When is it time to do an ICP test?

[Surfzone]

My tank has been set up since December and I am having a problem with keeping stony corals LPS and SPS. My tank parameters stay stable but stony corals keep slowly withering away. My question is when is it time to do an ICP test.

water parameters
Alk -7.1
Calcium - 505
Magnesium - 1450
NO3 - 4.0
PO4 - 0.03

 

[vetteguy53081]

For me- quarterly or when you suspect something isn’t right

 

[Dr. Jim]

If you don't like the way things are, it doesn't hurt to do an ICP test now. I would use all your test kits at the same time so you can compare your results to the ICP results although the ICP results are sometimes no better than home kits and there are many variables, making them difficult to be compared. But if your Ca comes back much higher than the 505 you showed, then I would definitely drop it (or maybe drop it anyway), to 380-450. Mg may be at upper limit; Alk may be borderline low so I would check that with a few other kits. Some may say PO4 is borderline low, too, but that depends on other factors.

Of course there are a lot of other parameters not discussed: light, flow, temp, etc.

 

[Surfzone]

Lighting is a Radion xr 15 gen 4, flow is provided by two MP 10s at 90% and temp stays between 78 and 80 degrees. I use a calcium reactor for Alk and Calcium and dose Magnesium when it gets low. I try to keep Mg at 1350 to 1400. I probably should have mentioned that before. thanks for reminding me. Also my zoas are doing just fine. slow growth but i think that is from low Nitrates and Phosphates. Because of my N and P levels is why i keep alk low around 7 to 7.5.

 

[Dr. Jim]

All of that seems better but I'd say calcium is still a question. But, if it was me, I'd send out an ICP test. Not a bad idea to do one periodically anyway, just to get a baseline.

 

[Hillerd86]

Stumbled across this looking to figure out when to do my test. I almost had the same problem as you. Sps bleaching and dieing out of nowhere...
Then I started dosing iodine daily... Three weeks later all corals back to full health and brighter colors than ever

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Stumbled across this looking to figure out when to do my test. I almost had the same problem as you. Sps bleaching and dieing out of nowhere...
Then I started dosing iodine daily... Three weeks later all corals back to full health and brighter colors than ever

What exactly did you dose?

Some forms of iodine can chemically impact trace elements (e.g., iron, etc), and I suspect that some folks who dose iodine (as Lugols) and see an effect while others dose it (iodide) with no apparent effect may be seeing something relating to trace elements, not actual iodide impacts. There is no scientifically demonstrated need for iodine in SPS corals.

 

[Surfzone]

What exactly did you dose?

Some forms of iodine can chemically impact trace elements (e.g., iron, etc), and I suspect that some folks who dose iodine (as Lugols) and see an effect while others dose it (iodide) with no apparent effect may be seeing something relating to trace elements, not actual iodide impacts. There is no scientifically demonstrated need for iodine in SPS corals.

Not sure what they dosed but my problem was not enough light I was doing 8 hours with an XR15 GEN4 with an hour on each end of ramp up and dang down so a total of 6 hours of 75% intensity. I uped it to 10 hours of 80% intensity and things have seemed the same bit I'm only one week into it. I'm looking for tester corals now the only thing I have in there are some zoas and fish.

 

[Surfzone]

Here is my ICP results.