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Thread: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

  1. #1
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    Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    I had purchased 20 lbs of Miracle Mud before stumbling upon the ATS, so I never used it. I was going to sell it on eBay. As I was getting ready to list it, I started reading up on it again and noticed that they say it continuously replenishes trace minerals. Seeing as I have no N and very low P, and I'm dosing BRS 2-part for Alk and Cal, the only thing really missing is Trace. Other than that, I don't need to do PWCs at all and I would like to do away with them completely. Since you just need to replace 50% of the stuff every 2 years, it seems that adding some MM to an ATS-based filtration system would be a pretty good idea.

    I am wondering if anyone else is doing this currently. To me, it seems to make perfect sense - the marriage of two great ideas.

    So my idea is this: make an acrylic box that I can set in the sump to house about 10 lb of Miracle Mud. I would do this, because I don't like the idea of dumping the mud into the sump, plus I'd have to make some barriers, and I don't like the idea of not being able to disturb the stuff, or else end up with it all over the tank. I could drill a ton of holes in the box about 1" above the mud line and just let the water flowing through the sump move through the box. Since the flow through the sump out of the ATS box is pretty gentle - 2 1" pipes with combined 450GPH flow (likely to increase by 50% after some plumbing adjustments) - I could position it so that it will get flow, but the MM won't get kicked up, even when topping off to doing maintenance. I could even make a cover for it so that when I do need to do anything that will agitate the sump water, the MM doesn't get affected.

    So, is anyone doing anything like this?

  2. #2
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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    All the "trace" you need is in the food you feed.

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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    I have MM in a pre-scrubber installed refugium. I get cool things burrowing in it. Is it necessary ? No. But I used it to root some mangroves in and now I dont want to bother with removing it. I would sell it and buy a coral. JM2C
    75RR / 20g sump / DIY Scrubber / 3 x 150DE MH & single T5 actinic

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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    I appreciate the responses. I would like to know how feeding provides the only necessary trace elements. I would think it would depend on the food. For this tank, I'm feeding Rod's Food, Reef Nutrition Arcti-Pods(until bottle is gone) & Oyster Feast, Ocean Nutrtion I & II cubes, and some pellet food occasionally.

    From the Ecosystem website, it says:

    Miracle Mud® is a product of EcoSystem Aquarium®. Miracle Mud is comprised of up to 80% oceanic mud, harvested from deep waters, and is then dried on land. The remaining 20% is a formulation of minerals and trace elements that make Miracle Mud a true "MIRACLE." The mineral and trace element composition is as follows:

    Aluminum, antimony, barium, beryllium, bismuth, boron, bromine, cadmium, calcium, cerium, cesium, chromium, chloride, cobalt, dysprosium, erbium, europium, fluorine, gadolinium, gallium, germanium, gold, hafnium, holmium, indium, iodine, iridium, iron, lanthanum, lithium, lutetium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, neodymium, nickel, niobium, osmium, palladium, phosphorus, platinum, potassium, praseodymium, rhodium, rubidium, ruthenium, rhenium, samarium, selenium, silicon, silver, sodium, strontium, sulfur, tantalum, tellurium, terbium, thallium, thorium, thulium, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, ytterbium, yttrium, zinc, zirconium.
    So does the proper food supply all of these, or at least the ones that are most important?

    One of the elements I'm curious about is Strontium, because I've tested this tank several times before and after dosing a whole 500 mL bottle of Seachem Strontium and have yet to see anything over the minimum 3ppm (Salifert). It makes me wonder about other trace elements. I've also read that most salt mixes have trace concentrations elevated above natural seawater, such that PWCs supply plenty of what is needed, and any other supplements can throw off the balance and cause more problems. In the absence of the PWC, something needs to be done I would think.

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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    Think about it: The food you feed comes from living organisms. It is fed to living organisms. Except for iron for the algae, the traces you need are already there. You can not do any waterchanges, and not dose any traces, and it will be fine.

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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    Yea if you read the back of the food package you will see the minerals (trace elements) listed there. If you read the back of the "trace element" bottle you will find that it is mostly calcium in that bottle.

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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    So is the "trace" supplement market just self fulfilling? They make it, therefore people think they need it? Or is there a legitimate use for those supplements?

    Even if I don't try this idea, I might still hang on to the MM. I have one customer and another potential customer with Tangs with HLLE. I'm very interested in testing the claim that it can reverse this disease. Not sure what it is in MM that supposedly reverses the nearly irreversible disease, but would that also be produced by a well functioning ATS? I know there's that huge list of nutrients that the algae produces, not sure if there's a cross correlation...

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    Re: Anyone using Miracle Mud to replenish Trace?

    So is the "trace" supplement market just self fulfilling? They make it, therefore people think they need it?
    This is how most things work. Except it should say "if you promote it, they think they need it".

    It applies mostly to skimmers, but to traces to.

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