Extremely high tin (165 ug/l), barium (84.77 ug/l), aluminum (76 ug/l) and silicon (541 ug/l)

[E13MentX]

After doing my first ICP test, the results showed I have extremely elevated tin, barium, aluminum, and silicon. I have done 2 30% water changes and added metasorb. Are there any additional steps that I should be taking to lower the elevated elements? What are some possible sources. I have done some research for tin possible glass or pvc, but the tank is over a year old with no new pvc. Only new item added was soft hose for UV that I installed 2 months ago. As far as aluminum, I used to have 2 large marine pure blocks. I have removed them hoping that was the source for aluminum. What are some possible other sources that I should be looking out for? I am running zeovit system and using red sea blue bucket salt. Could those also be the cause of elevated elements? Thank you guys in advance for your help! I have attached the full ICP test if that can help determine the cause and any additional action that needs to be taken.

 

[Lasse]

Si - not a problem - i have been up to 20 ppm (20 000 microgram/l) without any biological problems
Al - probably the marine pure block - IMO of no concern - I have been up to over 100 microgram/l
Ba - do you use any type of GFO - some of the leak Ba if I remember right
Ti - probably a problem

Sincerely Lasse

 

[chema]

Lasse, I agree with you. In my experience elevated Ba seems to be correlated with long time use of GFO and scarce water changes.
The concentration of tin is very high. I have reached 27 ug/l without lethal symptoms, but 165 seem very high. However, I have observed some disagreement between the concentrations calculated by several ICPs tests. In my case, Fauna Marin and Triton tests carried out with exactly the sample samples showed 26 and 13 ug/L, respectively.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, only the tin is a possible concern. It can be hard to know exactly since ICP says nothing about the chemical form of the elements tested.

 

[E13MentX]

I use BRS high capacity GFO routinely. Should I switch brands?

Si - not a problem - i have been up to 20 ppm (20 000 microgram/l) without any biological problems
Al - probably the marine pure block - IMO of no concern - I have been up to over 100 microgram/l
Ba - do you use any type of GFO - some of the leak Ba if I remember right
Ti - probably a problem

Sincerely Lasse

 

[E13MentX]

Thank you for your response. Besides water changes, should I be doing anything else to get the elevated tin down?

IMO, only the tin is a possible concern. It can be hard to know exactly since ICP says nothing about the chemical form of the elements tested.

 

[chema]

Thank you for your response. Besides water changes, should I be doing anything else to get the elevated tin down?

Besides water changes it would be very good to find the source of tin. But that is not an easy task

 

[Lasse]

The funny things with this type of media is that Al based No phosphate media also adsorb barium and GFO often absorb Al. I always run them in a 50/50 mix. As I know - its only rowaphos that do not leak barium - it could be more.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I used various types of GFO from BRS, and I didn't see elevated (or depleted) barium. They may certainly have changed suppliers or the supplier may have changed manufacturing methods since this test, however.

My Triton Testing Results: By Randy Holmes-Farley - REEFEDITION

Recently, Triton GmbH in Germany has initiated a method of testing many ions at once for a single price. In the US, that service is coordinated by Unique Corals. For $49 they will send you a couple of tubes to collect a tank water sample, and a prepaid mailer to send the sample back to them...

www.reefedition.com

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

I had high tin in an old setup and all my sps and inverts died. I finally broke down the tank and gave up. Found a rusty screw in the sump. No idea how it got there. Check everywhere.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I had high tin in an old setup and all my sps and inverts died. I finally broke down the tank and gave up. Found a rusty screw in the sump. No idea how it got there. Check everywhere.

How high? Was it the only thing high?

 

[E13MentX]

I think it is less likely to be corrosion since I did not have any other elevated metals besides tin at least from other people are saying. But I have looked everywhere and could not find source

I had high tin in an old setup and all my sps and inverts died. I finally broke down the tank and gave up. Found a rusty screw in the sump. No idea how it got there. Check everywhere.

 

[LivinTheSwreefLife]

How high? Was it the only thing high?

This was a few years ago so i don't remember the exact value and it doesn't seem that I posted the value here as I did a search. But I posted about the issue and mentioned the elevated tin here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/c...all-my-sps-to-slowly-die.387635/#post-4698066

 

[TexasReefer82]

I'm currently battling a high tin problem in my tank. In doing research I've come across a few people for whom tin was only metal elevated in an ICP test even though the source was ultimately found to be corrosion of some metal part (screw, hinges, etc). So while it seems logical that corrosion would elevate a variety of metals on an ICP test it has been demonstrated that it isn't necessarily what will happen.

A few of my thoughts:

Many metal items are tin plated so it may be that tin is the first and only metal to be seen in the tank since it's on the surface of the corroding part.

Iron is rapidly assimilated by algae so maybe it's not likely to be observed in the tank water.

Other metals could be very rapidly complexed with organics and skimmed out preferentially to tin - just speculating here.

 

[MERKEY]

Not sure if this is helpful here but my ICP test showed similar metals and I use black sand.

I ran a magnet across the sand and it picked up huge amounts of the sand.

I am in the process of removing the sand little by little.

I will also be checking for rusting metal.

Hope you find the root to the problem!

 

[E13MentX]

Not sure if this is helpful here but my ICP test showed similar metals and I use black sand.

I ran a magnet across the sand and it picked up huge amounts of the sand.

I am in the process of removing the sand little by little.

I will also be checking for rusting metal.

Hope you find the root to the problem!

I have not found the cause of it. But I did a second ICP test and it has decrease after I used metasorb, polyfilter, the the brightwell purit. But I still have high levels of barium and aluminum

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Not sure if this is helpful here but my ICP test showed similar metals and I use black sand.

I ran a magnet across the sand and it picked up huge amounts of the sand.

I am in the process of removing the sand little by little.

I will also be checking for rusting metal.

Hope you find the root to the problem!

A number of folks have implicated black sand, and I've never been a fan of he chemistry of it.