Chloride (lower) and Sulfur (too high) ICP

[Miami Reef]

Sulfate should be the third highest ingredient in it after magnesium and chloride.

Do you think it’s helpful to send a sample of it for ICP? Would it help determine if that’s the cause of my accumulating sulfate?

 

[TeeJay87]

It is added directly to the tank or to new salt water?

I think safe to assume it’s added directly to the tank though technically I’ve mostly done it by pulling out a bucket of tank water (4 gallons) and adding the sodium bisulfate with aeration until pH stabilizes, then adding that bucket back to the tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do you think it’s helpful to send a sample of it for ICP? Would it help determine if that’s the cause of my accumulating sulfate?

Well, it could, yes. It will require some data analysis on the answer to know if it is right or not.

@Christoph

Christoph, if Miami wanted to determine sulfate and a couple other ions (say, magnesium and potassium) how would you suggest he go about it starting from Balling Part C solids?

 

[Christoph]

Well, it could, yes. It will require some data analysis on the answer to know if it is right or not.

@Christoph

Christoph, if Miami wanted to determine sulfate and a couple other ions (say, magnesium and potassium) how would you suggest he go about it starting from Balling Part C solids?

Good question, Randy!

Please never send such "special" samples as standard Seawater samples, since this might cause significant isues in the lab.

It would be possible to dissolve ~ 2 g of the raw salt in 1 l of high purity RO. We could than measure just IC and would have access to Na, K, Mg, Ca, F, Cl, NO3, NO2, SO4, Br - i guess that would be sufficient in this case.


BR, Christoph

 

[Miami Reef]

Good question, Randy!

Please never send such "special" samples as standard Seawater samples, since this might cause significant isues in the lab.

It would be possible to dissolve ~ 2 g of the raw salt in 1 l of high purity RO. We could than measure just IC and would have access to Na, K, Mg, Ca, F, Cl, NO3, NO2, SO4, Br - i guess that would be sufficient in this case.


BR, Christoph

Price?

Where would I purchase the kit?

 

[Miami Reef]

Update. I believe we found the culprit of the sulfate issue.

There are many possible factors, actually.

1) BRS uses an anhydrous magnesium sulfate (requires 2 cups in gallon) but Randy’s recipe for magnesium is with epsom salt in mind (3 cups).

Using BRS’ product with Randy’s recipe won’t work. This issue is partly exacerbated because BRS does not state the type of magnesium sulfate they use; it just says magnesium sulfate. There is no description of it being anhydrous, but I found a quote from them in 2019:

The magnesium sulfate is now a dried form which means you can use less, it dissolves a ton easier and when mixed with magnesium chloride it no longer turns into a rock because there is minimal moisture for the mag chloride to pull out of the mag sulfate. This one is probably less expensive now because you use less.

I also used the incorrect recipe of magnesium (5:3 ratio) instead of the 10:1 ratio that is supposed to be used when using balling part C


I’m going to continue using balling part C, but make changes to the way I dose magnesium.

 

[Miami Reef]

I changed 100% of my water using NSW. I received the results of OCEAMO.

(I did dose the alkalinity back up with sodium bicarbonate as I keep my target range higher).

Here’s the new results:

I stopped changing water and will examine what happens after several months to a year of properly dosing magnesium in ratio to balling part C.

@Randy Holmes-Farley

Will update this thread in the future. I have a list of everything I am adding to the tank. I think it’s also interesting to see the NSW parameters of my area.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sounds good. Looking forward to updates!

 

[Miami Reef]

New ICP from today:

Sulfate is pretty much unchanged. I go through a lot of 3 part, so I’m positive my current regime is not adding excess sulfate.

I believe the mistake I made before was using the wrong magnesium ratio (5:3) and using anhydrous sulfate in a dihydrate recipe.

Now since I got the correct recipe, the problem was solved.