Dosing Trace Elements and test kits

[afm32607]

Who doses trace elements and should I? ( I know its a lot, read the BOLD section for TL;DR)

I am looking into improving coloration of my corals and so have started dosing trace elements by Red Sea (Coral Colors ABCD). I dose 3 ml of A, B, & D each week and 2 ml of C (C contains Fe and other trace metals and I am more worried about overdosing these trace elements than anything else). Based off my calcium usage (~ 5 ppm per day) I should be dosing about 3.5 ml of each ABCD each week.

I am wondering who else doses trace elements? What test kits they use? Whether there are better ways to test for trace elements? I haven't seen any posts that review test kits recently, i.e. a recently conducted review, so if I missed it I'm sorry.

I have used a Triton labs water analysis which shows low levels of all minor trace elements. I have put the results of the Triton test on the bottom of this post. While I feel the majority of the test is not as accurate/precise as I would like, what I have read indicates that some of the elements most important to dosing trace elements are accurate and precise including Potassium, Strontium, Calcium, and Magnesium. While other are precise, like Iron and Iodine, though inaccurate (which still provides useful information). I have only include elements that are accurate/precise and measurable with other test kits.



Background:

Over the past several months, after winning a years long fight with algae, I have noticed a marked decrease in coloration of my coral, though growth and polyp extension has been excellent. My pinks and greens have faded to almost grey and without actinics on most of the SPS are colorless (most have retained their fluorescent green hue under actinics). But in any event I am short on almost every trace element.

I am addressing a potential lack of nutrients by increasing my feeding and bioload (buying more fish) but new fish are a few months out as my QT tank has current tenants that need a home.

Tank Stats:
75 Gallon tank with 130 gallons system water
Water Changes: ~20% every two weeks
Salt: Instant Ocean
Lighting: 6 bulb ATI T5 fixture and reef brite xho LED, par (as measured by apogee par meter ranges from ~200 on the sand bed to ~350 at the top of my rock structure).
Additives (as a note I increased my two-part right after the readings below under 'tests'):
1) BRS Two Part and Mag.
2) Red Sea NoPo4x - 5ml per day

Tests:
Ca: 390 ppm (Salifert - increased dosing 10%)
Alk: 7.8-8.0 (Salifert - increased with Ca)
Mg: 1240 ppm (Salifert)
pH: 8.4-8.6 (Uncalibrated Neptune Lab Grade probe)
Sg: 35 ppt
Temp: 79-80 deg
NO3: 0 ppm (Salifert)
PO4: 0 ppm (Hanna Checker)

Relevant Triton Results:
Ca: 387 mg/L
Mg: 1181 mg/L
K: 346 mg/L
Sr: 4.142 mg/L
I: 17 ug/L (ug=microgram*)
Fe: 0 ug/L
PO4: 0.00918612 mg/L
B: 3.719 mg/L
Br: 67 mg/L

 

[bertoni]

The results under "Tests" all seem fine. The Triton tests are close for calcium and magnesium. Potassium and strontium probably are acceptable, given the error limits of the Triton testing. I wouldn't call any of those trace elements, except perhaps strontium. The other numbers I wouldn't particularly trust. A 20% water change every other week or so should be fine to keep trace elements in line.

Coral coloration, on the other hand, is a difficult issue. Lighting, feeding, an genetics all play a role. Dosing trace elements might be able to affect the coloration by stressing the coral, or at least, that's one theory. Are the corals healthy? Are they growing strongly? The fading color you report might be due to a loss of lighting. I'm not familiar with LED, but I thought that they didn't fade over time the way that bulbs do, but I'd like to confirm that.

 

[Ryan Peters]

I just participated in a webinar about coral coloration and dosing trace elements. The case studdy suggested that to get the no3 up a little 2-5 ppm and po4 up to 0.02 - 0.06 ppm. They were dosing potassium, iron, iodine, and hydrogen peroxide with some pretty good results. They ran the potassium between 400-500 ppm and dosed iron according to coloration, the iodine and peroxide are a little more risky, easy to overdose. I think the h2o2 is for cleaning up excess nutrients similar to nopox.

 

[Big E]

Focus on your lights and get your nutrient readings detectable. That is always the basic guideline for acropora growth and coloration.

Cut your NOPOX dosing in half until you see detectable NO3. It could take a few weeks for that to change. Even if you have to stop dosing altogether, but I would first slowly reduce.

The new fish will help.........and then you'll have to adjust NOPOX if still dosing at that time.

Use mainly ATI Coral+ and Blue+ in the fixture..........that will bring up par and create the spectrum most pigments and chromo protiens exite and/or fluoresce.

You should be getting 350 mid level of your tank and 500+ near the top with that fixture about 7-9" from the surface. Test with the Reefbrite off. Use the "electric" setting.

I would run with the Reefbrite off until you get the colors showing up. You can work it back into your lighting regime later.

You can work the potassium up to NSW levels.

Don't dose any trace elements.......you can experiment later if you want once your setup is on the right track, but I doubt you need to add anything............your water changes will take care of that.

Go to my thread..........there's a lot of info that directly relates to your set up.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2197142&page=12

 

[afm32607]

LEDs do dim over time(like 10 years of operation, the ballast will go before the diodes do), however as they are the 'actinic' version of the reef brite I don't know how much they impact the lighting in the tank, with just the Reef brites on the par readings are around 50 on the bottom. Fixture is 11 inches off the surface of the water, otherwise I bump it while cleaning the tank. Any reasons as to why I should turn them off? The fixture is brighter than the meter is reading?

My current bulb set up is one actinic, two blue+, two coral+, and a fiji pink the same things I've been using for seven months at a minimum.

The nutrients I have been having a problem with, any lower on the NoPoX and algae explodes. I figured more fish would help raise NO3 and feeding frozen, over prepared, would limit phosphate inputs (read article in Coral Mag. that detailed the waste generated by each food, one missed pellet is worth a lot of shrimp parts from frozen food). I've tried commercial coral food and I end up just growing algae as a result.

The below article was interesting and if they tested Triton's results as they claim then it shows certain elements that are accurate (like potassium) and certain elements that are not (like Iodine), which limits the usability of many of the tracier(?) trace elements but not all of them:
http://packedhead.net/2015/triton-lab-icp-oes-testing-of-a-certified-artificial-saltwater-standard/

 

[afm32607]

I will also drop another ml off of my NOPO4X dosing. I just took it down from 6ml to 5 ml when I noticed a resurgence of dinos, in my experience carbon really impacts their growth rate in low nutrient environments.

 

[bertoni]

I agree that the article found that the potassium result was accurate enough, but that's only one data point. I wouldn't assume that it's always that accurate, but it might be.

I agree that raising the nitrate and phosphate levels helps in some cases. What kind of algae show up in your tank? Maybe we can find a grazer that'd keep it under control.

 

[afm32607]

I believe it was maiden's hair algae. Never grew longer than an inch, was dark green, grew despite 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates and increasing carbon dosing/skimming had no effect, and nothing I put in would touch it (inc. kole tang, turbo snails, banded trocus snails, emerald crabs, tuxedo urchin, blue dwarf hermits, yellow dwarf hermits, zebra dwarf hermits, and starry blenny).

Essentially once it started growing the only thing that slowed it down was me pulling it out, and that only worked for about a year before it grew faster than what I could pull out with a reasonable amount of time. My tank never looked like one of those with tons of stringy algae but what I had would grow through my Zoas and around SPS limiting growth and shading out light.

Eventually I used algaefix marine (after about 2 years of struggle) to get rid of it and then changed out 90% of the rocks (basically everything that didn't have permanent coral attached to it). There is a thread I started on the struggle, which I just updated with the resolution for my particular case.

 

[afm32607]

The test ran three random samples of the same standardized water. I agree, I would not think each time it is the exact same but it is the best method we have available at the moment even then only the elements that were both accurate and precise across all three tests would I consider trusting, like strontium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium.

 

[afm32607]

As an additional note, I have tried commercial coral feeds. I noticed no change in my coral, just an increase in algae.

 

[bertoni]

Well, you could try one of the trace element mixes that are alleged to change coral coloration. Whether they work or not is unknown, but the cost is low. How long were the corals in the tank before they began fading?

 

[afm32607]

Months-years. The fading has been going on for a while, some coral are more impacted than others. My purple stylopora was probably the last to fade, though it was still dark just not a colorful dark, hard to explain, was supposed to be a purple/blue, its more a dark grey, though the coloration is confined to the polyps, as the base was always off white with green florescent tips.

I do agree, and the tests support it, that a large part of my problem could be low nutrient levels, some of the coral do well until they reach a certain size, I would say the sunset mdntipora is one of them. The smaller the frag the brighter the orange coloration. But the plating mdntipora that is supposed to be a red/orange color is pale pink/borderline white, regardless of the size.

Since the onset of this conversation, I have corrected my magnesium levels to over 1400ppm added strontium, enough to make the correction to the numbers listed but that was it. And I have decreased the NoPoX to 3ml/day.

I've been dosing color colors, 3ml A, B, & and 2ml C once a week. In the past three weeks I have seen faint changes in the color to the pinks and reds (mdntipora), and more marked changes to the colors in the greens (slimer and other various acros) and purple/blues (stylopora). I plan to keep up the dosing until the bottles are gone, I had bought them before I started this and don't want to add them to the pile of snake oil equipment. When I am all done with the supplements I plan to let it ride out on water changes for a month or so and see how that goes. If they keep their colors I will stop the dosing.

 

[bertoni]

I'm not sure what's causing the color changes, but I hope that the dosing or the change in carbon dosing helps.

 

[afm32607]

I know. It makes it hard when I adjust several things at once to pin down what's wrong. But I hope everything fixes my problem. After it's fixed I can take things away slowly.

Thanks for the help/advice.

 

[bertoni]

You're welcome. Good luck!