Trace elements debate

[Troylee]

I dont have a “ display tank “ at the moment just a 600 gallon grow out system. Will post some “bigger” colonies.
As for your tank / corals, nice setup but your sps are still considered small. When the tank grows in and you will have “ full blown “ big colonies things will change and you will see depleting traces/ effects on corals ( if you wont test/dose).

Tell that to Sunny x lol… listen man I myself and thousands of others were keeping sps way before icp testing or any of these elements and crap that’s out there today even existed! I’m old skool I took a long break and just got back in the game a little over a year ago. We did nothing more than change water and feed our fish and it always worked! It still works! I don’t see any reason to waste money on all these tests, supplements, moon shiners or what ever you wanna feel like doing… if that’s your thang then so be it! But it’s not a necessity by any means to keep a sps reef and a waste of money in my opinion! Reefing is only as complicated as you make it. There’s no right or wrong we all got our ways and all I was saying is there’s zero reason to dose anything if you change water and have a decent bioload that you feed daily.

 

[areefer01]

I would love to but have currently no “display “ only grow out systems. I can post pics about 6-8 inch colonies. So anyway Just looked at the “ my tank thread “ and there are a couple mini colonies nothing I would call “ full blown “ sps. Of course wc are enough to replenish traces in that tank. Lets see that tank in 2-3 years when it should be fully grown in. Well if it makes it to that point in the first place.

I don't remember how long the members display has been up but we all start somewhere, right? Reef maturity is a combination of many things time being one of them. I guess my point is that you could have looked prior to throwing down the challenge card. I didn't understand that one but maybe I read more into it if I am being honest.

Flip side here is a 24" wide colony I have of an acropora from Biota I picked up a while back. I forget the name but what the photo can't capture is the 1" thick branches. Why bring this up is because much like @Troylee it started as a 1" frag and grew over time.

Started with ESV 2 part and later moved to AFR. Both worked great I just like the simplicity of a single solution. To continue my support for ESV I moved the 2nd dose head to ESV transition elements.

Anyway hope your day is going well and all the best with those grow out tanks. I enjoy watching little frags grow into colonies.

 

[Acroguy]

Tell that to Sunny x lol… listen man I myself and thousands of others were keeping sps way before icp testing or any of these elements and crap that’s out there today even existed! I’m old skool I took a long break and just got back in the game a little over a year ago. We did nothing more than change water and feed our fish and it always worked! It still works! I don’t see any reason to waste money on all these tests, supplements, moon shiners or what ever you wanna feel like doing… if that’s your thang then so be it! But it’s not a necessity by any means to keep a sps reef and a waste of money in my opinion! Reefing is only as complicated as you make it. There’s no right or wrong we all got our ways and all I was saying is there’s zero reason to dose anything if you change water and have a decent bioload that you feed daily.

Not every trace element is depleted equally. So in the long run there is absolutely a reason to dose those the ones that are depleted. Not all trace elements are important but there are a few that are important. We are not talking about a 1-2 year old tank. Everyone can get there. But 4-5-10 years with big colonies is a different story.
Have a nice day

 

[Troylee]

Not every trace element is depleted equally. So in the long run there is absolutely a reason to dose those the ones that are depleted. Not all trace elements are important but there are a few that are important. We are not talking about a 1-2 year old tank. Everyone can get there. But 4-5-10 years with big colonies is a different story.
Have a nice day

lol… I had that 10 years ago before life got in the way.. and exactly, not all trace elements are depleted equally so changing water can reset anything out of balance it’s like the duct tape of reefing… go ahead search my name I’ve been on numerous reef sites for 20 years or so.. always kept sps and always will! I’m not saying you’re wrong I’m saying it’s not needed if you know the fundamentals and stay vigilant with them. Everything boils down to the basics and it only gets harder if you make it harder.

 

[Troylee]

Not every trace element is depleted equally. So in the long run there is absolutely a reason to dose those the ones that are depleted. Not all trace elements are important but there are a few that are important. We are not talking about a 1-2 year old tank. Everyone can get there. But 4-5-10 years with big colonies is a different story.
Have a nice day

This was one of my tanks over 15 years ago.. I had an under gravel filter for filtration and I had big colonies and they were grown under vho lighting with no supplements.. icp was nothing more than a couple clowns rapping and wrestling haha! None of these supplements or snake oil was out there then! We had water changes and very few test kits..

 

[Pod_01]

This was one of my tanks over 15 years ago.. I had an under gravel filter for filtration and I had big colonies and they were grown under vho lighting with no supplements.. icp was nothing more than a couple clowns rapping and wrestling haha! None of these supplements or snake oil was out there then! We had water changes and very few test kits..

The video in post 77 is really interesting and Christoph mentions that he thinks one of the reasons tanks worked well in the distant past was that there was lot of unintentional trace elements dosing. Some from food, some from not so pure 2 part or kalk etc… that was used. He stated that additives these days are too pure, hence that can lead to trace element deficits…. Interesting point of view.

 

[Hooz]

This was one of my tanks over 15 years ago.. I had an under gravel filter for filtration and I had big colonies and they were grown under vho lighting with no supplements.. icp was nothing more than a couple clowns rapping and wrestling haha! None of these supplements or snake oil was out there then! We had water changes and very few test kits..

So you're saying that nobody has learned anything about coral growth, nutrients, major and minor elements, lighting, flow, etc in the last 15 years?

Are LED lights and programmable powerheads "snake oil" too?

Just because something works doesn't mean there aren't other things that work better. I setup my first reef tank in 1992, so I've been around. I've embraced a lot of the new technology, though. I know for certain that I'm having better results now than I did back then, and it's a lot easier.

 

[Troylee]

So you're saying that nobody has learned anything about coral growth, nutrients, major and minor elements, lighting, flow, etc in the last 15 years?

Are LED lights and programmable powerheads "snake oil" too?

Just because something works doesn't mean there aren't other things that work better. I setup my first reef tank in 1992, so I've been around. I've embraced a lot of the new technology, though. I know for certain that I'm having better results now than I did back then, and it's a lot easier.

Not saying that at all! He’s saying you can’t keep sps without dosing trace elements…but then retracted his statement saying anyone can for a year after he went through my current build thread.. go a few pages back.. that’s incorrect! It’s been done and always will be.. ask Sunny x or coral reef tank “crt” how many trace elements they dose? You get plenty with feeding your fish a variety of food and changing water.

 

[Lavey29]

Not saying that at all! He’s saying you can’t keep sps without dosing trace elements…but then retracted his statement saying anyone can for a year after he went through my current build thread.. go a few pages back.. that’s incorrect! It’s been done and always will be.. ask Sunny x or coral reef tank “crt” how many trace elements they dose? You get plenty with feeding your fish a variety of food and changing water.

Perhaps @SunnyX will drop in and show how his tank is looking from no trace dosing and simple water changes?

 

[Acroguy]

lol… I had that 10 years ago before life got in the way.. and exactly, not all trace elements are depleted equally so changing water can reset anything out of balance it’s like the duct tape of reefing… go ahead search my name I’ve been on numerous reef sites for 20 years or so.. always kept sps and always will! I’m not saying you’re wrong I’m saying it’s not needed if you know the fundamentals and stay vigilant with them. Everything boils down to the basics and it only gets harder if you make it harder.

I know the basics, am changing water regularly and no in the long term if you dont do a couple 100 % waterchanges you can have some traces critically low.I am not saying you need to dose every trace element as I stated earlier, but the ones that are esetial in the long run.

 

[Acroguy]

Not saying that at all! He’s saying you can’t keep sps without dosing trace elements…but then retracted his statement saying anyone can for a year after he went through my current build thread.. go a few pages back.. that’s incorrect! It’s been done and always will be.. ask Sunny x or coral reef tank “crt” how many trace elements they dose? You get plenty with feeding your fish a variety of food and changing water.

I never said you need to dose traces in a new tank, nore did I say you cant keep sps without dosing traces. Of course you can, having 10 sps in a tank is different than having 150 colonies especially in the long run. What I said is that in the long run people will see effects if some of the essetial traces is depleted. Read what I said before.

 

[Acroguy]

This was one of my tanks over 15 years ago.. I had an under gravel filter for filtration and I had big colonies and they were grown under vho lighting with no supplements.. icp was nothing more than a couple clowns rapping and wrestling haha! None of these supplements or snake oil was out there then! We had water changes and very few test kits..

Yeah nice, but you dont get my point still. This tank had 7-8 corals in it ? At least waht I can see.There is still plenty of space left on the rockwork. So of course it was enough to change water. “Keeping” Sps or having thriving sps is also a different story. Growth alone cannot dtermine the health of sps.I had sps that grew but overall doesnt look all that helathy. After finding out that Ni, Zn, and F were basically at zero I started dosing and everything is fine now.

 

[LuckyMe]

My opinions are here:

Randy's thoughts on trace elements

Randy's thoughts on trace elements in reef aquaria.

www.reef2reef.com

Randy's Elements to Dose

In a previous article I discussed my thoughts on trace elements https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/randys-thoughts-on-trace-elements.951/ This article expands on that discussion by providing specific guidance for all elements one might dose. First...

www.reef2reef.com

I'm glad you added a color chart....that's the only way my ADD could understand anything you said

 

[twiatr2001]

My tank is just over a year old, but is heavily stocked with torches and other corals, my trace elements are depleting just because of the volume at which the corals are growing, sps does take longer to grow, but once they establish into colonies, look out for trace element depletion for sure!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My tank is just over a year old, but is heavily stocked with torches and other corals, my trace elements are depleting just because of the volume at which the corals are growing, sps does take longer to grow, but once they establish into colonies, look out for trace element depletion for sure!

The unknown question is how much is actually needed of any given ion in the chemical forms actually present for the organisms you keep. There’s hardly any useful info to answer that question, even if they are depleting.

 

[204Reef]

I know the basics, am changing water regularly and no in the long term if you dont do a couple 100 % waterchanges you can have some traces critically low.I am not saying you need to dose every trace element as I stated earlier, but the ones that are esetial in the long run.

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.

 

[areefer01]

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.

You are doing great. BTW mind if I ask how you have those Gyres mounted? Or if you have a build thread I can go there so I don't derail this place.

 

[areefer01]

The unknown question is how much is actually needed of any given ion in the chemical forms actually present for the organisms you keep. There’s hardly any useful info to answer that question, even if they are depleting.

Seems to be par for the course with a lot of products be it liquid or hardware in our hobby.

 

[204Reef]

You are doing great. BTW mind if I ask how you have those Gyres mounted? Or if you have a build thread I can go there so I don't derail this place.

I don't have a build thread. I'm honestly not much into social media posting so I've never seen the point in making one. That being said, if you do have any questions about the tank then feel free to message me.

As for the gyre mounts, the tank is eurobraced and has two RMS rails going across it (so as not to need to drill into the ceiling). I had my LFS 3d-print me a pair of gyre mounts which are effectively just extensions off these that hold the gyres off the glass to make cleaning the glass easier: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3493623. The LFS is cbaquatics.ca, so you might be able to contact them to ask for them, but I have no idea since they were a custom job for me from a while back.

 

[areefer01]

I don't have a build thread. I'm honestly not much into social media posting so I've never seen the point in making one. That being said, if you do have any questions about the tank then feel free to message me.

Totally understand and get it. I was only asking so you wouldn't have to keep repeating if asked all the time. Just say here you go dummy - read it

As for the gyre mounts, the tank is eurobraced and has two RMS rails going across it (so as not to need to drill into the ceiling). I had my LFS 3d-print me a pair of gyre mounts which are effectively just extensions off these that hold the gyres off the glass to make cleaning the glass easier: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3493623. The LFS is cbaquatics.ca, so you might be able to contact them to ask for them, but I have no idea since they were a custom job for me from a while back.

Thanks. This was helpful. In fact that is all I needed. Fellow euro brace here and gyres. I like the idea of the mount and the cord management.

Have a great day.