Triton ICP trace elements and water changes

[Coach Tank]

I've been looking at the Triton ICP subscription, and it honestly seems great. My biggest concern is that this hobby is already expensive, and budgets are real for everybody.

The question I have is: how much does it really cut down on water changes? Right now I have two mixed reef tanks a 45 and a 60 gallon, and I do roughly 15–20% water changes every 10 days. Both systems have Red Sea ReefMats, BRS mini reactors with carbon and GFO, and protein skimmers.

The 60 gallon is eventually being upgraded to a 210 gallon, and that's the tank I'd likely put the Triton subscription on. For those of you running Triton on larger systems, how often are you realistically doing water changes on a 210?

I'm mainly trying to figure out if I'd actually save a ton on salt and water changes that could offset this $100/month subscription

 

[Red_Beard]

Unlikely. I think your best bet would be to dose trace based off of your alk consumption, if your goal is to cut back on water changes. That will get you in the ball park and keep you stabile for at least a few concurrent months. Then just do an ICP quarterly to tweak things back. Either that, or a huge water change every few months. If you are dosing a balanced dose, that will keep things in 'normal' ranges for months before anything really goes sideways. You could also dose an all in one like all for reef for a while, it really is pretty great and does a great job of keeping up until you really get a high alk consumption.


For what it's worth, in my 7 yo 75 that is pretty heavy stacked with sticks, I dose half all for reef and half kalkwasser/tropic marin A and K elements. I do water changes every other month or so, about 15 gallons, more if it feels like something is off. I haven't done an ICP in over a year.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I do not think water changes do much for trace elements, despite the common "wisdom" that they do. Mathematically, they have no chance of maintaining rapidly depleting elements such as iron and manganese at levels that are in the salt mix. Maybe such levels are not actually necessary, but they cannot maintain such levels without doing 100% daily changes.

I expect foods are a far bigger source. I showed that for iron in one of my reef chem questions of the day:

Reef Chemistry Question of the Day #298: Where are those trace elements coming from?

Reef Chemistry Question of the Day 298 We all know that organisms from bacteria to whales require many different trace elements for the biochemical processes of life. One of the things we don't always have a good handle on in a reef tank is where they are coming from and where they are going...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Gnop1950]

I signed up for a 3-month trial of the Triton Master Your Trace Elements Subscription. But I only have the one tank, so it is a straight-up $99 a month for me. I'll report back on how it goes.