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

[Reefahholic]

Let’s get back on topic.

If I sent each of the original testers some certified reference material, and that CRM is provided from an outside source with defined parameters of those 8 elements which I would Vlog in real time so that you know I wasn’t cheating. Would you guys be willing to run the experiment again? Also, do you think you will get the same results?

 

[Garf]

@Reefahholic can you update your tank thread? I’m interested in following its progression. How long have you been givin your money to ICP suppliers?

 

[Reefahholic]

@Reefahholic can you update your tank thread? I’m interested in following its progression. How long have you been givin your money to ICP suppliers?

Yes, I need to do a video update soon.

I’ve been using ICP for maybe 3-4 years or so.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

But 8 difficult perform, and hard to read hobby grade test kits have zero flaws. Got it. I will switch over now! Which ones do I need to use to test source water and 20 pollutants?

Wow, what a gross mischaracterization of anything I said. Nothing in that post reflects anything I said.

 

[rtparty]

Wow, what a gross mischaracterization of anything I said. Nothing in that post reflects anything I said.

I think this sums up the last 30 pages of back and forth

 

[Rick Mathew]

Let’s say you guys performed a flawless experiment. The majority of reefers have a difficult time getting accurate numbers of the easier tests like CAL, MAG, NO3, and PO4. Much less K, I, Si, and Sr.

If you sent me data from 20 reefers (even pros) to diagnose a system that had issues, I’d much prefer to see ICP data rather than Hobby grade data. Why? I find that it is more consistent and easier to see what is going on in a system. Let’s face it, the average reefer is not good or consistent at testing.

Recently I had a guy reach out. He said his Calcium was low (200’s). I told him to send ICP just to verify where all the parameters were because he was having some issues.

Guess what the Calcium level was?

As you can see above, ICP is very valuable because not everybody can get accurate numbers. Also noticed that was OES and look at the values for Co, Cr, and Cu.

Thanks for the reply but I am not sure how this answers my question.... What you mean by "outside of a lab setting"?

 

[taricha]

If I sent each of the original testers some certified reference material, and that CRM is provided from an outside source with defined parameters of those 8 elements which I would Vlog in real time so that you know I wasn’t cheating. Would you guys be willing to run the experiment again? Also, do you think you will get the same results?

I want to say Yes, for my entertainment - just to see what price quote you come up with for a Seawater reference with certified values for both major elements and traces - as in the 8 elements tested. Chem tests require larger volumes than ICP, so I'd need 200-300mL. You'd need to acquire at least a liter of sample to split and send to the hobby testers and ICP vendors. Rick prepared 2L for our exercise.

As to whether I'd expect the same results, I wouldn't need to know the certified values, but I would need to know details like if it's got plausible seawater salinity Na and Cl, or if it was basically blank except the elements specified, and if it's acidified, so I could try to bring it back into parameters where the chem tests function reliably.

 

[Rick Mathew]

Let’s get back on topic.

If I sent each of the original testers some certified reference material, and that CRM is provided from an outside source with defined parameters of those 8 elements which I would Vlog in real time so that you know I wasn’t cheating. Would you guys be willing to run the experiment again? Also, do you think you will get the same results?

Wow what a great idea...Replication of experimental results is at the core of good scientific practices. If you are willing to do this I would be very willing to participate. Would you be sending the same sample set to the same 5 ICP vendors for their measurements also? This would be critical in order to get effectively test our hypotheses.

As to the question do we think we will get the same results…Don’t know till we get the data…If we get the same results it would support the hypotheses if we get a different result then we can see where the differences are and it will help us gain a better understanding of testing protocol…either way it can help the reefing community gains knowledge. Let me (us) know how you would like to proceed.

 

[Dan_P]

Let’s get back on topic.

If I sent each of the original testers some certified reference material, and that CRM is provided from an outside source with defined parameters of those 8 elements which I would Vlog in real time so that you know I wasn’t cheating. Would you guys be willing to run the experiment again? Also, do you think you will get the same results?

Knowing the effort Rick put into obtaining standards for our study, I would not turn down such a generous offer.

I will go and start polishing my Hanna vials.

 

[Reefahholic]

Thanks for the reply but I am not sure how this answers my question.... What you mean by "outside of a lab setting"?

It doesn’t need to be an actual lab setting, but how controlled is your testing environment? Anything could get introduced into the sample water. Seeing all the actual equipment used, and reservoirs that you guys are mixing saltwater in would be nice. I know you guys didn’t filter the samples. Things like that make me less confident in the results. You have to realize that your samples were collected in real time. The others needed to travel for 8 days or so unfiltered.

 

[Reefahholic]

I want to say Yes, for my entertainment - just to see what price quote you come up with for a Seawater reference with certified values for both major elements and traces - as in the 8 elements tested. Chem tests require larger volumes than ICP, so I'd need 200-300mL. You'd need to acquire at least a liter of sample to split and send to the hobby testers and ICP vendors. Rick prepared 2L for our exercise.

As to whether I'd expect the same results, I wouldn't need to know the certified values, but I would need to know details like if it's got plausible seawater salinity Na and Cl, or if it was basically blank except the elements specified, and if it's acidified, so I could try to bring it back into parameters where the chem tests function reliably.

Just off the top of your head, how much do you think that would cost for the CRM? I haven’t looked yet.

 

[Thales]

Just off the top of your head, how much do you think that would cost for the CRM? I haven’t looked yet.

Deleted
Oops, I reread and the point seems to be what quote you can come up with. Apologies

 

[Dan_P]

It doesn’t need to be an actual lab setting, but how controlled is your testing environment? Anything could get introduced into the sample water. Seeing all the actual equipment used, and reservoirs that you guys are mixing saltwater in would be nice. I know you guys didn’t filter the samples. Things like that make me less confident in the results. You have to realize that your samples were collected in real time. The others needed to travel for 8 days or so unfiltered.

Not sure I understand where this thought process is going. Are you thinking about the samples not being filtered before testing or before mixing the standards? Would filtering make test results more accurate?

 

[Reefahholic]

Would you be sending the same sample set to the same 5 ICP vendors for their measurements also? This would be critical in order to get effectively test our hypotheses.

Not sure I could afford that! I’ll be completely honest, I’m only interested to see the results for that one lab.

 

[Reefahholic]

Knowing the effort Rick put into obtaining standards for our study, I would not turn down such a generous offer.

I will go and start polishing my Hanna vials.

What do you polish them with.

If you don’t have these, I highly recommend. Too many people using paper towels or their T-Shirts to wipe vials. I know that’s not you guys though!

$6 and last forever:

Kimberly-Clark 34155 Kimwipes 1-Ply Delicate Task Wipes, 4.4" x 8.4", Tissue (Pack of 286) https://a.co/d/arES4UY

 

[Reefahholic]

Not sure I understand where this thought process is going. Are you thinking about the samples not being filtered before testing or before mixing the standards? Would filtering make test results more accurate?

The samples. I know for sure it limits microbial activity in the vials that does effect nutrients (we also use the stabilizer), and even though they likely won’t have a drastic impact on other elements like Ca or Mg, it still makes me feel better when I filter the samples, because 1 liter of NSW has about 1 billion bacteria and 10 billion viruses. Who knows what they are actually using during transit.

 

[Dan_P]

The samples. I know for sure it limits microbial activity in the vials that does effect nutrients (we also use the stabilizer), and even though they likely won’t have a drastic impact on other elements like Ca or Mg, it still makes me feel better when I filter the samples, because 1 liter of NSW has about 1 billion bacteria and 10 billion viruses. Who knows what they are actually using during transit.

Do the ICP vendors require samples to be filtered to obtain accurate results?

 

[Rick Mathew]

It doesn’t need to be an actual lab setting, but how controlled is your testing environment? Anything could get introduced into the sample water. Seeing all the actual equipment used, and reservoirs that you guys are mixing saltwater in would be nice. I know you guys didn’t filter the samples. Things like that make me less confident in the results. You have to realize that your samples were collected in real time. The others needed to travel for 8 days or so unfiltered.

Thanks for the reply, I understand what you are saying and that is a fair and important question. The best way to describe my test environment is to use pictures. The pictures below are my water testing lab where the samples were prepared and where I tested my samples.

When I prepare my salt water for testing I use 1000 mL volumetric flasks. I don't take it from my salt mix tank....as you said a chance of contamination.

I do filter my samples before testing. I did not filter the samples I sent to the other 2 testers or the ICP vendors except as instructed by OCEMO

You are correct our samples were tested in "real time" and in addition we also stored the test samples for at least 7 days and retested to simulate transit time that ICP samples have....Those results can be seen in the charts "HOBBY GRADE TESTER'S STATISTICS"

My Water Testing Lab​

This is the Spectrophotometer I Use for Standards Preparation Validation
@taricha pointed me to it...great tool​

 

[Dan_P]

Thanks for the reply, I understand what you are saying and that is a fair and important question. The best way to describe my test environment is to use pictures. The pictures below are my water testing lab where the samples were prepared and where I tested my samples.

When I prepare my salt water for testing I use 1000 mL volumetric flasks. I don't take it from my salt mix tank....as you said a chance of contamination.

I do filter my samples before testing. I did not filter the samples I sent to the other 2 testers or the ICP vendors except as instructed by OCEMO

You are correct our samples were tested in "real time" and in addition we also stored the test samples for at least 7 days and retested to simulate transit time that ICP samples have....Those results can be seen in the charts "HOBBY GRADE TESTER'S STATISTICS"

My Water Testing Lab​

This is the Spectrophotometer I Use for Standards Preparation Validation
@taricha pointed me to it...great tool​

Show off

 

[pixelhustler]

It doesn’t need to be an actual lab setting, but how controlled is your testing environment? Anything could get introduced into the sample water. Seeing all the actual equipment used, and reservoirs that you guys are mixing saltwater in would be nice. I know you guys didn’t filter the samples. Things like that make me less confident in the results. You have to realize that your samples were collected in real time. The others needed to travel for 8 days or so unfiltered.

But how would cross contamination change the fact that ICP labs were, on average, consistently less accurate than hobby grade test kits? Across multiple parameters tested? When hobby grade kits were consistently more accurate at measuring the values that the math presumed to be correct, on paper. It’s not the case that they were both far from accurate but one was more accurate than the other. Hobby grade kits were very accurate based on the expected values, which are calculated following sound math and science. Although nothing is perfect, the methodology is hard to refute here. If the sample was contaminated, I don’t think the results should follow any logical trend - they’d likely be all over the place.

Is the implication that the sample was contaminated in a way that, all ICP tests were closer to the actual values and all hobby grade test kits were consistently further off? So essentially, the experiment results were wrong in precisely the opposite direction? I’m not a chemist but I’m not sure this is scientifically possible. And what about certain parameters were Triton was an outlier, as in very, very far off the presumed correct value in the opposite direction? Does that mean both the hobby grade kits and Triton were wrong?

I support repeating this test but I’m willing to bet the results, or overall trends within the results, won’t change much.

On a more off topic/on topic note:
At the end of the day, if the reef moonshiners method works best for you that’s what matters, regardless of nuances or external factors. If you reef is thriving, you’re doing something right. Perhaps the possibility of overdosing trace elements is not a net negative as the toxicity level is much further from what we though, or what is reasonably possible. Or perhaps trace elements aren’t as important but this method allows for better long term stability of parameters. Corals can be fairly adaptable. So I say do whatever works for you. If it works, it means something must be working.