ICP Labs - Are the Reported Results Geared Toward the Hobby

[ingchr1]

In another thread the question of significant/insignificant decimal places reported in an ICP analysis was brought up. This raises the question that even though these labs are testing specifically for the hobby, are the results they are reporting actually geared toward the hobby? What level of decimal places are necessary for the hobbyist to make informed decisions without giving the hobbyist unnecessary information (noise)? In some cases, are the level of decimal places being reported even accurate?

In my quick search into this, it appears that Oceamo and ATI are providing reports that are much better geared toward the hobbyist than Triton or ICP-Analysis.com

Examples:

Triton

Should the decimal places reported in the Analysis match the decimal places of the Setpoint? All the results, with the exception of (F), are reported as *.00 anyway.

Should zeros be reported as zero, or non-detectable?

ICP-Analysis.com

How many of these decimal places are needed, if any? Again, the decimal places of the analysis do not match the decimal places of the limits.

Calcium when you drill into the report.

Cobalt when drilled into the report.

Should zeros be reported as zero, or non-detectable?

Is this even accurate? Should it be reported at 0.0 ppb, non-detectable?

Then there are results such as these...

Oceamo

Much better, maybe a little room for improvement. Decimal places mostly match between Measured and Ideal Values.

No Zeros, reported as n.n.

ATI

Best? From the one report I looked at all decimal places matched between the Value and Ideal Value.

No Zeros, reported as n.u.

 

[Dan_P]

In another thread the question of significant/insignificant decimal places reported in an ICP analysis was brought up. This raises the question that even though these labs are testing specifically for the hobby, are the results they are reporting actually geared toward the hobby? What level of decimal places are necessary for the hobbyist to make informed decisions without giving the hobbyist unnecessary information (noise)? In some cases, are the level of decimal places being reported even accurate?

In my quick search into this, it appears that Oceamo and ATI are providing reports that are much better geared toward the hobbyist than Triton or ICP-Analysis.com

Examples:

Triton

Should the decimal places reported in the Analysis match the decimal places of the Setpoint? All the results, with the exception of (F), are reported as *.00 anyway.

Should zeros be reported as zero, or non-detectable?

ICP-Analysis.com

How many of these decimal places are needed, if any? Again, the decimal places of the analysis do not match the decimal places of the limits.

Calcium when you drill into the report.

Cobalt when drilled into the report.

Should zeros be reported as zero, or non-detectable?

Is this even accurate? Should it be reported at 0.0 ppb, non-detectable?

Then there are results such as these...

Oceamo

Much better, maybe a little room for improvement. Decimal places mostly match between Measured and Ideal Values.

No Zeros, reported as n.n.

ATI

Best? From the one report I looked at all decimal places matched between the Value and Ideal Value.

No Zeros, reported as n.u.

Why this question might not be answerable is that vendors do not report the precision of their results. For the major elements +/- 5% might the variation. For elements concentrations below 10 ppb, the variation could be 10-20%.

Maybe no number after the decimal point would be best.

 

[DJF]

With all this attn lately my guess is ICP is considering a presidential bid

 

[taricha]

Then there are results such as these...

For my own entertainment, I like to pretend they mean all of these digits very literally, and therefore they believe their measurement precision is much much tighter than one Photon of light of a particular wavelength.
"that last phosphorus Photon was a tiny one, looks like only 0.327 of a normal photon."

 

[StatelineReefer]

For my own entertainment, I like to pretend they mean all of these digits very literally, and therefore they believe their measurement precision is much much tighter than one Photon of light of a particular wavelength.
"that last phosphorus Photon was a tiny one, looks like only 0.327 of a normal photon."

Imperial or Metric photon?

 

[The_Paradox]

Numbers are hard!!!

I propose they should just look like this.

Elements you can pronounce: They Good
Elements you can’t pronounce: Nah, needs work
Stuff in the column we didn’t clean out: Our bad
Recommendation: Send us more monies. Deadass.

 

[ingchr1]

With all this attn lately my guess is ICP is considering a presidential bid

Each thread and post just brings up the next question on reported results and what we are actually getting for our money. If we know exactly what we are getting, then the average hobbyist can be better equipped to interpret and take/not take actions based upon the results.

Based upon how each lab reports the results and this thread, I only see myself using ATI or Oceamo going forward. I take one or two ICP samples a year, just out of interest and to see if anything is way out of whack.

 

[rtparty]

For my own entertainment, I like to pretend they mean all of these digits very literally, and therefore they believe their measurement precision is much much tighter than one Photon of light of a particular wavelength.
"that last phosphorus Photon was a tiny one, looks like only 0.327 of a normal photon."

It’s those tiny photons always messing around and screwing stuff up so we can’t have nice things!

 

[taricha]

Based upon how each lab reports the results and this thread, I only see myself using ATI or Oceamo going forward.

Since you mentioned our thread, and yes there is vendor versus vendor comparison in our thread, but don't over interpret it. It was a snapshot of vendor performance on one day. And looking at other data sets on different days, Triton is much closer to other vendors typically. See Sanjay's Reef Builders article for another comparison done on a different day, and Triton was much closer to FM, Oceamo etc.
That's the only one I feel the need to give this disclaimer about. All the others seemed to offer results that were representative of what they usually send out.
(Disclaimer done. Carry on.)

 

[ingchr1]

Since you mentioned our thread, and yes there is vendor versus vendor comparison in our thread, but don't over interpret it. It was a snapshot of vendor performance on one day. And looking at other data sets on different days, Triton is much closer to other vendors typically. See Sanjay's Reef Builders article for another comparison done on a different day, and Triton was much closer to FM, Oceamo etc.
That's the only one I feel the need to give this disclaimer about. All the others seemed to offer results that were representative of what they usually send out.
(Disclaimer done. Carry on.)

Yes, results wise it seems like an outlier for Triton and it's only one data point.

It's this that places them after ATI and Oceamo for me. Why are they reporting *.00 for all of these results. When for example (Mg) 1354 mg/l is sufficient for a hobbyist to maintain a reef tank. It's not significant if that value is 1353.73 mg/l or 1354.40 mg/l.

Are they all actually *.00? Doesn't seem likely to me and is probably just a default they have set in their report.

Triton

Should the decimal places reported in the Analysis match the decimal places of the Setpoint? All the results, with the exception of (F), are reported as *.00 anyway.

 

[exnisstech]

Based upon how each lab reports the results and this thread, I only see myself using ATI or Oceamo going forward.

ATI is the company I chose to do my first ICP test on 2 tanks. I chose them with no real knowledge but the fact that they include RODI testing was a plus to me so I chose them. I sent in samples from both tanks then 2 RODI samples from the same container obtained withing minutes of each other. The RODI analysis came back totally different even tho the samples came from the same source
I wish I would have kept the results to show but I was so upset that they could not analyze RODI accurately that I lost all confidence in anything they reported and pitched the results and made no changes at all to tanks. Maybe you should choose Oceamo

 

[ingchr1]

ATI is the company I chose to do my first ICP test on 2 tanks. I chose them with no real knowledge but the fact that they include RODI testing was a plus to me so I chose them. I sent in samples from both tanks then 2 RODI samples from the same container obtained withing minutes of each other. The RODI analysis came back totally different even tho the samples came from the same source
I wish I would have kept the results to show but I was so upset that they could not analyze RODI accurately that I lost all confidence in anything they reported and pitched the results and made no changes at all to tanks. Maybe you should choose Oceamo

Another data point and more questions, maybe I should choose none...

 

[exnisstech]

Another data point and more questions, maybe I should choose none...

They sure have become popular lately. I probably won't do another unless things start looking off and I can't figure out why. With the not so confidence inspiring info coming out I'm not too sure I would want to make changes to my tanks based on the results. I would have to get a second test to verify and then the fun would begin I'm sure.