Trace Elements issue...

harveyreefer03

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Recently just got my ICP from reef zelements and too my surprise most of my traces are outside the recommended ranges. Some not as bad as others the worst is iodine but Im wanting to get to the bottom of this and need some help from people more experienced with this sort of stuff.

I dose reef zelements complete which is a 2 part solution that covers alk, ca, mg and traces and do a 10% weekly water change. My alk has been running at around 7.5-8 for the most part and Im wondering (since its a dosing solution with traces included) If I were to bump it up to 9-10dKH the traces would follow and fall into the recommended ranges.

If this is something I shouldnt do Im probably going to resort dosing iodine since thats the worst one out of them all but any advice/help would be appreciated.

As for my tank its a TMC reef habitat 90 (3ft 50g with a sump) I have a refugium so probably explains the low iron content and my corals look very healthy and growth is not an issue.
The only problems I have currently is with colouration on some acropora, its very minimal but they dont look as good as I would want them to be. This is specifically for the red & pink colourations so Id figured it might have something to do with traces.
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Picture from yesterdays water change:
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Randy Holmes-Farley

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I don’t know if supplemental iodine will be useful (it wasn’t apparently useful when I dosed, but others are convinced it is for them).

There’s really not good info available on what levels and chemical forms of mist trace elements is are optimal, but dosing a mix such as Tropic Marin A and K is a fine experiment.
 
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harveyreefer03

harveyreefer03

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I don’t know if supplemental iodine will be useful (it wasn’t apparently useful when I dosed, but others are convinced it is for them).

There’s really not good info available on what levels and chemical forms of mist trace elements is are optimal, but dosing a mix such as Tropic Marin A and K is a fine experiment.
Do you think it would be beneficial to raise my levels overall by dosing a significantly increased amount of my current 2 part solution instead of adding a supplemental trace solution just for simplicity sake? I dont see anything wrong with raising my alk to 9-10 range in order for more trace elements to be dosed. In theory it seems like it would work but Ive never done it before or messed around with traces.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Do you think it would be beneficial to raise my levels overall by dosing a significantly increased amount of my current 2 part solution instead of adding a supplemental trace solution just for simplicity sake? I dont see anything wrong with raising my alk to 9-10 range in order for more trace elements to be dosed. In theory it seems like it would work but Ive never done it before or messed around with traces.

I do not know how reef z elements is designed, but no, boosting a two part will typically have little to no boost to trace elements.
 

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