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Another rant on testing

At some point I had to admit that I can’t test for everything, nor do I (or really anyone else) know exactly how all this works. So many things are connected and work together in so many ways I just had to kind of turn my back at some point and admit there’s a lot I don’t know and just focus on the basics that I (think) I do know. Regular Water changes with “good” water, alk/ca/mg, temp, SG, lighting, feed the fish, and flow. If I do all that and it doesn’t work there’s something else going on, and sometimes that happens. Most of the time tanks do great with the basics (for me).
If I worry about Too many “little things” it’s easy to lose sight of the “more important” stuff which doesn’t wind up helping.
Have I had an issue with iodine being too high or low before? Probably. I’ve never once checked it. Not saying don’t worry about it. Saying worry about it some, maybe, but not more than other “bigger” stuff. If you’ve got everything else dialed well enough that you can stress over iodine then your tank should be awesome already!
 
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My iodine also got way too high on Isol8:MT dosing, similar to @derek_SR. I had some coral loss and others not looking good, but who knows if it was that or something else. Other minor and trace elements were undetectable, so it’s not like I was just overdosing it. I would not recommend anyone to use it at this point.
 
JVU said:
My iodine also got way too high on Isol8:MT dosing, similar to @derek_SR. I had some coral loss and others not looking good, but who knows if it was that or something else. Other minor and trace elements were undetectable, so it’s not like I was just overdosing it. I would not recommend anyone to use it at this point.
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Duly noted!
I am/was using tropic Marin’s trace elements. The iodine and strontium were really high but everything else was essentially not detected which I find odd..
 
Kensington Reefer said:
IMHE and just my experience….
Don’t chase numbers
Read your tank
Water changes are your best friend (assuming new water is ideal)
And feed your livestock!
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Oh I feed my livestock alright -about 9x a day!
My tank overall ok but there are certainly a few unhappy members! Been slowly losing a few corals here and there..
 
Coral reefer said:
At some point I had to admit that I can’t test for everything, nor do I (or really anyone else) know exactly how all this works. So many things are connected and work together in so many ways I just had to kind of turn my back at some point and admit there’s a lot I don’t know and just focus on the basics that I (think) I do know. Regular Water changes with “good” water, alk/ca/mg, temp, SG, lighting, feed the fish, and flow. If I do all that and it doesn’t work there’s something else going on, and sometimes that happens. Most of the time tanks do great with the basics (for me).
If I worry about Too many “little things” it’s easy to lose sight of the “more important” stuff which doesn’t wind up helping.
Have I had an issue with iodine being too high or low before? Probably. I’ve never once checked it. Not saying don’t worry about it. Saying worry about it some, maybe, but not more than other “bigger” stuff. If you’ve got everything else dialed well enough that you can stress over iodine then your tank should be awesome already!
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Certainly can’t test for everything-and supposedly the hobby testers for iodine are really not accurate per my reading on the subject.

Only reason why iodine made my radar was that a few shrimp died due to molting issues some time back..
 
L/B Block said:
How long have you been dosing LC for?
My understanding is that it’s not good dosing LT but perhaps not?

I really don’t like GFO as I can’t control the PO4 and always concerned about the dust. Right now PO4 is about .5 but would like to get it lower…
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For at least a year. I use Rich’s method and slow dose it directly into the skimmer body. It works incredibly well, is incredibly cheap, and very low maintenance. I think a lot of folks use lanthanum, including the Steinhart (dosed ahead of the sand filter).

Some people just dose it directly to the tank, although I would be careful going that route - skimmer or filter sock is best.

I think more and more reefers are avoiding GFO these days. It’s proven to strip several trace elements from the water, @Alexander1312 might know which exactly. It’s also just messy and difficult to regulate!
 
derek_SR said:
For at least a year. I use Rich’s method and slow dose it directly into the skimmer body. It works incredibly well, is incredibly cheap, and very low maintenance. I think a lot of folks use lanthanum, including the Steinhart (dosed ahead of the sand filter).

Some people just dose it directly to the tank, although I would be careful going that route - skimmer or filter sock is best.

I think more and more reefers are avoiding GFO these days. It’s proven to strip several trace elements from the water, @Alexander1312 might know which exactly. It’s also just messy and difficult to regulate!
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Interesting. You have a link to Rich’s method or rather link it into the protein skimmer body and that’s it? Or is there more to know.
 
L/B Block said:
Interesting. You have a link to Rich’s method or rather link it into the protein skimmer body and that’s it? Or is there more to know.
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He talks about it in Reef Beef, but you basically just run a dosing tube down into your skimmer.

I also covered it quite a bit in my tank journal IIRC
 
derek_SR said:
For at least a year. I use Rich’s method and slow dose it directly into the skimmer body. It works incredibly well, is incredibly cheap, and very low maintenance. I think a lot of folks use lanthanum, including the Steinhart (dosed ahead of the sand filter).

Some people just dose it directly to the tank, although I would be careful going that route - skimmer or filter sock is best.

I think more and more reefers are avoiding GFO these days. It’s proven to strip several trace elements from the water, @Alexander1312 might know which exactly. It’s also just messy and difficult to regulate!
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I've been using aluminum oxide. It's much cleaner and pulls phosphate out slower than GFO.
 
So I don't like a lot of the things in this article. First it's not peer reviewed so it's as worthwhile as a hobbyist investigation. Second the company is directly trying to sell you their ICP testing and adjustment TE solutions. Third, their "materials and methods" are just testing a static system with no dynamic inputs (e.g. when we feed, have animals poop, etc.) and don't say what volumes of adsorption media they're using vs. 10 bed volumes of water.

This is the statement that I'd keep in your head: As a result, displacement reactions can occur, so that elements are displaced from the adsorber when elements bind with higher affinity.

So this may change as each molecule has a different binding affinity over time (does phosphate bind stronger than other elements?).

It isn't clear if they measure samples in triplicate and they report as -% reduction but the increases are just + to +++? Not a very good look if your assay method is your livelihood and you can't be bothered to list real numbers. This is like saying my car got 50% worse gas mileage because I had some mystery amount of extra weight in the trunk but removing it led to 4 smurfs worth of efficiency!

No error bars either meaning no sample replication. Single lots of media.

Honestly we could do a MUCH better job here within the club. I'd take water change water out of a system, take t=0 samples x3, run washed media in a reactor at recommended volume, take t=1h samples x3, 12h x3 and 72h x3. Then compare.

Total study cost would be about $500/medium type assuming no bulk discounts from the ICP testing company. Should be easy to do.

Granted this is still a static system, but it's much better designed and probably easily improved when we sit down and design it.
 
Darkxerox said:
So I don't like a lot of the things in this article. First it's not peer reviewed so it's as worthwhile as a hobbyist investigation. Second the company is directly trying to sell you their ICP testing and adjustment TE solutions. Third, their "materials and methods" are just testing a static system with no dynamic inputs (e.g. when we feed, have animals poop, etc.) and don't say what volumes of adsorption media they're using vs. 10 bed volumes of water.

This is the statement that I'd keep in your head: As a result, displacement reactions can occur, so that elements are displaced from the adsorber when elements bind with higher affinity.

So this may change as each molecule has a different binding affinity over time (does phosphate bind stronger than other elements?).

It isn't clear if they measure samples in triplicate and they report as -% reduction but the increases are just + to +++? Not a very good look if your assay method is your livelihood and you can't be bothered to list real numbers. This is like saying my car got 50% worse gas mileage because I had some mystery amount of extra weight in the trunk but removing it led to 4 smurfs worth of efficiency!

No error bars either meaning no sample replication. Single lots of media.

Honestly we could do a MUCH better job here within the club. I'd take water change water out of a system, take t=0 samples x3, run washed media in a reactor at recommended volume, take t=1h samples x3, 12h x3 and 72h x3. Then compare.

Total study cost would be about $500/medium type assuming no bulk discounts from the ICP testing company. Should be easy to do.

Granted this is still a static system, but it's much better designed and probably easily improved when we sit down and design it.
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Sounds fun!
Also, I prefer as many smurfs as I can when it comes to efficiency.
 
Darkxerox said:
So I don't like a lot of the things in this article. First it's not peer reviewed so it's as worthwhile as a hobbyist investigation. Second the company is directly trying to sell you their ICP testing and adjustment TE solutions. Third, their "materials and methods" are just testing a static system with no dynamic inputs (e.g. when we feed, have animals poop, etc.) and don't say what volumes of adsorption media they're using vs. 10 bed volumes of water.

This is the statement that I'd keep in your head: As a result, displacement reactions can occur, so that elements are displaced from the adsorber when elements bind with higher affinity.

So this may change as each molecule has a different binding affinity over time (does phosphate bind stronger than other elements?).

It isn't clear if they measure samples in triplicate and they report as -% reduction but the increases are just + to +++? Not a very good look if your assay method is your livelihood and you can't be bothered to list real numbers. This is like saying my car got 50% worse gas mileage because I had some mystery amount of extra weight in the trunk but removing it led to 4 smurfs worth of efficiency!

No error bars either meaning no sample replication. Single lots of media.

Honestly we could do a MUCH better job here within the club. I'd take water change water out of a system, take t=0 samples x3, run washed media in a reactor at recommended volume, take t=1h samples x3, 12h x3 and 72h x3. Then compare.

Total study cost would be about $500/medium type assuming no bulk discounts from the ICP testing company. Should be easy to do.

Granted this is still a static system, but it's much better designed and probably easily improved when we sit down and design it.
Click to expand...


I will say that I had read this before my morning coffee. Concur with all your opinions on the article (that is trying to sell a product and unknown to number of times they performed analysis on each absorbent material)

So I put ChatGPT to work on it and in different places it is cited that GFO can really strip out certain trace element (I can get the citations). Is it scientific -hardly..

Would it be worth repeating the experiment and actually getting into a peer reviewed journal with actual quantifiable results-maybe.

Just good backhand knowledge to have in my view. Now to work on phosphates..

@Coral reefer-speaking of elements -so I started using the AF mysis which I think you use in your automated doser-packs a punch in respects to phosphates & nitrates..
jumped my PO4 by .3x and nitrates by 15. Don’t need to dose nitrates anymore!!!
 
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