Kent essential elements..

Anyone has had problems using Kent Essential Elements? I've had many algae

 

Your algae problem is not from the Kents. There is absolutely nothing in it that would feed nuisance algae.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this. Trace elements absolutely feed nuisance algae. Isn't essential elements trace elements? It's something we don't typically discuss or think about, as we can't test trace elements; so, out of sight, out of mind. However an overdose of trace elements could definitely be the cause of nuisance algae. I think that's pretty well established actually.


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+1 I abide by the rule if you can't test it don't dose it. Water changes are the best way to replace trace elements IMO.

 

Interesting. Do you have evidence of this being established?

 

Sure, trace element limitation is pretty well studied in marine algae. The primary scientific literature has a seemingly endless supply of studies relating various trace elements to algae blooms.

Iron being the most common, just to point out a few(there are lots more)

Coral reef death during the 1997 Indian Ocean dipole linked to Indonesian wildfires. Abram et al. Science 2003

Black reefs: iron-induced phase shifts on coral reefs. Kelly et al. The ISME Journal 2011

Iron and molybdenum on cyanobacteria

Micronutrient effects on cyanobacterial growth and physiology
Ruetera and Petersena New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 1987

effects on macro algae

Effect of Certain Trace Elements and Soil Extract on Some Marine Algae Nasr and Bekheet Hydrobiologia 1970


yada, yada, yada...


Also has been discuses quite a bit in the hobby literature. For example see:


Marine Reef Aquarium Handbook. Robert Goldstein 2007

or

Trace element deficiency in the coral-reef Aquarium. Dieter Brockmann. Coral Magazine March/April 2011


Anything particular your specifically interest in?

 

Not really. Just interesting that I had never seen this come up or even thought of it that way. Never thought of overdosing any chemicals as an algae source until now.

 

That's the thing, out of sight, out of mind. I doubt many people think about it. Put more intuitively though, simple organisms, such as algae tend to grow unless too much of something, such as a toxin, or too little of something, such as a nutrient or trace element is inhibiting growth. We always think about N and P because we can test for them, but we also know that they are higher in our systems than the ocean. As algae grows in the ocean, it seems logical to conclude that in many cases anyways, there must be something else inhibiting growth.