Need help understanding some numbers

[Danghost22]

so I need sown help understanding some data that I got back from my ICP test. (Some background) I recently suffered a tank crashed and thankfully I didn’t lose as much stuff as I could have but I had a suspicion it was user error so I sent a ICP test out and saw that it was my aluminum I will see if I can post my previous ICP test as well as the current. With that said I did a close to 100% water change as possible and waiting a bit to then send the next ICP test (current one). I just need some help understanding what I need to do so I can start adding corals back like lps and sps (atm mushrooms and zoas that I couldn’t get off the rock are doing fine)

 

[MnFish1]

so I need sown help understanding some data that I got back from my ICP test. (Some background) I recently suffered a tank crashed and thankfully I didn’t lose as much stuff as I could have but I had a suspicion it was user error so I sent a ICP test out and saw that it was my aluminum I will see if I can post my previous ICP test as well as the current. With that said I did a close to 100% water change as possible and waiting a bit to then send the next ICP test (current one). I just need some help understanding what I need to do so I can start adding corals back like lps and sps (atm mushrooms and zoas that I couldn’t get off the rock are doing fine)

Curious - how do you know it was aluminum? as compared to another cause? Only saying this because ICP tests show a lot of results - it doesnt mean that one result is the culprit. So to answer the question 'when can you add stuff back' - it would be good to know:

1. what were the steps in the 'tank crash' (i.e what caused it)?
2. what caused the aluminum level (assuming it means anything) to be high? Besides the water change how are you going to prevent it from recurring?
3. Have you been using carbon (i.e. activated carbon) - not carbon dosing?

After a crash - I had - due to a 24 hour power failure - I did a couple water changes, added carbon, kept up skimming, etc - and waited about 3 months before trying coral again. I am not sure there is any set rule. But in my case I knew the cause, and the cure - I'm not sure you do? Hope this helps

 

[BlennyTime]

I’d look at the inputs to the tank. Are you using RODI water? What brand of salt?

Also keep in mind that the test is just one point in time, it could have been a fluctuation of parameters that caused the issue unrelated to the aluminum (or anything else on the test).

 

[Danghost22]

Curious - how do you know it was aluminum? as compared to another cause? Only saying this because ICP tests show a lot of results - it doesnt mean that one result is the culprit. So to answer the question 'when can you add stuff back' - it would be good to know:

1. what were the steps in the 'tank crash' (i.e what caused it)?
2. what caused the aluminum level (assuming it means anything) to be high? Besides the water change how are you going to prevent it from recurring?
3. Have you been using carbon (i.e. activated carbon) - not carbon dosing?

After a crash - I had - due to a 24 hour power failure - I did a couple water changes, added carbon, kept up skimming, etc - and waited about 3 months before trying coral again. I am not sure there is any set rule. But in my case I knew the cause, and the cure - I'm not sure you do? Hope this helps

so answering the questions in terms of steps I have always run carbon and replace it every two weeks normally have been running rox and I pair that with phosgaurd to eliminate some of the phosphates I have done this with previous tanks and what I believe is that I was careless and didn’t rinse the phosgaurd enough and over time the levels of aluminum increased cause I did see a decline in coral Health over a course of a few months I just wrote it off as a new tank and they are stressed cause I transferred tanks(transferred rocks that were in my tank for over a year and only added a few pounds of new rocks, along with that I have it some time to cycle before adding corals). In terms of stability I have a trident and I normally fine tweak it and I also test bi weekly to ensure the numbers are accurate so stability was fine I never had a alk swing of more then .2. From what I’ve done is I’ve stopped running phosgaurd and did a water change it’s definitely decreased the aluminum but can’t say it was phosgaurd fully but I’ve 80% sure it was error on my part.

 

[Danghost22]

I’d look at the inputs to the tank. Are you using RODI water? What brand of salt?

Also keep in mind that the test is just one point in time, it could have been a fluctuation of parameters that caused the issue unrelated to the aluminum (or anything else on the test).

Yes I use rodi water and I use Red Sea blue bucket salt has worked in my previous tanks and like I said In my response to mnfish I have ruled out that stability was an issue.

 

[Uncle99]

The ICP clearly shows a significant level of aluminum in comparison to what they describe as “ideal”.
Assuming their test results are accurate, I share your concern.
I’d want to do another test, or, mop it up again and confirm.
Make sure it’s not in your source water.

 

[Danghost22]

The ICP clearly shows a significant level of aluminum in comparison to what they describe as “ideal”.
Assuming their test results are accurate, I share your concern.
I’d want to do another test, or, mop it up again and confirm.
Make sure it’s not in your source water.

I’ll do another test on the source water but when I did the first test the source water came out clean with 0 everything and the next test came with lower aluminum levels

 

[MnFish1]

Just to be clear - I'm not saying 'ignore the aluminum' just that the aluminum levels you showed - and the timing - don't make sense to me.

The problem with 'aluminum' as the (only) culprit is this:

1. It must have built up slowly (and you said your corals deteriorated over 'months'). Phosguard can certainly cause Al to rise (as can a number of other things). So its unclear to me - whether your tank 'crashed' - as you said or slowly deteriorated.
2. Your aluminum level after several months was 99 micrograms/l = 0.099 ppm
3. According to Randy Holmes Farley's article about aluminum in the marine aquarium - this level should not be cause 'a crash' - which again to me means a sudden die off of multiple things.

In the article below - it describes ammonia levels in aquaria, the potential sources - and toxicity levels.

"In a recent survey of 23 reef aquaria, Shimek claimed that aluminum levels ranged from 0.070 to 0.32 ppm, with a mean of 0.173 ppm .23 That same study claimed that Instant Ocean Contained 0.110 ppm aluminum. Other than values reported later in this article, I am not aware of any other published values for aluminum in reef aquaria."
Here is the article - in case you haven't seen it:

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Aluminum In The Reef Aquarium

In this article I will give some details of aluminum in natural seawater, and will discuss the sparse literature on the toxicity of aluminum ions to marine organisms.

reefs.com

 

[Danghost22]

Just to be clear - I'm not saying 'ignore the aluminum' just that the aluminum levels you showed - and the timing - don't make sense to me.

The problem with 'aluminum' as the (only) culprit is this:

1. It must have built up slowly (and you said your corals deteriorated over 'months'). Phosguard can certainly cause Al to rise (as can a number of other things). So its unclear to me - whether your tank 'crashed' - as you said or slowly deteriorated.
2. Your aluminum level after several months was 99 micrograms/l = 0.099 ppm
3. According to Randy Holmes Farley's article about aluminum in the marine aquarium - this level should not be cause 'a crash' - which again to me means a sudden die off of multiple things.

In the article below - it describes ammonia levels in aquaria, the potential sources - and toxicity levels.

"In a recent survey of 23 reef aquaria, Shimek claimed that aluminum levels ranged from 0.070 to 0.32 ppm, with a mean of 0.173 ppm .23 That same study claimed that Instant Ocean Contained 0.110 ppm aluminum. Other than values reported later in this article, I am not aware of any other published values for aluminum in reef aquaria."
Here is the article - in case you haven't seen it:

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Aluminum In The Reef Aquarium

In this article I will give some details of aluminum in natural seawater, and will discuss the sparse literature on the toxicity of aluminum ions to marine organisms.

reefs.com

Ahh okay okay I now see your point. Let me add more details and you tell me when you think about now that I see your point and read more into the article you linked. So I moved my corals over to the new tank don’t remember exactly what time it was but it’s definitely been more then 6 months at the point things are started to turn weird. So when things started to go it was a few months where I had sps start to bleach randomly like in spots and then towards the end they really slimed up and RTN at this point I had other corals start to act up a little more but not as serious as the sps but still showed signs of stress. At this point I did transfer all my corals to a fellow reefers tank and the corals that were transferred did survive while the ones that stayed for the most part the sps didn’t make it butttttt the hairy mushroom that I left along with some rock flower anemones and some leathers weren’t affected and till this day they are fully alive.

 

[Uncle99]

I’ll do another test on the source water but when I did the first test the source water came out clean with 0 everything and the next test came with lower aluminum levels

No need to test source again if it was zero.
At 99 test versus .1 ideal, just seems a lot.
No expert, not sure if it’s real or that the level would cause problems.

 

[Danghost22]

No need to test source again if it was zero.
At 99 test versus .1 ideal, just seems a lot.
No expert, not sure if it’s real or that the level would cause problems.

No clue on what it could have caused it because now Mnfish has brought up a very interesting article.

 

[Uncle99]

No clue on what it could have caused it because now Mnfish has brought up a very interesting article.

True, good point. Iam just curious at the variance.
Maybe it’s just the way ICP presents those numbers.
It would scare me if anything was 990x the supposed “ideal” level, especially pollutants. It was the highest flux in the report by far in the test/target numbers, so is worthy of a second look.
I have no idea if it has any affect on anything at all.