Trace Elements approach

[FrenchAngel]

Hey Randy
@Randy Holmes-Farley
Thought you get your valuable input on some thoughts I have. I have been thinking about the 'no water change' approach lately. I think that things like nutrient control and general contaminant buildup have great solutions in using GAC (and other filter media) and methods like carbon dosing, macroalgae, ATS, ect. But the one that still seems sticky to me is balancing trace elements for ones individual system.

Methods using the Red Sea trace element bottles or Triton Core7 (and other similar methods) try to add all trace elements in fixed amounts to offset depletion. The problem I see with this is that all tanks are different, depending on the types of corals growing, skimmer performance, algae growth/export, or chemical 'sinks' present. So when using the above trace element programs, you could end up overdosing on some elements in your reef that may not be consumed so quickly (resulting in bad imbalances). This problem could get exacerbated if you use a calcium reactor with something like the Red Sea bottles (depending on what elements dissolve with the calcium carbonate in the reactor). You could start doing frequent water changes to correct this, but that might significantly reduce the advantages of using something like the Triton method in the first place.

I am wondering if it might be more fine tuned if you didn't use any of the all-in-one trace elements approaches and instead tried to add just the elements that seem to deplete in your own personal reef. For example, you send in a Triton ICP test to get an idea of where all of your elements are at. You then note which ones are too low and then dose those individually to correct the levels. More Triton tests every couple months will then allow you to see a pattern for your reef in terms of element depletion. You might then be able to develop your own personal dosing program that perfectly suits your tank (in terms of trace elements) based on this info. Of course, during this whole period you don't do any water changes on the tank. Also, you obviously would combine this streamlined trace element approach with addition of the big three (3 part/calcium reactor/kalk).

It just seems to me that this could also save on $ cost since Triton Core7 bottles are not cheap to dose continuously (and seem to be out of stock frequently), especially for very large systems. Red Sea isn't cheap either if you had high daily alkalinity demand. I know that the supplements for each individual element that Triton offers are not exactly dirt cheap either, but it may be better compared to daily use of the main Core7 product. You could even make this cheaper if you DIY the supplementation. Based on reading your comments in other threads, there may be some elements that you wouldn't have to dose at all to NSW levels such as strontium or iodine (and many others). Other elements such as iron get depleted so fast that Triton/Red Sea supplementation wouldn't be able to keep these at significant levels anyways.

Of course, there might be many holes in the above proposal. But that is why I ask for your analysis of it. BTW, I am not completely sold on doing zero water changes indefinitely, as I think that there might be something beneficial that they still do that are unknown to us in the dark corners of our knowledge But it may help to significantly cut back on the number/frequency of water changes you would otherwise have to do while still keeping chemical balance.
Thoughts?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I am wondering if it might be more fine tuned if you didn't use any of the all-in-one trace elements approaches and instead tried to add just the elements that seem to deplete in your own personal reef. For example, you send in a Triton ICP test to get an idea of where all of your elements are at. You then note which ones are too low and then dose those individually to correct the levels. More Triton tests every couple months will then allow you to see a pattern for your reef in terms of element depletion. You might then be able to develop your own personal dosing program that perfectly suits your tank (in terms of trace elements) based on this info. Of course, during this whole period you don't do any water changes on the tank. Also, you obviously would combine this streamlined trace element approach with addition of the big three (3 part/calcium reactor/kalk).

While its not going to be inexpensive, I think this is a great approach.

I'm not sure if you saw this other post of mine, but it is what I would do in a perfect scenario, and it largely reiterates what you said:

I would do substantial and repetitive ICP testing of the water to guide dosing and exporting.

There are some ions I would dose essentially independent of measurement because I don't think measurement is particularly useful for them (e.g., iron because it is typically below detection limits; silicate because it depletes so fast).

There are a bunch of ions that I do not consider important at the levels reefers typically have (e.g., lithium, maybe barium, I'd need to think through this list) and I would make no substantial effort to control those either by export or by dosing.

I would likely experiment on the tank over time to re-verify for myself that my longstanding opinions on certain chemicals are not particularly useful if dosed to maintain natural levels, despite the fact that many reefers do. If they showed a positive effect, I'd rethink dosing them. These include iodide and strontium. I'd certainly continue dosing them if they appeared useful to my system.

There are a whole bunch of biologically active trace elements that I'd likely measure and dose which I did not in the past, but which previously tested low in my system (e.g., molybdenum) and I'd likely dose these to roughly NSW levels. I might experiment on these in a variety of ways (e.g., allowing one to go undosed for a long time and then restart and see if anything apparently changed).

I'd probably do automatic water changes, but again, might also experiment on the amount, from none to a couple of percent a day.

 

[reefwiser]

You are wanting to do DSR.
http://dsrreefing.nl/

 

[FrenchAngel]

While its not going to be inexpensive, I think this is a great approach.

I'm not sure if you saw this other post of mine, but it is what I would do in a perfect scenario, and it largely reiterates what you said:

I would do substantial and repetitive ICP testing of the water to guide dosing and exporting.

There are some ions I would dose essentially independent of measurement because I don't think measurement is particularly useful for them (e.g., iron because it is typically below detection limits; silicate because it depletes so fast).

There are a bunch of ions that I do not consider important at the levels reefers typically have (e.g., lithium, maybe barium, I'd need to think through this list) and I would make no substantial effort to control those either by export or by dosing.

I would likely experiment on the tank over time to re-verify for myself that my longstanding opinions on certain chemicals are not particularly useful if dosed to maintain natural levels, despite the fact that many reefers do. If they showed a positive effect, I'd rethink dosing them. These include iodide and strontium. I'd certainly continue dosing them if they appeared useful to my system.

There are a whole bunch of biologically active trace elements that I'd likely measure and dose which I did not in the past, but which previously tested low in my system (e.g., molybdenum) and I'd likely dose these to roughly NSW levels. I might experiment on these in a variety of ways (e.g., allowing one to go undosed for a long time and then restart and see if anything apparently changed).

I'd probably do automatic water changes, but again, might also experiment on the amount, from none to a couple of percent a day.

Thanks for the reply Randy. Yes, I think that trace element dosing to cut back on water changes is not going to come without some $ cost. Growing algae for export or skimming wet would definitely remove a substantial amount of trace elements. But dosing individual elements will very likely be better then buying Triton for example. I did the math and for a very large system with high dkh demand, Triton ended up being almost 3 times as much as doing weekly 10% water changes combined with the new BRS 3-part supplements. Annual cost of running a calcium reactor would reduce the cost even further compared to Triton. Using Red Sea's program and dosing according to their recommendations ended up being a lot cheaper, but was still 10% more expensive then the salt costs to do weekly WC. While I have no idea how much it would cost to dose each depleting element individually yet (as I haven't tried this approach yet), it would not surprise me if it was cheaper then consistently buying Red Sea bottles, especially if you DIY. And you would still get the benefit of eliminating almost all water changes. You could always get a GHL doser and slave and put each trace element on its own head if you didn't mind spending some upfront money to save some routine labor. On a large system, it may still be cheaper to do this then the cost of Red Sea in the long run.

You might feel the need to do more frequent ICP tests in the beginning to get a grasp of how your parameters swing with time. Obviously this will make your ICP testing more expensive when first getting off the starting blocks. But once you have it all dialed in, you could cut back to the same testing frequency as anyone else just to periodically see where you are at and confirm you are doing things right.

As you stated, there are some elements that would be beneficial to dose on a routine basis such as iron regardless of what an ICP test says (unless the test shows it is at an excessive level, although this is very unlikely with an element like iron if you are reasonable with your dosing).

I too would also not be opposed to experimenting with my tank. Letting things like strontium and barium deplete would be interesting. I would test one element at a time and let it fall to lower levels while keeping everything else constant. Visually inspecting the corals and their growth would be a good test to see if it has a negative impact or none at all. Raising the level back up to NSW level could also give indicators to the elements importance if the corals responded in a clear positive way. As always though, each tank is different and have different types of livestock. So what may not be an important element for one tank would be essential in another.

Automatic water changes would be great as well if you had a setup plumbed just right for it (to remove the labor). I am sure some would question though if this could keep up with the depletion of many trace elements over time (unless it is a 100% water change). But we have to remember that there have been many huge and beautiful SPS tanks over the years that have thrived with just frequent small water changes. I wonder how many crashes there have been due to 'old tank syndrome' from trace element depletion.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You are wanting to do DSR.
http://dsrreefing.nl/

I think the Triton method is a better fit to what the OP stated. Glenn doesn't seem to make testing and dosing of individual trace elements a goal (at least not as stated on the web site).

 

[reefwiser]

You can in fact originally that was the way he did it. But as people are lazy and want all in one Solution's to their problems he has shifted the focus to more inclusive dosing methods. He even has the "EZ" type of dosing now too.