Welcome to our first ICP blog post. We will be putting up new posts regularly with information about ICP analysis, what it can do for you, how to best care for your aquarium, and more. So be sure to check back regularly for the latest updates.
To kick things off, we want to show you first hand how ICP analysis can help you take the best care possible of your aquariums. In order to do so, we will be regularly testing and treating four of our own coral tanks, regularly posting pictures and updates of each one for you to see. ICP testing will take place weekly, looking at various different elements such as barium, boron, iron, strontium, zinc, and iodine. This is by no means a comprehensive list, as our analysis tests for over 30 different elements. In testing, we will be looking for the optimum levels for growth and coloring for our corals.
As previously mentioned, we will be tracking four tanks:
- 1 SPS dominant tank
- 1 LPS dominant tank
- 1 SPS and LPS mix tank
- 1 soft coral dominant tank
Currently, we have two of the four up and running. The other two are in the process of being set up and cycled, and we will be giving updates on them as soon as possible.
SPS Tank
Meet our Red Sea Reefer 750, holding 200 gallons of water including the 40 gallon sump. It's been established for 1 month now and houses 2 Maxspect Gyre 280s, 3 Radion XR30 G4s, a Nyos Quantum 300 skimmer, and an Apex controller system.
We're primarily keeping acroporas in this tank, most notably the Walt Disney Acro. We do have a few other types of coral in here as well, such as a montipora, a favia, and a duncan, but the vast majority are acroporas. This also happens to be the tank we hold our four gem tangs in. You can see one who decided to become part of this photo op in the lower left hand corner.
LPS/SPS Mix Tank
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This tank is one of the renowned, Italian-made, Elos tanks, complete with a Reef Octopus Elite 200 skimmer, 3 Radion XR30 G4s, a Vertex Calcium Reactor, a KH Guardian, and an Apex controller system. It's much more established than our previous tank, having been in use for about a year now.
Our Elos is home to a variety of different corals: a Bounce Mushroom, Acroporas, a Flower Pot, an Acan, some Zoas, an Elegance Coral a Scoly, 2 Maxima Clams, and more. This is also where we happen to have our Zebra Tang swimming around. He was a little more shy than our gem tang in the picture above, but he's definitely loved his Elos home.
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Be sure to check back to find out about our new tanks that will be set up and for the updates on our established tanks. We're excited to bring you on this journey with us and to show you how ICP Analysis testing is able to help these corals thrive and flourish.
If you are interested in getting ICP Analysis for your own tanks, you can purchase test kits here.