Strontium and the reef tank

[naso tang]

Thank you sir. In this hobby you might call it luck!

 

[Squamosa]

Thank you sir. In this hobby you might call it luck!

Nonsense, it's the gods and planets aligning, phases of the moon and a touch of voodoo thrown in :tongue:

I will throw in a photo of my favourite Acan

 

[naso tang]

Gorgeous shot and colony!

 

[homegrowncoral88]

Matt. Some of my sps that aren't getting enough light will grow like that. What kind of lights are you running?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Nice coral!

I started dosing strontium chloride at 1 ppm/day and after ten days (testing every day) had my first reading at 1 ppm. some people in Europe I consulted, said that a 'buffer' needed to be built up first as all my available Sr had been used up. Finally after 20 days my Sr level stabilised at 10 ppm and has remained at this level with daily dosing of 0.05 ppm/day.

I'm not sure if they have a mechanism in mind, or if it is just an observation, but one way I can see that happening is the binding of strontium onto available calcium carbonate surfaces of sand/rock/coral skeletons. Such binding is well known for magnesium where it gets onto the surface of calcium carbonate in place of calcium, and while I've not seen it demonstrated for strontium, since it looks so much like calcium and magnesium, there's no reason to think it doesn't act the same way.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hi reefwiser

I was sceptical at first on switching to DSR, but the health of my reef inhabitants has not suffered, quite the opposite has occurred!

I am getting good results and could not be happier, GlennF does a great job at mentoring.

Keeping the individual elements at NSW levels or slightly elevated has made a world of difference to my reef.

Cheers,
Tony

Aside from measuring more things, what functionally have you done differently to the tank under the DSR method?

 

[Squamosa]

Aside from measuring more things, what functionally have you done differently to the tank under the DSR method?

Well not that much really

Just more testing and addition of elements I would normally not have bothered to supplement i.e. strontium, boron, iron and iodine.

Carbon dosing with vinegar and sugar.

I have a refugium with Caulerpa, for some nutrient export. Having previously run Zeovit and a ULNS system, I struggled to get my nutrients up but now those values have stabilized at ~2-4 ppm and ~0.03-0.06 ppm for NO3 and PO4 respectively.

The big one is not doing any water changes :hell_boy: haven't done one for 2 months now and don't intend to do one again!

If I need to supplement water, I make up my own using 'ANALAR' grade reagents and not commercial salt mixes (I had to do this when I first started).

I also keep an eye on salinity and that's pretty much all.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thanks, that sounds like a good plan.

Happy Reefing.

 

[TheClark]

Great post, I love the fact that only one thing was changed.

DSR and triton have challenged me to test all that I can. For me also, Strontium was basically 0 on the SF test despite automatic continuous water changes. I found myself doubting the test results for a while but finally decided to try getting to a higher level. I am working it back up slowly, also using the SF test. Oops timer went off, time for the last titration!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Great post, I love the fact that only one thing was changed.

DSR and triton have challenged me to test all that I can. For me also, Strontium was basically 0 on the SF test despite automatic continuous water changes. I found myself doubting the test results for a while but finally decided to try getting to a higher level. I am working it back up slowly, also using the SF test. Oops timer went off, time for the last titration!

I'll be interested to see if you notice any difference as I don't presently beleive strontium is a useful additive for most reef tanks.

 

[UK_Pete]

Squamosa, although this looks like an old thread, not sure if you will see it, but I have a question. You mention raising nutrients, carbon dosing, and adding iron, boron and iodine. How did you tease apart the effects of dosing those other things from the strontium, IE what kind of period between these changes and the strontium dosing did you have? As a scientist I guess you are well aware of the issues with these kinds of observations and I am not calling your conclusions into question, but wondering so I can get an opinion of how certain the link is.

Thanks, Pete

 

[TheClark]

I'll be interested to see if you notice any difference as I don't presently beleive strontium is a useful additive for most reef tanks.

Thanks Randy. Unfortunately I changed too many things at once to make any strong claims for or against, but feel decent about shooting for NSW values as a goal. It would be allot of fun to run true experiments but alas the hobby already takes too much time as it is

 

[Squamosa]

@Squamosa, although this looks like an old thread, not sure if you will see it, but I have a question. You mention raising nutrients, carbon dosing, and adding iron, boron and iodine. How did you tease apart the effects of dosing those other things from the strontium, IE what kind of period between these changes and the strontium dosing did you have? As a scientist I guess you are well aware of the issues with these kinds of observations and I am not calling your conclusions into question, but wondering so I can get an opinion of how certain the link is.

Thanks, Pete

Hi Pete

Yeah, there are lots of anecdotal statements made in reef keeping and I suppose mine is too as this "experiment" most certainly wasn't run under lab conditions with controls e.t.c.

However, I will say this, I noticed significant growth (at least greater than I've seen before) in most of my Acropora sp once Sr levels reached those of NSW. As it happens Sr was the first element I tested for and subsequently dosed. Unlike Randy and other reefers my Sr levels did not register on the Salifert test kit being used initially and had to dose every day to finally get a stable level (~10ppm) after ~2 weeks.

Maybe as the ratio of Ca-Sr was skewed initially, my corals responded favorably once levels were balanced, I don't know!

This growth 'spurt' happened really quick, about 10 days after SR levels stabilised. No other elements were dosed besides keeping Ca, Alk and Mg dosed as per normal. Lights and flow have been unchanged for months before. Once I saw this effect, I started checking Boron levels, but that's another talk

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Squamosa]

Here's the latest picture of that tabling Acropora from the eyes of the Vortech

 

[UK_Pete]

Nice acros there! I want some of them

Thanks re the strontium, if you got changes within days and nothing else was being adjusted that pretty much answers the question for me. I would like to see more details and was wondering if you made any threads about your change from your old method (was it zeovit you said? Cant remember) to Glenns DSR method?

 

[zweebe]

It could be great to see the before/after effects with pictures if you have it :tongue:

 

[Squamosa]

Nice acros there! I want some of them

Thanks re the strontium, if you got changes within days and nothing else was being adjusted that pretty much answers the question for me. I would like to see more details and was wondering if you made any threads about your change from your old method (was it zeovit you said? Cant remember) to Glenns DSR method?

I have threads on the Belgian and Dutch reefers forum Restart downunder - Pagina 3

I also have a thread on Glenns DSR forum, although, I think you have to be a member to view certain parts. DSR tank in Australia

Cheers,
Tony

 

[Squamosa]

It could be great to see the before/after effects with pictures if you have it :tongue:

Here are some before and after pictures, excuse the iPhone quality.

 

[UK_Pete]

Thanks Tony, I will check those out. Also thanks for the beautiful photos. I am very interested in Glenns techniques and its nice to see results from an impartial user.

 

[JBNY]

I dose strountium and have for a long time here is why I intally dosed strountium way back in 2002.

I started dosing strontium because after 16 months my reef had little coralline algae growing.

I started dosing in 8/2002

Here is my tank 10/2002 after two months of strontium additions.