Trace elements are elements that are present in natural seawater in a concentration lower than approx. 1 mg/L or ppm. Some of these elements are essential to make many biological processes possible:
• Manganese is essential for photosynthesis and many biochemical reactions associated with it.
• Iron is required by some organisms to absorb essential nutrients.
• Cobalt is essential for the formation of several coral pigments.
• Zinc, like manganese, is essential for photosynthesis and also for the formation of calcium carbonate by corals.
Salifert's research has shown that some trace elements are depleted very fast (e.g. Manganese) while some are depleted very slowly. An example of a trace element that hardly depletes is molybdenum. Despite this, many trace element supplements contain significant amounts of molybdenum. This results in far too high molybdenum concentration which stimulates undesirable cyanobacteria growth. Salifert's supplements do not contain molybdenum.
Although every aquarium is different, Salifert has succeeded in designing trace element supplements which add sufficient trace elements to make corals thrive, yet avoid overdosing. The largest difference between trace element usage is between hard corals and soft/leather corals and coralline algae. We have therefore designed two different supplements:-
Trace Hard - a trace element mix for hard corals.
Both can be combined according to the approximate ratio of the aquarium inhabitants. In this way, a very close to perfect formulation of trace elements for different aquariums is possible.Since addition of iodine is impossible without degrading this supplement, all forms of iodine are omitted. Salifert's Natural Iodine is recommended to complete the full range of trace elements.
