ICP oddities

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RonS

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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
 
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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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.
 
milliaddict said:

Here is the report I mentioned.


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Click to expand...

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?!???!??
 
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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jcook54 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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 :p
 
Eric_n_Ga said:
Are you filtering your drinking water ? If so I'd be more concerned with the uranium ?
Click to expand...

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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Uranium could be anything really. I’d bet it’s in the metal of something - either a magnet, heater, probe, etc.
 
Eric_n_Ga said:
A little uranium never hurt anyone :D
Click to expand...

No, but a lot is another story :p

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...)
 
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.
 
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 :D
 
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