ICP oddities

[RonS]

Just got back my ICP results. My RODI water got "zeros" across the board, with the exception of .02 ppm "Phosphorus".

As for my tank water... I had some interesting numbers in some places that I didn't expect:

Lithium - .57ppm (500% of recommended value)

Rubidium - .14ppm (should be zero?)

Uranium - .01ppm (!!!)

Anyone have any experience with these? Know if they should be there, what's harmful, etc?

Just curious, as these seem to be fairly unusual elements.

--Ron

 

[milliaddict]

Fritz did a really good article on icp a few months back I will see if I can find the link.
I wouldn’t stress at all over any outlier icp results a lot of those really are not that important in a reef tank.

If you really want to get into icp testing all that matters is the trends (unless you have a current issue and you are trying to isolate it)

The downfall with this is, you would have to do at minimum once a month testing To get somewhat useable data.
A few of the companies recommend something like two or three test a week for real data, which would cost a fortune to do.

The other thing to keep in mind is there is some human error aloud in ICP one the sample is tested a lab tech has to interpret the result and record the values it’s not a simple number coming out of the machines.


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[milliaddict]

https://fritzaquatics.com/assets/files/uploads/ICP_TES.pdf

Here is the report I mentioned.


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[jcook54]

I've heard that Reef Crystals has a lot of lithium. I've never done the research but I believe @Adam switched away from RC for that very reason. I've noticed it high on my ICP tests but haven't taken any steps to change or do anything about it.

 

[RonS]

https://fritzaquatics.com/assets/files/uploads/ICP_TES.pdf

Here is the report I mentioned.


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Yah, I'm not stressing (well, maybe about the Uranium!). My tank is doing mostly OK, other than green hair algae (slowly winning that fight via carbon dosing). But I am having an issue with recent die-off of all of my trochus snails, and my nassarius and fighting conchs are all "stunned" or dormant and have been for a while. I reduced my temperature, which maybe helped a tiny bit. I need to test again, but nitrates haven't been awful (the GHA is taking care of that ; )

So... I'm thinking it's probably chemical. May be some sort of pollutant, but I'd like to rule out the simpler/elemental possibilities

Plus... Uranium?!???!??

 

[milliaddict]

What’s your phosphate testing at?

And yeah the uranium freaked me out the first time I did one too! But apparently there’s tiny tiny tiny amounts in pretty much everything


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[RonS]

I've heard that Reef Crystals has a lot of lithium. I've never done the research but I believe @Adam switched away from RC for that very reason. I've noticed it high on my ICP tests but haven't taken any steps to change or do anything about it.

I generally use ESV salt, which "should" be fairly pure. I recently switched to Red Sea because I couldn't get ESV. I hate the Red Sea, but I kind of doubt they are too bad(?).

ESV is generally pretty responsive. I may ask them if they think the Li/Rb/Se is coming from them.

I also am about +25% on Sulphur, but that doesn't bother me. Now, I have 300% of Silicon, but my 9 months of diatom/slime algae hell pretty much made that clear

 

[Eric_n_Ga]

Are you filtering your drinking water ? If so I'd be more concerned with the uranium ?

 

[RonS]

Are you filtering your drinking water ? If so I'd be more concerned with the uranium ?

Well, the RODI test shows no Uranium (everything zero except for a tiny amount of Phosphorus). So, the Uranium is coming from the tank itself. Maybe the sand...?


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[Shawn]

Uranium could be anything really. I’d bet it’s in the metal of something - either a magnet, heater, probe, etc.

 

[Eric_n_Ga]

A little uranium never hurt anyone

 

[RonS]

A little uranium never hurt anyone

No, but a lot is another story

Seriously, the human body probably averages more than .01 ppm these days. I just didn't expect it to show up on the test (didn't think they'd even test for it...)

 

[Valhoon]

Background radiation and mercury concentrations would be a bigger cause of concern for our safety than that infantile amount of uranium. I'm sure if you ran a good enough analysis of some dirt from your yard you'd likely find more in that.

 

[RonS]

LOL - I couldn't take it any more, so I looked it up.... average US Uranium soil concentration is 3ppm. So the .01 in the tank probably came from under my fingernails