That's zoa alright ;)

Now-a-days, whenever someone tells me "zoa/paly are beginner's coral", I chuckle :razz:

Zoa's don't seem to like my tank as well...following this thread for sure!

Please keep us updated with testing as I've read Strontium is hard to test???

Thanks!:mrgreen:

In the reefaction forum there is a chymist that has access to a very large pro lab (He's the head of the metal testing dept.) and he's willing to help test the test kits for strontium to see which is more precise. He was the one who analyzed my water and pointed out the low level of strontium. Strontium in natural sea water is around 12ppm and in my tank the strontium is constantly at 6ppm, so quite low. It seem that even water changes does not manage to keep the strontium level to a normal level.

He analyzed the water from around 10 different tanks and all were low in strontium, even those that are doing water changes each week. Why? I don't know. Maybe some of the corals and creatures we keep in our aquariums are consuming more strontium than we think.

He has been dosing strontium for a year. He's lucky to have acccess to a big lab so he can test this easily and he keep is level around 10ppm I beleive. After we manage to determine which test is better, I will be testing my water again to see if I am dosing correcly. I will try to keep my strontium level around 10ppm or so.

I would not advise dosing strontium regulary without testing. One could surely try to add a bit of it to see if it would help their declining zoanthids but before going wild with this and starting to dose, I would test.

I posted this so that maybe someone with problem zoanthids could also verify if they are getting some results by dosing a bit of strontium and to see if it help. It seem that most of our tanks are low in strontium and it is rare to see one with proper level.

Calcareous corals can incorporate strontium into their skeletons, hence with the Sr levels will deplete over time.

Daniella, if you can, see if he can test some of your freshly mixed water before a water change. I'd be curious to know if the Sr levels are already low in your salt mix, which would give you consistently low readings. We might be able to pinpoint what is using it the most.

+1. Many salts skip on proper levels of such elements. Maybe because of their expense? Or to keep the market of the trace elements alive?

Here's a nice article on strontium by none other than Dr. Randy :D

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/11/chemistry

Looks like seawater actually has around 8ppm (not 12ppm) so Daniella's strontium is not very low (6ppm) but that 25% can make some big difference I guess. Did you test it after dosing? I looked into aquavitro salinity and H2ocean's salt mix analysis and they seem to guarantee strontium anywhere between 8 to 10ppm.

He's already done such test and only one seem to be quite low in strontium:

http://www.reefaction.com/nosforums/...em.php?id=1792

http://www.reefaction.com/nosforums/...em.php?id=1936

But it seem that even people using a salt with good amount of strontium might still be low in this element, thus the use of testing.

I am using IO Reef crystal salt wich has a concentration of strontium quite high with 12ppm and yet I am always low on that element.

Only the Royal Nature salt seem to be really low on strontium, all others seem to be fine and also the second batch of Royal nature he tested had much higher level of strontium near 10ppm.

http://www.reefaction.com/nosforums/...em.php?id=1763

I agree with that!:biggrin:

Last time i tried zoas they melted so quickly as if in acid.
Now i want to try again with Strontium, but don't want to waste the money again.


.

Recently a friend and I have become zoa and paly addicts. We have around 20-25 types each in our tanks and really haven't had any problems. I have kept them for many years and never had any "melt". I use IO regular salt and dose with c-balance and vitamin c. Never actually checked my strontium levels but the C-balance does have strontium in it.