# Doubts about trace elements



## Markovzky (25 May 2021)

Hi

What is the importance in plants of the micronutrients Vanadium, Rubido, Nickel and Cobalt?

there is very little information about it.

Seachem's "Flourish Trace" product contains these elements, however, I was investigating an economical alternative to dose all the necessary microelements by means of salts but I did not find any of the mentioned

Greetings


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## Driftless (25 May 2021)

I use 2Hr Aquarist APT Complete and those micronutrients are not included.


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## ceg4048 (26 May 2021)

Markovzky said:


> What is the importance in plants of the micronutrients Vanadium, Rubido, Nickel and Cobalt?
> there is very little information about it.
> 
> Seachem's "Flourish Trace" product contains these elements, however, I was investigating an economical alternative to dose all the necessary microelements by means of salts but I did not find any of the mentioned


Hello,
          The elements you've listed have very little importance (not familiar with "Rubido?") and I suggest purchasing less expensive trace mixes containing the standard elements.

Cheers,


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## Zeus. (26 May 2021)

Very few ferts (if any) contain the range of trace elements that Seachem's "Flourish Trace" does, but its so watered down its virtually just water. I did the maths for Nickel and my tap water already has plenty for the plants. Some folks using RO water do add Nickel and fewer still add some Cobalt. If you wish to add some Ni or Co the IFC Aquarium Fertilizer Calculator has a DIY trace section which does all the maths for your target ppm for Ni and Co


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## X3NiTH (26 May 2021)

I use remineralised RO/DI so I add the Nickel but I omit the Cobalt (have it but don’t use it). I don’t add Cobalt because of its centrality in Cobalamin (Vitamin B12) and that Black Beard Algae is replete with it, had a problem with BBA before and I don’t now, at least if it’s present it’s unable to grow filamentous.

I’ve found it very difficult to source a salt for Rubidium and Vanadium and I suspect they may be contaminants in a source for one or more of the other elements Seachem are using (how pure are their base ingredients, medical grade or industrial grade?) and because they could be of use to plants they mention it. They run the sample through a mass spectrometer and pick out the things they are interested in. They could be purposely adding these nutrients though and I could be talking nonsense!

The Iron source they are using (Flourish Comprehensive) will likely come with its own contaminants but at the dilution they are using they won’t need to mention there being potentially parts per trillion of Mercury and/or Arsenic unless they use absolute pure compounds or processes to sequester these from the final solute (these values will be equivalent to very low background levels and as such not worth mentioning, low enough to be used as food grade and thus safe for human digestion).

The bottle label is representative of the things they want you to believe.


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## dw1305 (26 May 2021)

Hi all, 


X3NiTH said:


> I’ve found it very difficult to source a salt for Rubidium and Vanadium


I'm not sure about rubidium (Rb), but you can purchase ammonium metavanadate (NH4VO3) fairly easily. It is used as reagent in phosphate extraction from soils. 


X3NiTH said:


> I suspect they may be contaminants in a source for one or more of the other elements Seachem are using (how pure are their base ingredients, medical grade or industrial grade?) and because they could be of use to plants they mention it. They run the sample through a mass spectrometer and pick out the things they are interested in.


I'd be absolutely amazed if that wasn't the answer.

cheers Darrel


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## tiger15 (26 May 2021)

Most of the traces except iron are already present in tap water and fish food contaminants in sufficient levels given plants demand on traces is tiny.  If you do regular water change and don’t use RO water, there is little chance you will have deficiency of traces.  Iron stands out only because it is not in food or tap water in bio available form.  So dosing Flourish comprehensive is beneficial mainly in providing gluconate iron.

At least one brand of all in one plant food, API Leaf Zone, contains only potassium and chelated iron, which are the minimum nutrients many plant growers can get by.


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## X3NiTH (27 May 2021)

Depending on what remediation tap water has been through and where it is sourced Trace metal levels can drop to some very low levels, take for instance Manganese and Iron, both of these are present at quite decent background levels but if the levels are high then when it gets to a water treatment plant sometimes they will add Aluminium compounds that sequester/flocculate these metals out of solution, other compounds may be used to strip further contaminating elements out the water if present and these may take some of the more desirable metals with it, not always but sometimes. The reason for doing this for Manganese and Iron is that levels that are beneficial for plants will make water taste foul, 0.05ppm of Manganese will do this, not only does it adjust the flavour but it can also cause brown staining to laundry, everyone likes their whites white so it’s remediated for so strong detergents/oxidising compounds are less likely going to be entering the sewer system causing its own set of problems. It is costly to provide clean potable water but sometimes it’s worth the expense to both domestic and industrial end users. No one likes brown water out the tap, too much mystery for those that don’t know or don’t care to know! Personally I freaked out as a kid having to take a bath in brown water out the tap (did you know you can hide tasty brown water in a cup of tea quite easily) while staying in some idyllic getaway in Granton on Spey (early 70’s, most probably a Skiing trip to Aviemore, back in the day when it was single track road with passing places just north of Perth to get there), remembered Dad muttering (protesting really) something Peat something something Peat and just to get on with it and be lucky the waters hot!

Talking about Holidays, I’ve never been but if you look up Trip Advisor or other tourist Feedback sites for Vilnius in Lithuania the comments are replete with complaints of how bad the water tastes, not just bad but like really bad, the funny thing is Lithuania gets all its water from 5 different aquifers and they are all rich in Iron and Manganese and other metals, entirely safe to drink once it’s been chlorinated and probably quite good for you (there’s a spring somewhere near one of these aquifers that they actually bottle the water neat and sell on as a health tonic). The other reason I mention this is that I seem to recollect someone from Lithuania posting about never needing to add Traces to his tank and that we are all mad for overdosing our tanks with EI levels of fertiliser when it’s not needed. I should point out that I might be remembering the forum interaction differently or even remembering a response I never posted (save me Darrel @dw1305) but my thoughts were they should have looked at the water report first before commenting or at least paid attention to state of their rusty taps.

Not all water is the same, you can’t trust you have all that is needed unless you have access to a detailed water report that actually lists the concentrations present in the water in both high and low numbers that you can deduce an average. If you don’t know then it’s always best to at least add some.

Ramble over!


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## tiger15 (27 May 2021)

X3NiTH said:


> Not all water is the same, you can’t trust you have all that is needed unless you have access to a detailed water report that actually lists the concentrations present in the water in both high and low numbers that you can deduce an average. If you don’t know then it’s always best to at least add some.
> 
> Ramble over!


I agree that, depending on the source, there can be substantial variation of minerals in tap water. Typically, groundwater has more minerals than river water which in turn has more minerals than reservoir water.  Note that not just tap water can contain trace minerals, fish food can also contain many.  I am reading the ingredient list of one brand of fish food I use, New Life Spectrum pellets, contains ferrous sulfate, manganese sulfate and cobalt sulfate in a long list of other declared and undeclared ingredients.  So even if the tap water may be deficient in some traces, the fish food will more than likely make up for them given plant's demand for traces is so minute to be satisfied.

However, since few people have access to full analysis of their water and fish food, it won't hurt to just dose comprehensive traces in case.


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## Happi (1 Jul 2021)

I will step in and comment on some of these chemicals because I have added them to my micro's. I have not seen any benefit or not noticed much of a difference when Vanadium or rubidium was added. I only add Nickel for the sake of the Urea, you can skip on nickel if you are using a tap water.  I also tried Cobalt and didn't notice much of a difference in plants but I did notice a difference in algae, there was more algae appearing when Cobalt alone or Cobalt and Nickel were combined. BBA and some green algae were seen more often under the Co and Ni combination. Co and Ni were used at 0.0005 - 0.002 ppm range  in case if you are wondering.  while when Mo and Ni were combined there was less algae and good plant growth. Mo was added at 0.002-0.004 and Ni was added at much lower numbers 0.000006 - 0.0005 ppm.

Molybdenum on the other hand was less prone to algae, I even added 2x more than what Tropica added, I normally recommended adding more Mo when your main source of Nitrogen is NO3 based. my very first Original Recipe had more Mn and Mo added to them.

*in conclusion you truly only need Fe, Mn, B, Cu, Zn, Mo far as Micro goes and in some cases Ni if you are heavy Urea user. Mo itself will take care of the Nitrogen fixation which is mostly present in our aquarium as NO3, on the other hand NH4 itself can skip these needed steps. I wouldn't worry about Vanadium or rubidium as they serve no true noticeable differences.*


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