Seachem Reef Trace and Reef Plus

[BigEZ77]

Read some good reviews on using these together. Anyone have experience with them? Also, I use Reef Crystals as my salt and do 10% water changes each week. Is that enough on its own to keep the trace minerals up?

Thanks,

[thegrun]

I would be very reluctant to add anything you are not testing for.

[ReefsandGeeks]

Most people doing water changes that frequently don't need to worry about trace element supplementation. it's the people that try to go a month or more without a water change that try to add them to compensate. It's a black art though, as they cant be tested for, and can build up in your system without you knowing. I have recently started to do less frequent water changes and am dosing small amounts of trace. I don't know if it's helping or not, but will see long term. For your case I wouldn't try it.

[Sk8r]

^ this.

Save your funds and ultimately go for the bigger tank, better skimmer, better lights, better wavemaker: those are the sort of things that produce results, the better equipment for water quality.

[GimpyFin]

I agree with the others. I just do a water change every couple weeks and don't bother with trying to dose trace elements. Like sk8r mentioned, maintaining good water quality will help more than anything else.

[BigEZ77]

That sucks cuz I already bought them based on numerous recommendations on another forum and reviews on Marine Depot to boost coral growth, lol. I'm thinking of doing half the dose every week. Or at the very least just half a dose of Reef Plus every week since that is supposedly a great coral growth booster. Any thoughts? Do you think I might be ok with one of these methods? Thinking of doing the WC on the weekend as I do now, with the does mid week.

[ReefsandGeeks]

Most people agree that the best thing for coral growth is hitting natural seawater levels for almost all nutrients, with a few targeting a bit higher for mag and calcium. As far as trace elements, there's no evidence that an abundance is helpful in any way, and likely is more harmful than anything if your tank isn't already deficient. If you're looking for more growth in your coral, you're much better off testing your alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium and dosing those accordingly based off of your test results. Those are the elements that are readily depleted by coral growing their skeletons and can be measured.

In your case, I still wouldn't dose any trace elements. With you're water change schedule, you're likely very close to natural levels for trace elements, and adding even a partial dose carries the risk of building up those elements in your tank which can be harmful.

If you're still not convinced, maybe try thinking of it as a daily vitamin. If you're already getting as many vitamins as you need through a healthy diet (water changes) than taking a multi vitamin supplement (trace elements) will only serve to overdose you on them. Will this hurt you right away? probably not, will it help? Probably not. Long term, who knows.