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Originally Posted by Beverly
Thanks for the strontium info. Didn't you say you were dosing strontium along with iodine?
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No. I believe that was reeferaddict who said that. But I do dose both as well. Strontium is dosed inadvertently because it is in Seachem’s Reef Advantage Calcium. Iodide, (Seachem again), I have been dosing only once/week. My reef tank (135g) is still only 4 ½ months on and I have only 10 corals, 4 of which are LPS, and none are SPS.
May I also add a few more tidbits re: magnesium…A couple of interesting passages in Randy Holmes-Farley’s advancedaquarist magnesium article caught my attention.
He says, quote… “In many cases, there is so much magnesium in seawater that the organisms need to spend more effort pumping back out excess magnesium than they do trying to take it up.”
And this, quote… “Fortunately for reefkeepers, it (magnesium) is present in abundance in seawater. There is, in fact, a fairly high turnover of magnesium in reef aquaria with rapidly calcifying organisms. The primary reason that magnesium is not more of a daily concern to aquarists is that the reservoir of magnesium in seawater is very large. Magnesium might be compared to a large lake, with the lake level only slowly responding to changes in inputs from rivers and export via evaporation and the outlet. Consequently, maintenance of magnesium levels is not typically a rapidly developing problem. If using an appropriate salt mix, it may never become a problem for many aquarists.”
These two statements say, to me, that there is more than enough magnesium in saltwater to satisfy the corals uptake demands and that if the level of magnesium falls somewhat, it is no big deal. The corals will still have an adequate supply. So, to me, I am confident that the magnesium in Seachem’s Reef Advantage Calcium, that I use, should be adequate to keep magnesium levels from falling to critical levels. And I think it would have to be a pretty drastic drop, at that, and would likely occur over a long period if it were to occur at all.
As for testing, I currently do not test for magnesium, iodide or strontium. I plan to test for magnesium in the future but only to satisfy my own curiosity and even then I plan to test for magnesium only once every two months. The kit I will use will be a Salifert.
I am still pondering whether or not to test for iodide.
As for testing for strontium, I am not going to concern myself with this. I don’t see that strontium could get too high and from what I’ve read it is certainly not a concern if it gets too low.
As for trace elements… because my setup is still fairly new, I have been advised by my LFS to hold off on a trace element supplement till around October. The reason they gave was that I could raisie the level of amino acids in the tank too high if I did so now. So, I’m just not there yet on trace elements. (So much else to learn!) When I do supplement this, however, I plan to use Seachem’s Reef Plus once/week.
BTW, the latest edition of Tullock’s “Natural Reef Aquariums”, that I am aware of, is the 1997 edition revised and reprinted January 2001.
Cheers,