is calcium iodine and strontium necesary for live coral

[30gal4fish]

i went to the store and told the guy that i was going to add coral to my 30 gal tank already set for a month with live rock and 4 damssels. the water quality is almost perfect. i have 1 fire shrimp and 5 turbo snails. I have the tank with a 350 bio wheel (magnun). adding cycle once a week.
well they guy told me that in order for the coral to live comfortable i should add the
liquid calcium
strontium and molybdenunm
and
iodine
is this true?

 

[tizzo]

No it is not true. The truth is that corals need those things to survive, but they are supplied in your salt mix. Adding extra is a recipe for disaster. Water changes will replenish those elements so you will not need to "supplement".
***UNLESS***
You have so many hard corals that they take up your calcium faster than water changes will replenish it, then you would need to add/adjust your calcium. But beware, you need a pretty good amount of stonies to really see a depletion.
What your LFS guy should have you buying, is test kits. Do you have those?? Calcium, alk, and magnesium for a reef set up (besides your nitrate, trite and ammonia).
When your calcium or alk falls low-if it falls low then adjust them. If your magnesium is low, correct that first, then adjust the others...

 

[the reef]

Originally Posted by 30gal4fish
i went to the store and told the guy that i was going to add coral to my 30 gal tank already set for a month with live rock and 4 damssels. the water quality is almost perfect. i have 1 fire shrimp and 5 turbo snails. I have the tank with a 350 bio wheel (magnun). adding cycle once a week.
well they guy told me that in order for the coral to live comfortable i should add the
liquid calcium
strontium and molybdenunm
and
iodine
is this true?
If you notice your calcium being used up then most likly all of them are being used up and need to be replenished before a watter change so if you check your calcium twice a week and you notice that it is becoming depleted with normal levels of magnisum of corse then add them all because they most likely are all being used up
and the stronium will be mostly used up expecaly if you notice coraline algea start slowing down then use the stronium to help both the corals and the coraline algea

 

[30gal4fish]

and how much is a lot of corals in a 29 gal tank with 50lb live rock
thank you

 

[tizzo]

You should, at the very least do an accumulated 1% a day. Accumulated, like 14% every 2 weeks or some people (like me) round up to 15% eery 2 weeks or 10% a week.
As far as a lot of corals, you will need to monitor the calcium with test kits in order to get an idea. If your calcium falls daily then you have a lot of corals. Sorry, I couldn't be more specific.

 

[bang guy]

Don't forget Carbonate.

 

[the reef]

Originally Posted by Bang Guy
Don't forget Carbonate.
oh sorry bang forgot about the alkalinity as in the carbonate part gets used up more as well as some of the carbonates loss is also loss due to the calcium carbonates but should not threaten a tank to much inless your ph drops as a result of to many of your carbonates being used up

 

[reefnut]

Carbonate will get used up at a equal rate to calcium. So if someone is adding calcium they should also be adding carbonate... regardless of the PH to maintain the balance between calcium and alkalinity.
IMO the only elements that require dosing are calcium, alkalinity & magnesium.

 

[bang guy]

Carbonate loss is suprisingly fast.
Example: With ALK at 3.5Meq/L and Calcium at 450ppm
If Calcium drops down to 400ppm due to coral calcification the Alkalinity will drop from 3.5Meq/L to below 1.0Meq/L and Calcification will essentially stop.

 

[the reef]

Originally Posted by ReefNut
Carbonate will get used up at a equal rate to calcium. So if someone is adding calcium they should also be adding carbonate... regardless of the PH to maintain the balance between calcium and alkalinity.
IMO the only elements that require dosing are calcium, alkalinity & magnesium.
I would say that is verry true nut but wouldent the carbonates need to be added more if the ph where to fall as an affect of the low carbonates thus would signal the carbonates quantity would need to be added more sense it is getting used up even more and the alk would also fall due to the lack of carbonates the bicarbonates would fall as well but the carbonates are going to be used up more than the bicarbonates

 

[bang guy]

That was a long sentence that I didn't understand. In a saltwater tank there is no difference between dissolved Carbonate and Bicarbonate. The PH determines the ratio. As PH drops Carbonate converts to Bicarbonate.

 

[the reef]

Originally Posted by Bang Guy
That was a long sentence that I didn't understand. In a saltwater tank there is no difference between dissolved Carbonate and Bicarbonate. The PH determines the ratio. As PH drops Carbonate converts to Bicarbonate.
no bang as I tested the afects of both the ratio factor that is needed a low ph and a normal alkalinity is a sign that the carbonates part of the buffer needs to be raised as it has more of an afect on the ph then the bicarbonates someone on here deleted my post I can dig up the reading from the guy that wrote the artical if you want

 

[bang guy]

I would be interested in being proved wrong.
Don't confuse a short term PH change with long term results.

 

[the reef]

At times the pH in your tank will have a tendency to drop and slowly lower itself for no reason that is apparant to you. All water quality parameters seem to check out correctly, even the dKH, yet the pH just does not want to stay at recommended levels, in fact, in most cases the pH has a tendency to fall to around 7.8 or 7.9 and regardless of what you do.
It does not rise even though you may be adding lots of Kalkwasser. In some instances you try to compensate for this by adding milky KW but all you obtain is a temporary rise in the pH and then it starts to fall again.
This happens over and over again.
The main reason for this unexplained drop in pH is the presence in your aquarium water in dissolved form of a variety of acids which lower the buffering capacity and skew it. What I mean by this is that the bicarbonate portion of the buffer may still be high (hence your normal dKH reading) but the carbonate portion is low (hence the low pH as carbonates affect the pH much more than bicarbonates).
The solution to this problem is to neutralize the acids and then build up the carbonate portion of the buffer again. This is done by slowly adding sodium carbonate.
At first when you add this compound the pH will go up. As it reacts with acids of various kind it becomes neutralized and so do the acids and the pH drops again. As long as this rise and fall continues, you have not neutralized all the acids yet and you need to continue to add sodium carbonate until the rise continues but the drop starts to become smaller or dissappears (at which time you know you have neutralized the acids).
This "can" be a frustrating experience as you may need to dose with sodium carbonate for quite a few days before you actually see a change occur and before you start to see the pH rise and stay in the higher ranges.
All you need to do is persevere and you will eventually get there. The pH will rise and stay at the higher levels and the acids will be neutralized.
You are probably wondering what kind of acids make this happen. Mostly they are of organic nature and include all the amino acids which result from the breakdown of protein (another reason not to overfeed and to have a real good skimmer), but there are also other acids present: carbon dioxide, boric acid and phosphoric acid amongst others.
Before all of these are neutralized some time may go by. Do not get discouraged. Continue to add the sodium carbonate and you will eventually get the pH and the buffer under control

 

[the reef]

above is part of the artical
this suports what you said above that the carbonates will be used up faster than the calcium wether it be used up by the corals or used up by acids nutralizing it.
so when this fast carbonates loss is ocuring then the carbonates part of the buffer is needed to raise the ph back up and if the alkalinity is droping and a normal ph then the full buffer is needed as in the carbonates and bicarbonates

 

[bang guy]

I disagree with the author of that article. Following that advice could easily create an imbalance in Calcium, Magnesium, and Carbonate.
In my opinion it's very bad advice.
If ALK is balanced with Calcium and PH is falling then it simply means that either CO2 is accumulating or something is rotting.
Adding Carbonate to a balanced Alkalinity will always cause an imbalance between Calcium and Alkalinity. If you continue to all Carbonate as suggested by the author of the above article you could cause a precipitation event.
It's a BAD idea to add carbonate to raise PH.

 

[bang guy]

Originally Posted by The reef
The solution to this problem is to neutralize the acids and then build up the carbonate portion of the buffer again.
NO!
The solution to this problem is to eliminate the source of the acids, not to add carbonate to react with the acids.
If the source is a build up of CO2 then a better skimmer or more/better waterflow will solve it.
If the source of the acids is rotting detritus then remove the detritus.
If you just mask the problem with Carbonate then the CO2 will continue to build up and the detritus will continue to rot. Your PH test will tell you that the problem is solved for a day or two but it isn't. The problem will still be there masked by an artificially high PH level.

 

[bang guy]

Let me try to put it another way.
If your Oil light comes on in your car would you pull out the bulb to the oil light or would you add more oil?
Using carbonate to raise PH is just like pulling the bulb instead of putting in more oil. It may look like you solved the problem but you really haven't and you might have caused a bigger problem.

 

[the reef]

Originally Posted by Bang Guy
Let me try to put it another way.
If your Oil light comes on in your car would you pull out the bulb to the oil light or would you add more oil?
Using carbonate to raise PH is just like pulling the bulb instead of putting in more oil. It may look like you solved the problem but you really haven't and you might have caused a bigger problem.
well bang every one is due to their own opinon but what your saying is that something is roting simply was not my case and build up of co2 was not my case either and I have a protine skimmer that removes about 2 cups of the waist watter. I followed the directions as the artical above and now my tank has maintained at a ph of 8.2 and has not fallen and the last carbonates only part of the buffer was intorduced 2 weeks ago
as I did a test on another thread for you on the bicarbonates part of the buffer by introducing that made the alk go up and the ph would go back down after a couple of days.
then did the same test with the carbonates part of the buffer and the ph went up as well as the alk and the ph after a couple of days had stabalized at a higher level than before
so thus included my theroy that the carbonates part of the buffer has more of afect on the ph and alk
also this problem slowly slops as the ratio that is needed for the carbonates and bicarbonates in my case it had 3 years to create this slop so I imagine that ph drop due to a carbonates drop is a slow process so if they have a fast drop in ph then another problem has ocured and the presipitation event will ocour if someone does not moniter the alk with the adding of any buffer

 

[reefnut]

What is your alkalinity level??