Trace elements debate

[Lavey29]

You know what, fine, I'll bite.

Here is my tank from 3.5 years ago. It was a 100gallon started with all dry rock and dry sand. It started with a skimmer, a couple of heaters, a chaeto fuge (which did nothing so I took it offline), 10% weekly water changes with instant ocean salt using a DOS auto water change and kalk via a DOS-controlled kalk reactor.

Here it is 2 years later having never had more than a 10% weekly water change with regular instant ocean salt and never having dosed trace elements:

Here it is after the corals outgrew the tank and I upgraded to a 300+ gallon cube:

And here it is currently, 3.5 years later:

Btw, just to give you some perspective on the size of these sps colonies, here is the pink birdsnest from the above images, which you can see in the bottom center of the first image grew from a tiny frag, just before I pulled most of it out of the system to trade in to my LFS:

These are my latest ICP test results. I do them once every 4 months or so and I can show you how over the last 3.5 years almost every "essential" trace element has been listed at either barely detectable or mostly undetectable:

So please, do explain to me how any of this is possible when all I've ever done is feed my fish a mixture of pellet foods via an autofeeder, a couple of cubes of LFS reef frenzy and mysis shrimp frozen food once a day, automatic 10% weekly water changes with instant ocean via a neptune DOS, and currently only dose a combination of soda ash, sodium hydroxide (to boose my ph due to high CO2 in the home during the winter), aquaforest calcium chloride (my LFS brings it in for me in their commercial sized bags) and aquaforest reef mineral salt as Part C. The only 100% water change this system has ever received was when I upgraded from the 100 gallon to the 300 gallon tank. I currently run a skimmer, occassional ozone for water clarity (run through the skimmer) and a UV sterilizer and thats it.

Please do let me know when I should pencil into my calendar for my corals to all start bleaching/STNing/RTNing/etc. Because inquiring minds would like to know.

PS, for anyone wondering; the sebae anemone got traded into the LFS when it started to walk after a few years, and I did move a couple of the rocks around over the 1.5 years that the 300 gallon was set up based on personal preference.

Beautiful tank, I think I said essentially the same thing in a very abbreviated version 5 pages ago. Thanks for sharing your insight and stunning display.

 

[Pod_01]

So please, do explain to me how any of this is possible when all I've ever done is feed my fish a mixture of pellet foods via an autofeeder

Must be something in the Manitoba water. Really nice tank, so….

What pellet food are you using?
Also would you share the top of your TM Total ICP report? I am curious what your other parameters are at, also I and F. As you mentioned inquiring minds want to know…
What filtration are you using?

Please do let me know when I should pencil into my calendar for my corals to all start bleaching/STNing/RTNing/etc. Because inquiring minds would like to know.

That depends, if you let me mess with your tank, I give it a month and you can enjoy beautiful white sticks….

Sorry OP, bit of a detour…

 

[twiatr2001]

@204Reef I believe that some of your trace elements are actually being depleted and are being dosed with your two part system and additional dosing chemicals, ie reef mineral salt part c, they are showing undetectable, possibly because the icp-oes does not look at smaller levels and doesn't pick them up, if you do an icp-ms, then you will really know if your elements are truly undetectable.

 

[204Reef]

Must be something in the Manitoba water. Really nice tank, so….

What pellet food are you using?
Also would you share the top of your TM Total ICP report? I am curious what your other parameters are at, also I and F. As you mentioned inquiring minds want to know…
What filtration are you using?



That depends, if you let me mess with your tank, I give it a month and you can enjoy beautiful white sticks….

Sorry OP, bit of a detour…

Ha! Winnipeg literally translated to 'land of muddy water' so I don't think I'd ever risk adding any of it to a tank without running it through at least a 5 stage RO/DI system!

As for foods, I generally mix up some TDO chromaboost, vitalis premium pellets and algae pellets, some New life spectrum pellets and occassionally some PE mysis pellets. Those get mixed and added to two eheim autofeeders mounted on the RMS rails above the tank (two for redundancy in case I don't notice the battery running out on one). Each one doses about a half teaspoon to a teaspoon or so of pellets twice a day, so a total of 4 times a day. I also have an Avast marine plank that feeds their Reef Jerky twice a day. So I do feed a lot, but I have something like 27 fish in there so its needed. Every 2 - 3 days I feed a bit of nori on a clip, and every two days or so I'll toss in some defrosted PE mysis and LRS reef frenzy.

Here is the top of the ICP test:

As for filtration, I'm running a bubbleking supermarin 200, with the air line coming in from outdoors. That's it. Seriously. Unless you consider the AquaUV 57watt UV sterilizer as part of the filtration. I have a couple of small polyplab biobrick things in the sump, but they are there only so I can grab one out if I need to quickly set up a holding/QT tank for any incoming fish. I never saw any difference before or after I added them.

I hope this helps!

PS: I don't actually recommend the supermarin skimmer. It works well enough but its massively overpriced compared to other competitors, and has fewer features than the old Reef octopus elite 150 that the 100 gallon had. The cup is more of a pain to remove, the pump is more of a pain to service, it has no built-in float switch in the collection cup to prevent overflows and adding one is a pain given its measurements, and the RD3 skimmer pump version I have has terrible 0-10V control that doesn't actually work well. If I could go back in time I'd have just gotten a Reef octopus elite 220, but I've spent the cash and its holding my nutrients steady to I can't justify getting rid of it.

 

[204Reef]

@204Reef I believe that some of your trace elements are actually being depleted and are being dosed with your two part system and additional dosing chemicals, ie reef mineral salt part c, they are showing undetectable, possibly because the icp-oes does not look at smaller levels and doesn't pick them up, if you do an icp-ms, then you will really know if your elements are truly undetectable.

Honestly, who knows? Maybe. For the longest time I ran BRS pharma soda ash, calcium chloride and mag mix for daily dosing. Unfortunately my 35lb buckets of that ran out and they jacked the price so high that I had to find something else (last week before I did some coral trimming and got rid of most of the pink birdsnest I was using 1000ml of each part a day, no joke). After running out I switched to Randy's recommended sodium hydroxide recipe, with aquaforest calcium chloride (the cheapest I could get locally). I only made the switch recently from the magnesium mix to part C, primarily on Randy's recommendation in that 'don't test magnesium' thread he post a while back. From what I understand it probably has trace elements in it, but not enough to do anything but offset the amount of sodium and chloride added by the other Parts A and B. Even if it does, i only began using it a couple of months ago so the addition of those wouldn't explain how well the corals grew previous to that.

Don't midunderstand, I'm not saying 'trace elements aren't necessary at all', but I have yet to be convinced that adding any more than are already added by food and possibly whatever is in Part C (be it contaminants in magnesium mixes or whatever is in aquaforest reef mineral salt/Tropic marin Part C) is necessary or benificial.

I'm personally of the opinion that anyone selling the stuff should be able to say 'We've done replica testing on multiple otherwise-identical systems and found that X trace element or combination thereof increases growth by 12.65% over 6 months in these particular species of coral, but only by 3.5% in these types (or anything along that line). Here is our data with coral weights and pictures to prove it'.

I've been waiting for that for years now, and the fact that no manufacturer is willing to do so says a lot to me.

 

[Brucemull]

ONE of my tanks (anemones only) is fine using nothing but weekly water changes. My other tanks (various "reef" tanks with different types of coral) are not. I was merely pointing out that every tank is different, and some might be fine without any "special" additives and water changes only. Not because water changes replenish traces, only because demand is so low that it doesn't really matter.

So far I've been having great luck using All for Reef in those other tanks. All for Reef DOES contain "extra" trace elements beyond what is provided by doing water changes. I'm in the process of setting up a new tank where I'll be using a hybrid BRS/TM/RHF dosing solution, and I'll be supplementing trace elements in that as well.

Using all for reef showed a big difference after a week of adding 10ml a day. But remember every tank is different! My 120 is quite happy

 

[Brucemull]

Not here to shill, just my personal thoughts:

I rarely do water changes and only when I vacuum out the detritus from sump. Water quality: Salinity 1.025, Alk 8.9, Ca 446, Mg 1451, PH 8.38, P04 .08, N03 20. My last month’s ICP results for other measurements were within normal range. Any new seawater added comes from Red Sea Blue bucket.

While at Aquashella, I got into a very thorough conversation with Lou Ekus @tropic Marin concerning this topic.
I explained that I had been using AFR (All For Reef) for my dosing regimen (which does contain trace), and how well my tank and corals had been responding to changes from standard 2-part dosing regimen (did 2-part for past 8 years). I also mentioned that I was still having coloration issues with a pair of my SPS colonies. Two hard (for me) to color up corals included JF Flame and Vivid Rainbow Delight.

I had also mentioned to him that I was also supplementing AFR with Saturated Kalkwasser to raise/stabilize PH (8.38-8.40 daily swing). Lou had mentioned that with the Kalkwasser (slurry) portion of dosing, there was not any trace included, and that I should be supplementing trace for this portion. He gave me a formula to follow (based on Kalk use), and I had set up TM A and K+ (5ml daily) to solidify trace saturation in water. While not overnight (as we often expect with results), over 3 weeks of use I have not only been able to bring out color in both of these corals, but also increased color, PE, and growth with all corals (including LPS torch, hammer, frogspawn, SPS Monti, Acro, and Chalice).

Two more additional observations: In the sump, where I had failed (often) at keeping Chaetomorpha and Halimedia, are now thriving. SPS/Acro Coral mortality, while never a significant issue, has since changeover disappeared as an issue.

In my case, I feel strongly that trace has had a positive effect on tank health.

Sincerely,

David

Your spot on as in I do the same thing,noticed changes after the 1st week now in week 3 an pH stable 8.1 al running plus minus7.8 an using 10ml daily of rfa,an a kalk mix. In a 120 with 1gal a day evap rate. All my corals are happy and colorful.

 

[Pod_01]

As for filtration, I'm running a bubbleking supermarin 200, with the air line coming in from outdoors. That's it.

Interesting, these days I have very much the same setup, skimmer Bubble King 130 and bit of GAC (2 tablespoons per 60 gal changed every 4 weeks). I have small tank Red Sea Reefer 250, I refer to it as nano.
I agree the BK skimmers are bit of old school with features and maintenance but man the one I have is build like a tank and it skims.

In the past I used GFO and that stuff while it worked it stripped trace elements. I suspect many of the new filtration systems do the same, too efficient and as a result they strip everything. Just my opinion.

So I do feed a lot, but I have something like 27 fish in there so its needed.

I noticed drastic improvement in my system when I added more fish and started feeding pellets four times a day. When I started I followed what I would describe now faulty advice, few fish and minimal feeding. I had angry, skinny non active fish… Lost few as well. I use FM Soft Multi Mix pellets these days.

My NO3/PO4 are ok and the big filter are corals:

In my opinion adjusting the Zn, Cu, Cr, Co etc… to some undetermined value is for reefers that have great reef and want to get the last 5% improvement. I don’t think tweaking these will turn algae infested reef into show piece.

Thanks for sharing and some eye candy:

 

[killer2001]

a chaeto fuge (which did nothing so I took it offline),

A perfect example of being depleted of trace elements. I was pulling out clumps of chaeto every week when my trace elements were in abundance. Once they depleted, the chaeto came to a screeching halt.

 

[204Reef]

A perfect example of being depleted of trace elements. I was pulling out clumps of chaeto every week when my trace elements were in abundance. Once they depleted, the chaeto came to a screeching halt.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. The chaeto was growing like crazy for the few months I ran it and never suddenly halted, the problem was that it drove my nitrates to zero constantly and my phosphates to around 0.03. I meant only that it did nothing positive for my tank.

Once I removed the chaeto, my nitrates leveled back out to around 5 - 6 and my phosphates to between 0.06 and 0.09, which I found caused some of my corals to color up a bit more (although once again, that could be coincidence. I really just didn't like running nitrate at 0 constantly).

I think a lot of people get caught up in the same issue I did, which was 'hey, everyone is talking about using such and such so I should use it too'. In this case I saw some many people running a skimmer and chaeto fuge that I just assumed I'd need it too. At the least I figured it would be useful for increasing my ph at night (which it did a bit but dosing sodium hydroxide at night does better for me). I didn't realize at the time that you really only need to grow chaeto if you're trying to reduce nutrients that your skimmer isn't able to keep up with, which was the opposite of my low nutrient issue.

 

[Treefer32]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. The chaeto was growing like crazy for the few months I ran it and never suddenly halted, the problem was that it drove my nitrates to zero constantly and my phosphates to around 0.03. I meant only that it did nothing positive for my tank.

Once I removed the chaeto, my nitrates leveled back out to around 5 - 6 and my phosphates to between 0.06 and 0.09, which I found caused some of my corals to color up a bit more (although once again, that could be coincidence. I really just didn't like running nitrate at 0 constantly).

I think a lot of people get caught up in the same issue I did, which was 'hey, everyone is talking about using such and such so I should use it too'. In this case I saw some many people running a skimmer and chaeto fuge that I just assumed I'd need it too. At the least I figured it would be useful for increasing my ph at night (which it did a bit but dosing sodium hydroxide at night does better for me). I didn't realize at the time that you really only need to grow chaeto if you're trying to reduce nutrients that your skimmer isn't able to keep up with, which was the opposite of my low nutrient issue.

corals need food. Too much food and they get angry, too little, they starve. Having a balanced amount of nitrates and phosphates makes corals happy. Though I would argue it's phosphates that primarily matter. I had SPS with Nitrates in the 60s and the corals grew thick branches. I couldn't frag them they were so thick. Getting Nitrates down to 10-15 ppm now and the SPS still grow but are growing thinner branches. Not sure there's a correlation.