Jump to content

ICP Test Results are in...


A.ocellaris

Recommended Posts

Hey!

 

I have been away from the forum for a few weeks and also stopped buying corals and fish. As some of you may know, I have some trouble keeping corals, even soft corals. Fish die without explanation and I decided to get my water tested. Here are the result and I am looking for people with some knowledge on how to get this fixed :(. 

 

Salinity
34.23
KH
10.31
ATI recommends
Adjust dosage of alkalinity and calcium. Nickel and vanadium are drastically elevated, find source (corroding metals/magnets, RO water, salt).
 
The full report is attached.
 
The RODI water has elevated Silicon (288.5 µg/l). They recommended to replace resin.
 
 

tank.pdf

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 69
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

1 hour ago, AlanM said:

Gotta be a magnet, maybe on a feeding clip, maybe on a pump impeller, less likely cracked heater.

 

I dont use magnet cleaner and pumps seems to be in good condition. I've always suspected of  the black sand.. which is magnetic...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dpassar12 said:

2nd time in a week I have heard high vanadium and tank death. I will text my friend maybe you two can work out where it is coming from.

 

 

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting.  Let me ask at my lab if they'd run a test for me.  If they say yes I'll grab a sample of that sand from you and we can see if it has nickel and vanadium in it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your metals are crazy high. I've seen elevated vanadium and nickel. In fact, I had high nickel  not all that long ago and, while I suspected a magnet, I could not find anything that would be the source. However, I did (after sending my well water in for ICP analysis) find that my well water had traces of nickel in it and I'd guessed that it was accumulating in my tank during a period of time that I was testing running without a DI stage (because of high CO2 and the high cost of DI resin which was depleting very rapidly). The bottom line of this strategy was that I started losing corals (STN, not RTN). Ultiimately, I added a cation resin stage back to my RO/DI system to capture positive ions (like the metals) and my tank seems to have recovered.

 

I noticed the other day that BRS is now selling both mixed and cation/anion resins.

 

First question for you, though: Are you using RO/DI water for your top off and change water? If not, why not. And if so, what TDS reading are you getting from your pure water (because it's clearly not pure)? All that metal has to be coming from somewhere. Also, did you, by chance, test your RO/DI water or your tap water? For metals to be that high, it's either accumulating over time or you've possibly got a a failed membrane and you're exhausting your DI resin very, very fast. I wouldn't just change out your resin if your membrane has failed. Check TDS of your tap water, water out of your RO stage (after it's been running for about 5 minutes), and water out of your DI stage. Report these numbers back if you can.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, AlanM said:

Interesting.  Let me ask at my lab if they'd run a test for me.  If they say yes I'll grab a sample of that sand from you and we can see if it has nickel and vanadium in it.

Black sand? Magnetic? Interesting.  Metals from that source are definitely a possibility if they can dissolve/leach back into the water. What do we know about the sand? Has the same sand been used in other reef tanks?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Origami said:

Your metals are crazy high. I've seen elevated vanadium and nickel. In fact, I had high nickel  not all that long ago and, while I suspected a magnet, I could not find anything that would be the source. However, I did (after sending my well water in for ICP analysis) find that my well water had traces of nickel in it and I'd guessed that it was accumulating in my tank during a period of time that I was testing running without a DI stage (because of high CO2 and the high cost of DI resin which was depleting very rapidly). The bottom line of this strategy was that I started losing corals (STN, not RTN). Ultiimately, I added a cation resin stage back to my RO/DI system to capture positive ions (like the metals) and my tank seems to have recovered.

 

I noticed the other day that BRS is now selling both mixed and cation/anion resins.

 

First question for you, though: Are you using RO/DI water for your top off and change water? If not, why not. And if so, what TDS reading are you getting from your pure water (because it's clearly not pure)? All that metal has to be coming from somewhere. Also, did you, by chance, test your RO/DI water or your tap water? For metals to be that high, it's either accumulating over time or you've possibly got a a failed membrane and you're exhausting your DI resin very, very fast. I wouldn't just change out your resin if your membrane has failed. Check TDS of your tap water, water out of your RO stage (after it's been running for about 5 minutes), and water out of your DI stage. Report these numbers back if you can.

 

Thank you, Origami.

 

I do use RODI water and I change my resin after reading 4-5 TDS. It currently reads 2ppm after the resin. I've also received results from the RODI water sample and it came high in silicon, not metals. See attached. TDS number from tap water is around 200. 

 

I've had pH issues, dropping to 7.43 so not sure if this low pH dissolved some of the metals contained in he sand? According to the water sample results, it does not look like the source is the water.

 

Regarding the sand, this is the one I bought when I set up my tank and it supposed to be "reef safe":

https://www.chewy.com/caribsea-super-naturals-tahitian/dp/174177?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=hg&utm_content=CaribSea&utm_term=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIr6aqx9783gIVyQOGCh1u6Qw3EAQYAiABEgKgUfD_BwE

 

 

 

Water Results.pdf

Edited by A.ocellaris
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is interesting:

 

 

In the video description, Toni Maier (the person who posted the video) says, "This sand has killed so many of my inverts. I thought it was my water or decor but finally figured it out. It’s full of heavy metals."

 

Look at the comments. Two other people had issues similar to yours. I can't say that this is the smoking gun, but it's looking like a prime candidate.

 

Rodney Cook, 7 months ago: "I had the same experience. If you are raising shrimp, DO NOT USE TAHITIAN MOON SAND. It cost me about $200 to restart 2 tanks after figuring out my substrate was poisoning my shrimp. The product should be sold with a warning label. And I would not trust it to be good for my fish either."

 


Denise Sproull, 1 month ago: "Killed my fish too...and I really rinsed it."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had black sand like that in my Office Nano. I was warned it was magnetic from some people, but it was more gravel than sand, and I never noticed the pieces getting stuck to my magnet cleaner. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Origami said:

This is interesting:

 

 

In the video description, Toni Maier (the person who posted the video) says, "This sand has killed so many of my inverts. I thought it was my water or decor but finally figured it out. It’s full of heavy metals."

 

Look at the comments. Two other people had issues similar to yours. I can't say that this is the smoking gun, but it's looking like a prime candidate.

 

Yep. I can't have hermits, they all die within a week. I tried 2  cleaner shrimps and 2 peppermint shrimps and they died... in a matter of days. SPS get RTN

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, YHSublime said:

I had black sand like that in my Office Nano. I was warned it was magnetic from some people, but it was more gravel than sand, and I never noticed the pieces getting stuck to my magnet cleaner. 

 

Yes. I got rid of my magnet cleaner because I was scratching the glass with the sand sticking to the magnet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it possible to siphon all the sand out over several days, then perform a 100% water change?

 

Siphoning out the sand in stages would give bacteria (if there's much alive in there) a chance to colonize other surfaces more completely. And the 100% water change would obviously be to drop those metal levels to zero. At that point, I'd add a polyfilter to the system to pick up any heavy metals that might possibly leach out of rock. Run this way until things stabilize and then put something new, small and cheap in the tank (a "canary") to see if things have improved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Origami said:

Is it possible to siphon all the sand out over several days, then perform a 100% water change?

 

Siphoning out the sand in stages would give bacteria (if there's much alive in there) a chance to colonize other surfaces more completely. And the 100% water change would obviously be to drop those metal levels to zero. At that point, I'd add a polyfilter to the system to pick up any heavy metals that might possibly leach out of rock. Run this way until things stabilize and then put something new, small and cheap in the tank (a "canary") to see if things have improved.

 

Its going to be difficult, but not impossible. ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, A.ocellaris said:

Its going to be difficult, but not impossible. ?

I hear ya. It's a lot of work for something that's only suspected of being at the root of this problem. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Origami said:

I hear ya. It's a lot of work for something that's only suspected of being at the root of this problem. 

 

 

I tried to do it and I have to re-design the entire rockwork. Ill do it at once, i dont think I will have energy to do it by phases lol. I think it is impossible to take it out 100%. There will be traces somewhere. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You’ll eventually get there. I did it in my tank over water changes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you verify that you sand is magnetized? I did a quick search and seem to indicated that there is only one type of black sand that is partially magnetic. So it might not be the source of your problem and you will be back to square one. Just my opinion.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, flooddc said:

Have you verify that you sand is magnetized? I did a quick search and seem to indicated that there is only one type of black sand that is partially magnetic. So it might not be the source of your problem and you will be back to square one. Just my opinion.  

 

Yes. It is magnetized (it sticks to magnets). Istabilized the pH. Now the sand. If that does not work, Ill continue with the marinepure biosphere. Lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, A.ocellaris said:

 

Yes. It is magnetized (it sticks to magnets). Istabilized the pH. Now the sand. If that does not work, Ill continue with the marinepure biosphere. Lol

?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Sharkey18 said:

In the description of the sand it claims to "detoxify metals".  

 

I would definitely get rid of the sand. 

 

 

I didn’t recall seeing it in his post about his sand. Maybe I missed it. Since he confirmed that his sand magnetized, then it might no be a waste of time to do all that work. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have Nature's Ocean black sand and while some of it does stick to magnet, I don't have any issues with measurable metals leaching into the water. This doesn't mean the sand isn't the issue but there may be something else lurking in your tank/sump. I had a magnetic float sensor crack open that started to oxidize (while I was out of town naturally) that caused some issues; investigate everything. 

 

44034390521_3f9a74447b_c.jpg

Edited by madweazl
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...