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

[Reefahholic]

I don't understand, I can show you results of equally impressive corals in a frag tank (cell phone, no orange filter, no post processing)

and claim waterchanges and high pH is the reason for my success.

Seriously, I literally just do auto water changes and refill kalkwasser reactor. Test alkalinity once a week (if that).

So, can I use this to say you're wasting your money? Absolutely not. For the same reason I can't emphatically claim my method to be the reason for my success.

If you believe your corals are amazing,
and you’re happy with your results then keep doing whatever it is your doing.

 

[biom]

Yes, let’s focus on results from this point forward. I just fragged so more Miyagi tort to sell. Those darn inaccurate ICP-MS.

More blue:

If you believe your corals are amazing, and your happy with your system then keep doing whatever it is your doing.

Not relying on a ICP testing (or other machines) to guide you for every next step will bring you to the next level of reef keeping.

 

[Reefahholic]

If you believe your corals are amazing, and your happy with your system then keep doing whatever it is your doing.

Not relying on a ICP testing (or other machines) to guide you for every next step will bring you to the next level of reef keeping.

I wouldn’t say I need to rely on ICP to keep a reef alive, but it certainly makes life much easier for me. I’ll never go back to the days of no ICP testing unless I’m completely broke and have no coral to sell.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’d absolutely love to do that. The results are very obvious.

You know the answer, but haven’t done it yet. That makes it an unsubstantiated opinion, just like mine.

 

[Reefahholic]

You know the answer, but haven’t done it yet. That makes it an unsubstantiated opinion, just like mine.

True, but I’ve seen it many times. I’d love to setup a Moonshine tank correcting with OCEAMO ICP-MS against a tank not sending ICP just dosing something like ESV. The results would be pretty drastic.

 

[taricha]

The better seawater labs use a variety of techniques that require more time and effort.

this is a relevant factor for the hobbyist to think about. To some extent, this is part of what you pay a premium for with some vendors - the use of different test methods, and the expertise of determining which elements are better measured by which methods - Oceamo does a lot of method mixing, ATI to a lesser degree. (Claude at F-M in an interview a few weeks ago implied that soon they'll be offering combined ICP-OES / MS results that report some elements from the MS and some OES side. This in particular doesn't seem a huge deal to me - as I see more significant practical limitations on the ICP- part than the OES/MS method that follows.)

Yep. Kinda what we said in our article about it.

seawater is still salty, hard on equipment, and getting it through pumps and the very special nozzles and into plasma in just the right precisely repeatable way and keeping the plasma itself completely consistent (temp, geometry, flow, etc) is a ridiculously hard problem. None of that has changed since y'all's article that detailed much of this. The technical innovations and multiple levels of corrections required by these systems just to give "good" results would be mind-blowing to the average hobbyist.

It should not be puzzling to folks that for elements accessible to titration where the only variables to repeatability are volume of sample, volume of titrant, and concentration of titrant chemical -those results will often be more consistent than managing countless sources of variability in an ICP process.

Arguing the other side, there are constant innovations in these processes that help with all of the known problems....
https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/...essful-routine-analysis-of-undiluted-seawater

Very robust plasma conditions (CeO/Ce ratio of 0.005 or 0.5%) reduce ionization suppression, increase sensitivity, and improve detection limits for critical poorly ionized elements such as arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. Reduced ionization suppression allows high and variable sample matrices to be measured against simple aqueous calibration standards, eliminating the need for matrix matching of calibration standards. This provides a greatly simplified workflow in laboratories that analyze samples with unknown or variable composition.

In this study, an Agilent 7900 ICP-MS with UHMI aerosol dilution was used to analyze a range of trace elements in undiluted seawater samples. The accurate spike recoveries against simple aqueous standards and the excellent long-term stability demonstrate the matrix tolerance and simple operation offered by the method.

you get some impressive-looking results charts....

(should also be noted those spikes are 10ppb, and ICP-MS vendors believe they can give meaningful data at ~0.1 ppb for many of these same elements - which is literally 1/100th of what's demonstrated in the paper.)

But good luck getting any ICP vendor to say - here's a published paper that illustrates how good a similar system can perform on saltwater, and we base our methods on techniques outlined in the paper.

 

[taricha]

True, but I’ve seen it many times. I’d love to setup a Moonshine tank correcting with OCEAMO ICP-MS against a tank not sending ICP just dosing something like ESV. The results would be pretty drastic.

There is a venue in which this method of argument-by-results would actually be very interesting (and somewhat persuasive to me).
That is - in a coral grow-out contest.
In that setting - you have multiple reefers that have all self-selected believing their tanks can support strong coral growth, they each believe in the method they use and are equally motivated to stick to the method and maintain it carefully to maximize the coral growth. And they get to access the same corals for the same time period.

It's still too low in statistical power to be a very strong test, but it would be very interesting to me, and would cut down on a LOT of the variables that makes posting pictures of great corals in this current thread, frankly unhelpful and off-topic.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

True, but I’ve seen it many times. I’d love to setup a Moonshine tank correcting with OCEAMO ICP-MS against a tank not sending ICP just dosing something like ESV. The results would be pretty drastic.

I actually doubt you have ever seen it even once. You apparently misunderstand what I am getting at.

Dose every trace chemical that you think might be needed (presumably every moonshine trace additive) but dose it based on an average that others have found useful, not based on icp testing.

I’d also add that ESV B-ionic (if that is what you mean) does not include enough trace elements to offset any consumption and it does not claim to do so. Use ESV B-ionic and then add all of these other traces that you currently do.

 

[ingchr1]

...(should also be noted those spikes are 10ppb, and ICP-MS vendors believe they can give meaningful data at ~0.1 ppb for many of these same elements - which is literally 1/100th of what's demonstrated in the paper.)...

I think this kind of ties in with the point of this thread. Some ICP vendor reports are better than others with what they are providing to the end users, hobbyists. Maybe it goes beyond that.

 

[MnFish1]

I actually doubt you have ever seen it even once. You apparently misunderstand what I am getting at.

Dose every trace chemical that you think might be needed (presumably every moonshine trace additive) but dose it based on an average that others have found useful, not based on icp testing.

I’d also add that ESV B-ionic (if that is what you mean) does not include enough trace elements to offset any consumption and it does not claim to do so. Use ESV B-ionic and then add all of these other traces that you currently do.

I think it would be interesting to just do water changes as another comparator. With my tank - I tend to take a much less rigorous path to testing. I would only send an ICP if there were some issue with my corals - and even then - I would not necessarily send it to the 'cheapest' vendor, and assume that they are the same quality.

Additionally - I think it COULD be incorrect to merely send off samples to 2 companies - and compare the results directly. For example, One (it seems to me) should compare the results to the normal ranges at each lab - not necessarily one lab compared to another. For example take Company xxx that is in Germany. Whose samples may take days or longer to arrive. IMHO - you cannot necessarily compare the results from this company to a company that is 1 mile away from your house.

In other words, the companies are providing a service - supplying 'results' and comparing them to the normal ranges they have internally developed. If company A and B both have results within 'their' range - to me that is basically an equivalent value, i.e. 'normal' and not likely to cause a problem.

IMHO sending replicate samples of the same water to the same company would be a very interesting experiment to do - since - as mentioned in the experiment, if trends are what are important, its important to see the variation among identical samples.

Another potential interesting point - we know that pH varies by time of day - how do we know whether boron or iodine does not vary as well? Should the time of the sample be taken into account when comparing samples?

 

[MnFish1]

If you believe your corals are amazing,
and you’re happy with your results then keep doing whatever it is your doing.

Im assuming you're implying (maybe I'm wrong), that you could take these corals and using ICP dosing, greatly improve them? That would be an interesting experiment IMHO. The coral in the tank could serve as its own 'control'. Monitor tank x for 4-6 weeks (pick your time period), then start only changing parameters based on ICP and compare after a certain time period. At least I think that would be a better measure than merely taking pictures of a nice tank and saying here are the results?

 

[rtparty]

True, but I’ve seen it many times. I’d love to setup a Moonshine tank correcting with OCEAMO ICP-MS against a tank not sending ICP just dosing something like ESV. The results would be pretty drastic.

This implies there has never been a good looking tank with awesome corals, ever. Only Moonshine could bring about awesome tanks and before Andre came along we were all just keeping ugly tanks with no hope.

Poor people like Jason Fox, Tyree, ORA, and countless others stood no chance at creating good looking corals. Especially when you find out none of them dose every trace known to man and ICP test.

 

[jason2459]

IMHO sending replicate samples of the same water to the same company would be a very interesting experiment to do

I've done it a few times. It's generally close but never exact.

Here's one example and scroll up to post 47 has the triton A and B results for all the elements.

Big 3 Shootout Alk, Ca, Mg: RedSea, Nyos, Elos, Salifert, API, Hanna, Triton, AWT

Just waiting for the Triton results now. I have the AWT results. After I get the Triton results in I'll probably do another round of Mg and Ca testing with the kit furthest from their results vs the kit closest.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[MnFish1]

I've done it a few times. It's generally close but never exact.

Here's one example and scroll up to post 47 has the triton A and B results for all the elements.

Big 3 Shootout Alk, Ca, Mg: RedSea, Nyos, Elos, Salifert, API, Hanna, Triton, AWT

Just waiting for the Triton results now. I have the AWT results. After I get the Triton results in I'll probably do another round of Mg and Ca testing with the kit furthest from their results vs the kit closest.

www.reef2reef.com

Curious - I'm assuming (sorry didn't read the whole thread) - that A and B were replicate samples?

 

[Pod_01]

Another potential interesting point - we know that pH varies by time of day - how do we know whether boron or iodine does not vary as well? Should the time of the sample be taken into account when comparing samples?

I like this line of thinking. I observed that Alk can go up/down during the week, same dose is being added.
Also I noticed that if you take ICP test after water change I end up with odd results, it has been recommended to take sample 3 days after water change.

Monitor tank x for 4-6 weeks (pick your time period), then start only changing parameters based on ICP and compare after a certain time period.

I do not believe that with ICP only, reef tank would actually flourish. I use ICP and I like the tool. But, I also do water change, feed the fish, feed the corals clean the sump and the tank, clean the pumps etc…
I get the impression that the implication is, all I need is ICP and everything will be fine?
I see ICP as another tool in my toolbox of reefing tools. I can use it or not use it.

Poor people like Jason Fox, Tyree, ORA, and countless others stood no chance at creating good looking corals. Especially when you find out none of them dose every trace known to man and ICP test.

I don’t think those are poor people, they are professional and it is their business to know how to grow, colour up etc… corals.
I do get your point, I am sure they spend a lot of time and $$$$ perfecting their technique and probably killed quite few corals on their way. In the end they had more success compared to others….

 

[MnFish1]

I do not believe that with ICP only, reef tank would actually flourish. I use ICP and I like the tool. But, I also do water change, feed the fish, feed the corals clean the sump and the tank, clean the pumps etc…
I get the impression that the implication is, all I need is ICP and everything will be fine?
I see ICP as another tool in my toolbox of reefing tools. I can use it or not use it.

My assumption would be that the tank would be treated as it was before - the only thing is that now, ICP would be used to dose trace elements as per the 'moonshiner's method. In other words, take a stable - but suboptimal tank. Ensure it's stable for some time - and then start using the trace elements/moonshiner's method and see if there any noticeable changes. I'm not recommending any particular method - only that this would be a potential way to (partially) see any benefit of ICP/trace element dosing as an experiment

 

[areefer01]

That is - in a coral grow-out contest.

Unless that is in an controlled environment it won't work. And it definitely won't work between hobbyist and locations. Too many environmental deltas not to mention the first time one puts their hand in the display...

 

[MnFish1]

Unless that is in an controlled environment it won't work. And it definitely won't work between hobbyist and locations. Too many environmental deltas not to mention the first time one puts their hand in the display...

Actually - it could work if set up in the following manner. Each tank is used as its own control. The aquarist takes a picture of their system - lets say day 0, day 7, day 14, and 28. During this time - they continue their usual maintenance. Only tanks that were 'stable' by pictures are eligible to continue into the next section. Then on day 29, each tank is changed to the moonshiners method (or whatever method you want to use). if a good proportion of tanks improve with the new method - thats a pretty good test to see if a method works, and it takes out all of the potential confounding variables (or at least many of them). Pictures are then taken of the tank on weekly intervals say for 2 months - and the results are correlated.

An even more rigorous method would be to leave 1/2 of the tanks using their original method and the other half with the new (moonshiners - or whatever) method. Then compare the percentage of tanks that visually improved.

If you wanted to make it even more rigorous, the methods the tanks were using would not be known (i.e. blinded) - to the person/people judging whether there is any improvement.

 

[jason2459]

Curious - I'm assuming (sorry didn't read the whole thread) - that A and B were replicate samples?

Correct. Taken from the same place and same time as everything else in the testing results.

 

[taricha]

Unless that is in an controlled environment it won't work. And it definitely won't work between hobbyist and locations. Too many environmental deltas not to mention the first time one puts their hand in the display...

Oh, it'll never be rigorous. And I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But at least it would be interesting. Would enjoy getting to see Moonshiners performance in some Coral grow out contests.