Elevated Tin in BRS Kalkwasser?

Reef Dude

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Let me preface this by saying that I hold BRS in the highest regard. They are one of the best companies I’ve dealt with period across any industry. Customer service is awesome, and I really appreciate all of their videos, testing, transparency, and resources they put into making this hobby easier for us hobbyists.

So I almost hate to ask this, but is anyone having issues with elevated Tin that they can attribute to BRS Pharmaceutical grade Kalkwasser? @Bulk Reef Supply – have you had any tainted batches of this – specifically in late 2018?

Based on all the testing you guys have done in your Kalkwasser videos and the strict quality control that goes into these pharmaceutical grade products, I was always assuming that this was NOT the source of my Tin problem. However, my exhaustive efforts to track down my elevated Tin issues are traced back to the Kalkwasser, I think.

I’ll go into more detail below, but simply put, ICP testing of my RODI water shows Tin levels of 0 micrograms/l, so the source water is not the issue. I have a BRS 50 ml/minute dosing pump on a timer hooked up to an Avast Marine K1 Kalkwasser Reactor. The dosing pump pulls water out of the RODI container (0ug/l Tin), the water goes through the Kalkwasser reactor, and the water coming out of the Kalkwasser reactor shows 123.9 ug/l Tin per my most recent ICP test. So somehow my Tin levels are going from 0 ug/l going into the Kalk reactor to 123.9 ug/l for the water coming out of the reactor.

This is an Avast Marine K1 Kalk Reactor I purchased new, and there are no metal parts inside the reactor.

Here’s a little more background. I installed the Kalkwasser reactor to replace the BRS 2 part dosing strategy I was previously using. I made this change in late December 2018, as I had my wife get me this reactor for a Christmas present. By late January, I lost a torch coral and I had a pink lemonade acro that started to STN. Over the next 8 months, my SPS gradually faded, STN’d, and most of them died. I lost approximately 15 SPS colonies in this timeframe, some of which I had for years. LPS generally seemed to be unaffected. Until this point, my tank was doing awesome, this particular tank had been set up for 6 years, and acros were growing fast and colorful.

After checking my system very closely and finding no problems, I did an ATI ICP test earlier this year that showed Tin in my RODI water being 0 ug/l and the tank water tested at 65 um/l Tin.

I disassembled all pumps and powerheads looking for any sign of corrosion, and I found nothing. I checked my screen top – no signs of corrosion. I looked above my tank and sump for any metal or any signs of corrosion – nothing. I cleaned out my sump looking for any screws or anything metal that might have fallen in – nothing. I dragged a magnet through my sand bed and sump to see if anything fell into the tank – nothing.

I did massive water changes, tried carbon, tried Cuprisorb, and tried a polyfilter. None of these prevented the Tin from appearing at elevated levels in additional ICP tests I sent in to ATI for testing. Since I do regular water changes, I would expect the Tin value to be going down if it wasn’t still being added to the system on an ongoing basis.

Out of desperation and being completely out of options as I literally triple checked every little thing within my system, I sent in a recent sample of 1) tank water, and 2) the effluent from my kalk reactor for an ATI ICP test. Well, I’m happy I found the source because the water coming out of the Kalk reactor is off the charts for Tin. However, I’m also really confused since BRS Kalkwasser is supposed to be top of the line contaminant-free product. I would have been (and was) the last thing I would have suspected.

What am I missing here? Is there any other possible explanation I can look into? Has anyone else experienced this same issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
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I should also add that I ICP tested fresh mixed saltwater during my scavenger hunt for the source of Tin, and this test came back 0 ug/l Tin, so that wasn’t the source either.
 
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While I want to keep this discussion alive on R2R to gain insight into the experiences of other reefers with this, I did call BRS this morning to hear what they had to say. True to form, they were great to speak with. They told me that they have had no other reports from other regarding any contaminants in their Kalkwasser. With that said, BRS told me that they will send samples of their Kalkwasser in for ICP testing and let me know the results within a couple weeks. How awesome is that?!? Although this may or may not be representative of the batches I previously purchased from them, it will let me know if their is an issue currently and/or restore my confidence in using this product going forward.

In the meantime, I guess my best bet is to go back to 2-part dosing. I still have some left over that I can bring back online until I figure this out. I'm still in disbelief that the Kalkwasser is the issue, but unless the ICP results are wrong, I literally I have no other explanation. Water going in = no Tin, Water going out = off the charts Tin. What else could it be? Honestly, I'm not angry because I feel so relieved that I may have finally found the source after driving myself crazy, buying products, spending money on many ICP tests, going on scavenger hunts for something corroding in my system, etc. for the last several months.
 

Macdaddynick1

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While I want to keep this discussion alive on R2R to gain insight into the experiences of other reefers with this, I did call BRS this morning to hear what they had to say. True to form, they were great to speak with. They told me that they have had no other reports from other regarding any contaminants in their Kalkwasser. With that said, BRS told me that they will send samples of their Kalkwasser in for ICP testing and let me know the results within a couple weeks. How awesome is that?!? Although this may or may not be representative of the batches I previously purchased from them, it will let me know if their is an issue currently and/or restore my confidence in using this product going forward.

In the meantime, I guess my best bet is to go back to 2-part dosing. I still have some left over that I can bring back online until I figure this out. I'm still in disbelief that the Kalkwasser is the issue, but unless the ICP results are wrong, I literally I have no other explanation. Water going in = no Tin, Water going out = off the charts Tin. What else could it be? Honestly, I'm not angry because I feel so relieved that I may have finally found the source after driving myself crazy, buying products, spending money on many ICP tests, going on scavenger hunts for something corroding in my system, etc. for the last several months.
Any updates on this? @Bulk Reef Supply I’ve been having issues with tin that I can’t pin to anything specific, and I’ve been suspecting my kalkwasser to be the culprit.
 
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BRS never did get back to me with test results on the pharma kalk product. However, I took my kalk reactor off line, and my tin issues went away as confirmed by several ICP tests after I removed the kalk reactor, and the health of my corals improved/recovered. It could be a coincidence, but I have no other explanation. Since then, I’ve gone back to 2-part dosing using BRS’s pharma alk and cal products, and my corals have been happy ever since with 0 tin showing up on periodic ICP tests since I made the change back to 2-part.
 

Bulk Reef Supply

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Any updates on this? @Bulk Reef Supply I’ve been having issues with tin that I can’t pin to anything specific, and I’ve been suspecting my kalkwasser to be the culprit.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any kalkwasser brands out there that have a true 0 ppm Tin. During the most in-depth Kalkwasser test that we've ever done, all 6 test samples contained Tin. You can check out the results of that test in the YouTube video below if you want to get into the details. I'll also include a screenshot of the Tin results that I think you'll find most helpful.



1610984836093.png
 

Cory

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BRS never did get back to me with test results on the pharma kalk product. However, I took my kalk reactor off line, and my tin issues went away as confirmed by several ICP tests after I removed the kalk reactor, and the health of my corals improved/recovered. It could be a coincidence, but I have no other explanation. Since then, I’ve gone back to 2-part dosing using BRS’s pharma alk and cal products, and my corals have been happy ever since with 0 tin showing up on periodic ICP tests since I made the change back to 2-part.
What were the levels out of the reactor?
 
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What were the levels out of the reactor?
124 micrograms/liter of Tin coming out of the reactor. 0 tin going into the reactor. Standard RODI tubing was going in/out of the reactor, so I guess it could be the tubing as Randy mentioned above, the plastic of the reactor itself, or the kalkwasser. The reactor was set up for several months before I took these samples, so one would think that the plastics would have leached out whatever was in them by the time the samples were taken. I guess if someone was truly concerned that it was the kalkwasser that was causing high tin, it’s cheap enough that you could run to the store to pick up some pickling lime to swap out the existing kalkwasser to see if it makes a difference. In my case, I was switched to a kalk reactor from dosing two part just for fun and to see if I could get a little PH bump. When I suspected tin in the kalkwasser, I just said screw it, and went back to BRS two part on a doser and never looked back.
 

Cory

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124 micrograms/liter of Tin coming out of the reactor. 0 tin going into the reactor. Standard RODI tubing was going in/out of the reactor, so I guess it could be the tubing as Randy mentioned above, the plastic of the reactor itself, or the kalkwasser. The reactor was set up for several months before I took these samples, so one would think that the plastics would have leached out whatever was in them by the time the samples were taken. I guess if someone was truly concerned that it was the kalkwasser that was causing high tin, it’s cheap enough that you could run to the store to pick up some pickling lime to swap out the existing kalkwasser to see if it makes a difference. In my case, I was switched to a kalk reactor from dosing two part just for fun and to see if I could get a little PH bump. When I suspected tin in the kalkwasser, I just said screw it, and went back to BRS two part on a doser and never looked back.
Crazy! Is there a pump in the reactor? Did happen to test just the kalk?
 
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Crazy! Is there a pump in the reactor? Did happen to test just the kalk?
No pump in the reactor. It was being fed by a paristaltic pump outside of the reactor, and with a paristaltic pump, no metal parts should be touching the water passing through the pump’s tubing. I did not test the actual kalkwasser itself, only the effluent coming out of the reactor. Either way I chalk this up to a bad batch or an isolated situation or maybe something else entirely, as I think you’d hear about this a lot more if BRS kalkwasser actually had high levels of tin on a consistent basis. I started this thread a couple years ago to see if anyone else had a similar experience, and literally no one else responded to this thread with similar issues. Also, when I spoke with BRS a couple years back, they told me that no one else had reported this issue.

So I guess what I’m saying is that although this ordeal turned me off to kalkwasser altogether, I don’t think anyone should hesitate to use this product themselves. Seems like I had an isolated issue of some kind, and so many people use kalk with no problems, I wouldn’t want my isolated experience stop anyone from using this product.
 

Cory

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No pump in the reactor. It was being fed by a paristaltic pump outside of the reactor, and with a paristaltic pump, no metal parts should be touching the water passing through the pump’s tubing. I did not test the actual kalkwasser itself, only the effluent coming out of the reactor. Either way I chalk this up to a bad batch or an isolated situation or maybe something else entirely, as I think you’d hear about this a lot more if BRS kalkwasser actually had high levels of tin on a consistent basis. I started this thread a couple years ago to see if anyone else had a similar experience, and literally no one else responded to this thread with similar issues. Also, when I spoke with BRS a couple years back, they told me that no one else had reported this issue.

So I guess what I’m saying is that although this ordeal turned me off to kalkwasser altogether, I don’t think anyone should hesitate to use this product themselves. Seems like I had an isolated issue of some kind, and so many people use kalk with no problems, I wouldn’t want my isolated experience stop anyone from using this product.
Good to know. I wonder if the high ph of limewater makes tin more likely to dissolve out of plastics. That's what im curious about now. Of course tin is present as they tested, but does it correlate to the amount your seeing, or is it coming from the plastic too?
 

Jon Warner

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I think you'd be hard pressed to find any kalkwasser brands out there that have a true 0 ppm Tin. During the most in-depth Kalkwasser test that we've ever done, all 6 test samples contained Tin. You can check out the results of that test in the YouTube video below if you want to get into the details. I'll also include a screenshot of the Tin results that I think you'll find most helpful.



1610984836093.png

Just to note, reminds me of a conversation that Leo Morin and I had in the mid 90's.

We were the first Supplement mfg to use only ACS/USP graded raw materials and Leo's response was basically saying that the grading process was probably less useful for our application than looking at individual COA's from specific lots of raw materials.

Great to see BRS educating the reefing public about impurities and their relevance or irrelevance in the hobby. Love their content...
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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I think you'd be hard pressed to find any kalkwasser brands out there that have a true 0 ppm Tin. During the most in-depth Kalkwasser test that we've ever done, all 6 test samples contained Tin. You can check out the results of that test in the YouTube video below if you want to get into the details. I'll also include a screenshot of the Tin results that I think you'll find most helpful.



1610984836093.png


Thank you for posting that.

Since you neglected to put units on any of the graphs can you clarify that every graph is ppm? Sometimes the speaker did not even use units when reading the numbers.
 

Dr. Jim

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I tested the BRS Kalk in two ways:
A) 2 TBS Kalk in 1.8 Gal reactor; water taken directly out of RO tubing coming from reactor: Sn = 150.9
B) 1 TBS Kalk in 500 ml RO/DI. Let is sit for 1 wk, then measured: Sn = 125.1

I stopped using Kalk but tin problem persisted. I concluded that the Kalk was not causing my tin problem. I have since gone back to using Kalk but a different brand (ESV) but have not tested that one.
(I've concluded that my tin problem was from plastic tubing).
 

GainesvilleReef

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I have used BRS Kalk for the last 7 -8 years. I have had 9 ICP tests over that time and Tin was below the level of detection (reported as 0) on all tests. I used BRS dosing pumps and later NS DOS pumps. The connecting tubing was silicon. I only dose the clear liquid from a reservoir. One of the things I don't like with kalk reactors is the potential for sending precipitate into the tank if you stir too much. From what I remember from Randy's article on kalk, that precip can contain metals.
 

Macdaddynick1

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I think you'd be hard pressed to find any kalkwasser brands out there that have a true 0 ppm Tin. During the most in-depth Kalkwasser test that we've ever done, all 6 test samples contained Tin. You can check out the results of that test in the YouTube video below if you want to get into the details. I'll also include a screenshot of the Tin results that I think you'll find most helpful.



1610984836093.png

Thank you. Funny enough I am using Mrs. Wages pickling line which did the best on tin. Time to get creative lol.
 

Crustaceon

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FWIW, I’ve been dosing only BRS kalk and full strength @ 1ml/min 24/7 for the last year to cover alk/mg. I go through a 5 gallon bucket of fully saturated kalk weekly. Nothing is dead in my tank. My acros, all other coral, fish, snails, hermit crabs. pistol shrimp, brittle star, pods, chaeto, all fine.
 

Marc Pardon

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I think you'd be hard pressed to find any kalkwasser brands out there that have a true 0 ppm Tin. During the most in-depth Kalkwasser test that we've ever done, all 6 test samples contained Tin. You can check out the results of that test in the YouTube video below if you want to get into the details. I'll also include a screenshot of the Tin results that I think you'll find most helpful.



1610984836093.png

Thanx for the nice input on kalkwasser and Tin. You are talking about the "purifying " qualities when the kalkwasser is mixed in the container. Does dosing kalkwasser in our tanks also purify the water in let's say Tin or any other unwanted metals? Will it also bind to the crystals made like with phosphate and skimmed out?
 

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