Supplementing corals question.

[Newjack]

I have read in a lot of places that you should use supplements like trace elements, iodine and one other I forgot what it was. every coral I look up says to supplement those 3 things. Now I never seen someone or somewhere say you have to supplement. In my own thoughts I think that supplements is to promote growth and color. So here are my questions:

1. Is there a coral the requires you to add supplements?

2. What do each supplement actually do for the corals?

3. What are the pros and cons to supplementing?

4. What are the dos and don't to supplementing?

5. What are the pros and cons to NOT adding supplements?

6. Is there anything that supplements hurt, like certain fish, mobile inverts, corals, bacteria, worms ect..

I ask this because with the 3 months my tank has been running I notice pretty decent growth and the colors look as good as they did in LFS. So I know its not immediately required but in the long run does it increase the life span or quality of corals?

 

[Kongor]

All the elements you mentioned above are replaced when you do water changes (this took me a couple months to learn lol), so as long as you keep up with those you'll never need to supplement. I am getting my best results so far doing 10 gallons a week on my 75 gallon, SPS especially my birds nest are exploding in growth.

I know you can overdose iodine and it can cause problems with inverts but not sure about other wildlife.

 

[Newjack]

Interesting.. I also read somewhere that iodine will help the molting process on crabs. My emeralds seem to be taking a long time to molt.

 

[Kongor]

Yeah it does help them molt, but like anything, if you put too much in its detrimental and I don't know if there are anything test kits for iodine. I learned the hard way don't put anything in the tank you can't take readings of lol

 

[desertranger]

Yes Red Sea makes a test kit for iodine. It is in the coral colors line

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

[BigAl07]

Keep it simple is KEY here. When you get into high-end coral and have a tank full of them you may start looking into supplementing. Odds are if you are asking the question the answer is probably no.

Do understand as mentioned above water changes will go a LOONNGGGGG way to "refueling" your tank in regards to those items noted. Your crabs and such will molt just fine when it's time. Molting is a sign they are growing and you don't want them to molt/grow to fast. Nothing GOOD happens fast in your reef tank.

Fast = Bad.... the faster you go the harder you crash.

 

[Mrsalt]

2nd that.

 

[Choff]

Newjack, I noted one important thing you said... You are getting good growth and color. That is what we are all after and if what you are doing is working, don't mess with it and certainly not over emerald's not molting.

...stupid auto correct