Got my first icp and it’s not so good .

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Michael w

Michael w

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If you can perform a larger water change, it will be more beneficial (provided you can maintain parameters your tank is at). You want to dilute the heavy metals as quickly as possible.
Hey yeah I could prob do 300l at a time . So be about 40% takes about a day or so to make enough water
 
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Michael w

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That is exactly what has happened. Do a search here for 'black sand vanadium' and you will see multiple recent threads on the issue.

My own experience has been that initially high levels of nickel and vanadium gradually came down with normal tank husbandry including 10% weekly water changes.
Other people have decided to replace their black sand.

Whether or not the sand is actually the cause of problems people see is hard to prove, of course.

Black sand is magnetic because it's a basalt rock with high levels of iron and nickel, both of which are ferromagnetic.
Ohh I see thanks for the advice wish they would warn that with the sand . I love the look of it but I will just go down the special grade route I think take out 20lb at a time
 
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Michael w

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From my experience with black sand, Poly Filter, Triton Detox, and Chemi Pure (which is mostly GAC) seemed to have little ability to remove nickel and vanadium quickly. My levels stayed elevated even after trying these products. There was however a surprising drop in those levels on my most recent ICPOES test, which seems to have coincided with when my chaeto fuge really started to take off. It's been suggested that the macroalgae takes up metals from the water and I think this is likely.
Ohh I see wel I’m water changing to bring these levels down , the detox should take care of the copper, but my fuge hasn’t been taking a hold at the moment
 

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That's pretty interesting. I had set up a 30g fish only tank in the past using this same black sand. After cycled I've added a small school of green chromis, two fire shrimps and 6 turbo snails. Within 12 days everything was dead. Could not figure it out the reason why I lost them all (had three other saltwater tanks at the same time, the smallest being 55g), I ran polyfilter and tested for copper just to find out that my copper levels were super high (6ppm). Never used this sand back again.
 

vetteguy53081

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looks water changes will be in order and the resulst are overall not bad as it also does point out areas for improvement, some related to water changes and use of carbon and dosing
 

slayerhellfire

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Hi guys I got my first icp back this week , and the results were shocking . My refrigium
Had not been taking off , and I had 4 shrimp die which I put down to a ammonia spike . However got my triton results and had high levels of copper nickel and vanadium .

I have checked all the equipment and can’t see any rusting components and all is brand new .

My question is I used about 40kg of Carib sea Hawaiian black live sand , could this be what is leaching metals into my tank . I have run a magnet over it and some particles are magnetic . Which I thought as magnetic must be metal ? Could this be leaching those particular metals ?

I have performed a 30% water change added detox then will be performing more water changes . Any ideas ?

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/75370/
I have ran that sand for years never once had a issue
 

Scdell

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Kinda makes me wonder if it's something that's happening because of improper maintenance of the sand bed? Or something else? There must be a lot of people using it without a problem. But there are also a lot of people using it with problems. Maybe something going on causing the metals to leach. It IS magnetic after all. Everyone that is having problems has the same metals coming up high in their ICP test. That can't be ignored. There are plenty of posts about it. It's not one person that is experiencing this. I'm personally in the process of removing the black sand. I will not be able to get it all out without tearing my reef apart. But I will get a good part of it out. I'll be replacing it with Carib sea special grade.
 

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I think just not alot of people use black sand in a reef, so there isn't as much anecdotal data on it. ICP tests are fairly recent, so suddenly we have something on it. Generally the wisdom was to only use it in fish-only tanks, not reefs, because you want the light reflection from the bed. (I know it's not actually alot, but this is what people say).

I wanted it for mine, but the expense was too high. It's funny how now that we have ICP, all kinds of weird data comes to light.
 

Scdell

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Scooped out most of the sand. From the front. Can't get to the back, maybe with a small siphon at a later date. Put it in a bucket a little bit at a time and went through it. Mostly looking for my cerinth snails. Whatnot noticed is it was pretty much devoid of life. No worms, nothing. It's been in there almost 2 years now. I did add some white sand about 8 months ago. It was mixed up pretty good. On a good note I have found some shrimp molts in my filter sock. Been doing 10% water changes and running rox carbon since I got my ICP results.
 

Scdell

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I had the exact same experience with my black sand. I removed it and did a series of 30% water changes and just now have acceptable ranges for nickel and vanadium.
How long did it take to get acceptable ranges?
 

garbled

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I'm actually curious. You say the sand was devoid of life. Are the rocks? Like do you have bristleworms or pods or anything on the rocks, and just the sand is dead, or is the whole tank without pods/mini cuc/etc?
 

Scdell

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I'm actually curious. You say the sand was devoid of life. Are the rocks? Like do you have bristleworms or pods or anything on the rocks, and just the sand is dead, or is the whole tank without pods/mini cuc/etc?
I have pods on the rocks. Not as many as I used to. Actually never saw a bristleworm in this tank. Snail population has been slowly dwindling. About 4 months ago I had cerinth snails lay eggs on the glass. Hardly have any left. I just ordered more snails. Lots of burrowing snails. New sand in the front. I'll work on the back slowly. That's going to be a pain. So yeah sand was dead of life.
 

garbled

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Interesting.. that lends credence to the theory that the sand is the killer/leecher. If pods were on the rocks but not the sand, they were further from the source of bad...
 
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