are much lower than the recommended dosage for these elements. If a general hobbyist follows the normal recommended dosage and has less coral, an overdose will happen even faster, leading to a crash.

In conclusion, be careful dosing trace elements and don’t dose blindly. It could lead to a crash, and without testing and monitoring everything, you won't know why. We will continue to test and tweak to try and find balance with our trace elements. We are now considering dosing individual elements instead of the current ones for our trace element supplements in order to attain the desired ranges. We hope you can also use these Triton ICP tests as a guide in your reefing, and that this answers some of the questions you may have on why your corals don't look well or your tank is crashing.

We hope you will contribute to this discussion as we also would like to learn from your experiences. Thanks for taking the time to read this write up.
 

Attachments

  • red sea C Iron- 08_12_2021 (B-0Aa2g5).pdf
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  • red sea D Bioactive - 08_12_2021 (B-0LP2dW).pdf
    159.7 KB · Views: 122
  • red sea A Iodine - 08_12_2021 (B-oqx12a).pdf
    159.7 KB · Views: 108
  • red sea B Potassium- 08_12_2021 (B-oPY2Ry).pdf
    159.7 KB · Views: 103
  • marine tropical Pro - 08_04_2021 (B-oPY28r) (1).pdf
    159.7 KB · Views: 82
  • esv calcium - 08_04_2021 (B-K5M3aL) (1).pdf
    159.7 KB · Views: 91
  • esv alk - 08_04_2021 (B-lZg6PP) (1).pdf
    159.6 KB · Views: 80
  • 560 Gallons SBB Farm- 08_12_2021 (B-0DN2Zn).pdf
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Randy Holmes-Farley

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I'll add a few comments and opinions. IMO, you do not really look into whether using these additive will raise the elements based on the amount added as well as other factors. IMO, you do not yet know why the potassium is high and I'd keep looking for answers.

1. We know what is in ESV B-ionic, unless ESV is misleading folks about the composition. It does not generally lead to increases of ANY of the ions in it except calcium and "alkalinity", as long as salinity is maintained. It is designed to leave a seawater composition of all the residual ions. Having potassium in it, for example, does not mean it increases potassium.

2. Let's consider the potassium issue, since it is highly elevated in your tank. What is it from? In general, potassium is not always depleted at all (it never depleted in my system), but your is certainly elevated (if accurate).

Correct me if I misunderstood your dosing, but you add:

5 mL of 4171 mg/L K+ = 21mg K+
5 mL of 8778 mg/L K+ = 44 mg K+
5 mL of 168 mg/L K+ = 1 mg
5 mL of 0 mg/L K+ = 0 mg

The Tropic Marin Pro is low in potassium (less than 400 ppm) and thus ANY use of it to change water lowers potassium, not raises it.
The two part does not raise potassium for the reason I gave above. I can expand on that if you want, but it has about the right amount based on my calculations to be K+ neutral.

Thus, you are dosing 21 + 44 + 1 = 66 mg to 550 gallons (2082 L) for an addition of 0.03 ppm per day.

It would take 26 years of dosing those doses of the Red Sea additives to boost potassium by 300 ppm.
 
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SBB Corals

SBB Corals

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I'll add a few comments and opinions. IMO, you do not really look into whether using these additive will raise the elements based on the amount added as well as other factors. IMO, you do not yet know why the potassium is high and I'd keep looking for answers.

1. We know what is in ESV B-ionic, unless ESV is misleading folks about the composition. It does not generally lead to increases of ANY of the ions in it except calcium and "alkalinity", as long as salinity is maintained. It is designed to leave a seawater composition of all the residual ions. Having potassium in it, for example, does not mean it increases potassium.

2. Let's consider the potassium issue, since it is highly elevated in your tank. What is it from? In general, potassium is not always depleted at all (it never depleted in my system), but your is certainly elevated (if accurate).

Correct me if I misunderstood your dosing, but you add:

5 mL of 4171 mg/L K+ = 21mg K+
5 mL of 8778 mg/L K+ = 44 mg K+
5 mL of 168 mg/L K+ = 1 mg
5 mL of 0 mg/L K+ = 0 mg

The Tropic Marin Pro is low in potassium (less than 400 ppm) and thus ANY use of it to change water lowers potassium, not raises it.
The two part does not raise potassium for the reason I gave above. I can expand on that if you want, but it has about the right amount based on my calculations to be K+ neutral.

Thus, you are dosing 21 + 44 + 1 = 66 mg to 550 gallons (2082 L) for an addition of 0.03 ppm per day.

It would take 26 years of dosing those doses of the Red Sea additives to boost potassium by 300 ppm.

Correct I was adding 5ML per day of red sea ABCD.

Since that last test i stopped all red sea ABCD

I just got another Triton ICP test back last week and the Potassium is now way down (401)

Maybe the Triton ICP test is just not accurate and it happened to be a faulty testing showing the potassium so high

See attached my new ICP test from last Saturday showing lower Potassium
 

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  • 560 Gallons - 08_22_2021 (B-l9BYj6) (1).pdf
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NEFFx

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How many triton tests did you do on the red sea and other products? Also I agree it would be nice if those companies provided those guaranteed analysis like Aquavitro does.
That said its hard to pick which one of the mysterious trace/amino/carbs/Omega supplements to use becuase of this. Why does anything if TM Part C has all trace and then you just need Fuel and reef roids. THough I may jump to AF Power Elixer with Fuel.
 

Cory

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Do you have your own potassium test kit? Id suggest using that and buying a seawater standard to verify its correct yourself.
 

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