HOBBY GRADE TEST KITS CAN OUTPERFORM ICP MEASUREMENTS…REALLY??

[Reefahholic]

Your logic is digging itself a hole…

You can’t turn the evidence for 8 tested (some major and not overly complex) being off by some degree to argue the 40 untested to be closer to some degree.

Your tank looks wonderful so keep doing what you are doing by all means! Attribute it to the ICP-MS driven dosing that you subscribe to. I just am not convinced that the correlation can be made.

Using 8 elements to invalidate ICP
testing as a whole isn’t working well either. “Oh, we’ll we’re not trying to do that at all, we’re only showing that 8 elements are less accurate on ICP than hobby grade test kits.” The implications are that ICP is inaccurate. That’s been obvious. Here’s what else is quite obvious. 40+ elements are sitting in the dark. Source water is unchecked. Pollution is unchecked. Trace elements are unchecked. Many of which are extremely important as I already showed in this illustration below:

I find it really odd that not one of you are willing to compare chemistry. Surely you’re not scared of my inaccurate ICP-MS.

If ICP-MS is inaccurate, let’s all find out.

 

[Dan_P]

Let’s be fair…you guys only did “one” experiment for 8 elements. You do not know the margin of error for 40+ elements.

As a matter of fact, we (@taricha, @Rick Mathew ) have a pretty good idea about measurement variability for those 40 elements

We have studied many dozens of ICP’s, our own tests and tests of others published over years. We have found variability gets worse the lower in concentration you go until you enter what I call the random number zone. That is not saying these numbers are useless, but we might need to treat them as semi-quantitative when making decisions based on them. I think the situation is like what you said. We are in a better state of knowledge with noisy data than with no data, but I will add, be careful about the cause-and-effect conjectures you make based on such data.

 

[Reefahholic]

If ICP-MS is lacking, I want to see how I stack up to all 5 of you from a chemistry standpoint. I’m very curious. We will get much further looking at data.

As a matter of fact, we (@taricha, @Rick Mathew ) have a pretty good idea about measurement variability for those 40 elements

We have studied many dozens of ICP’s, our own tests and tests of others published over years. We have found variability gets worse the lower in concentration you go until you enter what I call the random number zone. That is not saying these numbers are useless, but we might need to treat them as semi-quantitative when making decisions based on them. I think the situation is like what you said. We are in a better state of knowledge with noisy data than with no data, but I will add, be careful about the cause-and-effect conjectures you make based on such data.

I disagree. Take Uranium for example.

 

[Dan_P]

If ICP-MS is lacking, I want to see how I stack up to all 5 of you from a chemistry standpoint. I’m very curious. We will get much further looking at data.

I disagree. Take Uranium for example.

I don’t understand this message. Some gremlin got into your text editor

 

[Reefahholic]

You guys should send OES and I’ll send MS since you look at them all the same.

I can’t wait. Let’s do it tonight!

 

[Reefahholic]

I don’t understand this message. Some gremlin got into your text editor

I’m just sayin’ I don’t use hobby grade kits much. For Cal or Mag. Maybe once inbetween ICP’s. We should compare the 8 elements, but then take a look at all of our other elements like Halogens and Trace. Let’s see where we all stack up. If ICP-MS isn’t accurate “enough” then my elements would not be in range and elements like Iodine should be closer to target level on your end.

 

[Dan_P]

I’m just sayin’ I don’t use hobby grade kits much. For Cal or Mag. Maybe once inbetween ICP’s. We should compare the 8 elements, but then take a look at all of our other elements like Halogens and Trace. Let’s see where we all stack up. If ICP-MS isn’t accurate “enough” then my elements would not be in range and elements like Iodine should be closer to target level on your end.

OK, I understand.

 

[Thales]

I balk at the idea that people are giving these companies money over and over again to try to clarify what the provider should be clarifying themselves.
And yes, I am a hyporcrite about this because rooting around in the dark is annoying, and I salute everyone that has paid their own money to try to shed light on the reality of the situation.

 

[Dan_P]

I balk at the idea that people are giving these companies money over and over again to try to clarify what the provider should be clarifying themselves.

Can’t argue with this point. The human supplements trade is a very similar situation. The manufacturers claim and the customers believe.

 

[Pod_01]

Can’t argue with this point. The human supplements trade is a very similar situation. The manufacturers claim and the customers believe.

I don’t think that analogy works. That is tin hat thinking /mentality, sorry.
There have been numerous papers written on trace elements and corals.
Hans Werner Balling has been developing trace element formulation since the 1995,

Fear of missing out an accumulating trace elements

I have a 420 liter tank with a Ceato refuge. I have many fish that are heavily fed and LPS, SPS and a few soft corals. My tank is close to 3 years old. I dose the TM ABC Balling system and I mix the K and A elements into the A and B respectivly. So It adds to about 60 ml of ABC and 3-4 ml of the...

www.reef2reef.com

It is ok to follow a method that works, and I am 100% sure there are trace elements getting into the basin that you are not aware of (use of CarX is great example). But to claim this is not important is just silly, you might as well stop dosing Alk to SPS tank and see how that works out, sorry.

We can disagree on what level each element should be at or what function they perform or what test kit can measure it (Hanna is still a toy sorry, I use 3 of them but all they are is really a cool toy). At most we have $10 dollars in hardware, my kids toys cost more….
I will take ICP results from reputable company over my Hanna results and other test kits any day.
Just for the record I do have a nice pile of hobby test kits NYOS, Hanna, Red Sea, Salifert, Tropic Marin so I tried a lot and I am not really impressed ….

 

[Thales]

I don’t think that analogy works. That is tin hat thinking /mentality, sorry.
There have been numerous papers written on trace elements and corals.
Hans Werner Balling has been developing trace element formulation since the 1995,

It is both. Sometimes companies do a good job of honestly promoting their own products. Sometimes they don't. And sometimes they are outright scamming. Sometimes they fund studies that are robust and unbiased. Sometimes super biased. It is the same in all industries. Sometimes there are independant studies that support marketing claims, sometimes not.
This hobby, like almost all other hobbies, has had its fair share of marketing that is based on nothing, and that doesn't pan out under scrunity. Reefers beware.

What papers are you referring to and how do they line up for aquarim animals?

 

[taricha]

I get that Oceamo is the new darling of ICP-MS, and well deserved, but I can't afford it. Who is the value proposition for ICP-MS?

Let me re-word Question 2: Is there an ICP-MS that the common man can afford that you experts would recommend?

Here's my take on it. There's two ICP-MS vendors in the hobby. One is provided by ICP-Analysis that was/is offering an ICP-OES service of demonstrably lower quality than other hobby vendors. And most of the pitfalls that can cause big issues in ICP-OES are still present in ICP-MS, as Thales says here...

All the same procedural and and transparency issues for hobby Icp, including running the instrument in ways that outside the hobby doesn’t (shortcuts), would also apply to MS.

So if you were running a subpar ICP-OES, getting an ICP-MS machine doesn't suddenly make you good.
There's some data to back this up, not a ton of data, but enough to make me say that one of the ICP-MS vendors is providing data that's equal or lesser quality than some ICP-OES vendors already in the hobby.

1. See the charts in our current study: ICP-Analysis (doing MS) was further from the known spiked values than FM and ATI (doing OES) more often than the reverse.

2. Let's assume we agree that Oceamo is providing ICP-MS data of desirable quality (it was the premise of the question and it makes the stats argument simpler). Then, ask "who is closer to Oceamo (MS) data?"
In our data - it's ICP-OES vendors ATI and FM who are closer to Oceamo's ICP-MS data than ICP-Analysis (MS) is.
FM in yellow, and ATI in green are more often closer to Oceamo (black) from 500ppb down to 1ppb than ICP-A (red) is.

Our data wasn't a fluke in this respect. Sanjay's data shows the same thing - FM hugged Oceamo data tighter than ICP-A does (ATI not tested).

So what I'm saying is that a general superior protocol "ICP-MS" that is better than ICP-OES doesn't really exist. There's two vendors, and one seems to offer and ICP-MS that's lower quality than ICP-OES results.

 

[Reefahholic]

Just for the record I do have a nice pile of hobby test kits NYOS, Hanna, Red Sea, Salifert, Tropic Marin so I tried a lot and I am not really impressed ….

I’ve tried all the same hobby grade test kits. I haven’t had very good luck, but some are much better than others. I do like my Hanna Alk, Phosphorus ULR, and HR Nitrate, because they read very close to ICP. Red Sea will probably be ok if I could learn how to use it properly. My Cal and Mag results were testing low so I would correct. Then ICP comes back 75-100ppm higher. I think the problem was that I was stopping at first color change. Now I wait to get a full stable color change, and I’m hoping to see these results get tighter. If they don’t tighten up, I’m going to switch to Salifert to see if they are more accurate. Cal is too important to not test at least 2x a month. My tank is stable enough to test 1x between ICP results.

 

[Rick Mathew]

I don’t think that analogy works. That is tin hat thinking /mentality, sorry.
There have been numerous papers written on trace elements and corals.
Hans Werner Balling has been developing trace element formulation since the 1995,

Fear of missing out an accumulating trace elements

I have a 420 liter tank with a Ceato refuge. I have many fish that are heavily fed and LPS, SPS and a few soft corals. My tank is close to 3 years old. I dose the TM ABC Balling system and I mix the K and A elements into the A and B respectivly. So It adds to about 60 ml of ABC and 3-4 ml of the...

www.reef2reef.com

It is ok to follow a method that works, and I am 100% sure there are trace elements getting into the basin that you are not aware of (use of CarX is great example). But to claim this is not important is just silly, you might as well stop dosing Alk to SPS tank and see how that works out, sorry.

We can disagree on what level each element should be at or what function they perform or what test kit can measure it (Hanna is still a toy sorry, I use 3 of them but all they are is really a cool toy). At most we have $10 dollars in hardware, my kids toys cost more….
I will take ICP results from reputable company over my Hanna results and other test kits any day.
Just for the record I do have a nice pile of hobby test kits NYOS, Hanna, Red Sea, Salifert, Tropic Marin so I tried a lot and I am not really impressed ….

Interesting perspective on the Hanna Checkers...May I ask what would be the specific attributes of the checkers that would cause you to label them "a toy"?...Is it the cost, performance, construction?? ...I do know what you mean about the cost of kids toys...they are sometimes shocking

 

[Reefahholic]

There's some data to back this up, not a ton of data, but enough to make me say that one of the ICP-MS vendors is providing data that's equal or lesser quality than some ICP-OES vendors already in the hobby.

There's some data to back this up, not a ton of data, but enough to make me say that one of the ICP-MS vendors is providing data that's equal or lesser quality than some ICP-OES vendors already in the hobby.

1. See the charts in our current study: ICP-Analysis (doing MS) was further from the known spiked values than FM and ATI (doing OES) more often than the reverse.

So what I'm saying is that a general superior protocol "ICP-MS" that is better than ICP-OES doesn't really exist. There's two vendors, and one seems to offer and ICP-MS that's lower quality than ICP-OES results.

Now this I can agree with everything, because I’ve observed the same.

From what I’ve been seeing lately, if I had to pick between 3 labs it would be in this order.

1. OCEAMO (MS & OES)
2. Fauna Marin
3. ATI (I put ATI in 3rd position “only” because lately they have been slacking. It’s been taking 3-4 weeks to get results back recently).

However, ATI has a very nice lab. You might notice that Fauna has the Spectro Green OES machines in his lastest ICP video which aren’t as sensitive as the Blue machines. On his website he uses a picture of the blue machines.? Not sure why if he has Spectro Green OES. ATI and OCEAMO both use the Blue machines for their OES.

As far as ATI vs Fauna….both seem to get pretty good results regardless of Blue or Green OES machine. Both know how to get good results on some of the harder elements.

I didn’t list Triton in there, because the US lab has been coming back with some questionable results lately. This has been going on for a while now. Not sure what’s happening there. Their other lab in the EU seems more accurate.

 

[taricha]

I balk at the idea that people are giving these companies money over and over again to try to clarify what the provider should be clarifying themselves.
And yes, I am a hyporcrite about this because rooting around in the dark is annoying, and I salute everyone that has paid their own money to try to shed light on the reality of the situation.

Yes, that's kind of where I am now too.
If someone wanted to help clarify the situation more, I think a review of the data we already have and studies already done, putting it all in context - that would be more helpful than sending more test samples at this point.
Just my perspective.

 

[Rick Mathew]

Yes, that's kind of where I am now too.
If someone wanted to help clarify the situation more, I think a review of the data we already have and studies already done, putting it all in context - that would be more helpful than sending more test samples at this point.
Just my perspective.

Totally agree...

 

[Reefahholic]

I balk at the idea that people are giving these companies money over and over again to try to clarify what the provider should be clarifying themselves.
And yes, I am a hyporcrite about this because rooting around in the dark is annoying, and I salute everyone that has paid their own money to try to shed light on the reality of the situation.

What clarification would you like to see from OCEAMO in order for you to trust your ICP results? I’ll see if Christoph can get some of that information if he’s not too busy.

Also, do you know what the average margin of error percentage is from a certified lab with most elements? Have you considered the costs between certified labs, and labs we have available to our hobby?

 

[Reefahholic]

Yes, that's kind of where I am now too.
If someone wanted to help clarify the situation more, I think a review of the data we already have and studies already done, putting it all in context - that would be more helpful than sending more test samples at this point.
Just my perspective.

What clarification are you looking to see. Maybe we can make that happen.

 

[areefer01]

Yes, that's kind of where I am now too.
If someone wanted to help clarify the situation more, I think a review of the data we already have and studies already done, putting it all in context - that would be more helpful than sending more test samples at this point.
Just my perspective.

Perspective if fine. I would ask though why are we comparing results across ICP machines? Isn't that like comparing manual to automated test results or chasing numbers? Maybe we are not doing that and I'm mudding the water - sorry.

What I'm thinking is if the hobbyist chooses to use ICP for whatever reason then they are better off using the same vendor. It would also be in their best interest to collect the sample the same way, time, and with the same procedures to be consistent as possible on their side. At this point the hobbyist has no more control so the assumption is that the ICP vendor has similar protocols and/or practices. And that they are having a good day, frame of mind, when running the tests.

At least this is what I've tried to do with my tests and curiosity (18 samples at 3 month intervals when I remember...).