Trace Element

[Davidman]

I just bought a 4 pump doser and would like to start dosing trace elements as the 4th one. (cal, alk, mag as the first 3). any recommendations on brand/place to buy?

Thanks

 

[bg2311]

Does your 2 part (calc/alK) or salt mix already contain trace elements? Some do (ESV Bionic for instance). Depending on how frequently you do water changes, you may be replenishing them already with either of those.

At the moment we are dosing Red Sea Trace Colors. There are 4 bottles available (A-D). Right now due to the difficulty of getting accurate test results we are only dosing 2 of them (iron, and misc). The other 2 are potassium and iodine which we had trouble measuring. The iron seems to be helping give a boost to the greens in the tank.

 

[Davidman]

Wow, a lot to learn seems. I thought trace elements is just a bottle like magnesium and you add some ml per day. Didn’t know there are abcd 4 parts

 

[Adam]

Red Sea is just one brand. There are many options.

 

[bg2311]

Depending on your tank inhabitants and your goals you might benefit from using the 4th pump head for amino acids like Fuel or Acro Power. Without knowing anything about the tank it's hard to say. I would start by answering the question why do you want to dose trace elements? Are you looking for better color, growth etc. It's a good idea to be testing for anything you are adding to the tank in concentrated form like calc, alk, magnesium, and trace elements to see if you actually need to be adding them and to ensure that you don't overdose the tank. There are test kits for the major elements, some easier to read than others.

 

[Rainblood]

how much mag is your tank consuming?
i've got a 4-head doser too and am just using 2 for alk and nitrates.
i manually add acropower (bi-weekly) and calcium (weekly). i randomly add sea elements because i have gonis, but i honestly don't know if does anything.