Purpose of Mercury in aquarium salt?

[Citruspeel]

I'm new to the hobby and have been looking for salt mixes. I was looking at Tropic Marin's website and in their salt ingredients they put Mercury as one of the trace elements. I'm a bit confused. Is there a use for mercury by aquarium inhabitants?

Also is this alright or would the mercury somehow accumulate after using the salt a lot overtime? I looked at other brands and they don't list mercury anywhere. But is it safe to assume that other salts also have mercury as a trace element because it's in natural seawater? Or is this just a Tropic Marin thing?

 

[KrisReef]

There is mercury in the ocean and it would likely be very low concentrations (non-detect!).
Best guy to answer this is Randy, and heres a link to his Triton test results with discussion.

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

 

[flagg37]

@Lou Ekus may have some input on this question too.

 

[Lou Ekus]

I'm new to the hobby and have been looking for salt mixes. I was looking at Tropic Marin's website and in their salt ingredients they put Mercury as one of the trace elements. I'm a bit confused. Is there a use for mercury by aquarium inhabitants?

Also is this alright or would the mercury somehow accumulate after using the salt a lot overtime? I looked at other brands and they don't list mercury anywhere. But is it safe to assume that other salts also have mercury as a trace element because it's in natural seawater? Or is this just a Tropic Marin thing?

There are more than 70 trace elements in clean natural sea water. We don’t know what the biological function of many of those are. We do know, however, that many of those trace elements do have important biological interactions. The amount of mercury in the salt mix, is so small that is will not show up on normal ICP testing. It will also not accumulate in the aquarium over time. The Tropic Marin approach has always been that if the element is found in clean natural sea water, it belongs in the distribution of trace elements in the salt water mix. We feel strongly that is true, even for the many trace elements that we do not directly know the function of. In fact, there are quite a few trace elements that have a function that has only recently come into light. We suspect this is true for most of the 70 that are present.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I expect that most aquarium companies do not add any mercury (and a few other chemicals) as an independent ingredient, and it just rides in as an impurity in other chemicals that are intentionally added. Maybe Lou adds it specifically, or he just uses other chemicals that wind up with reasonable mercury levels. In any case, It would not likely be a cause for concern unless it was well above NSW levels.

Personally, I would not add it if I had a choice. There are many trace elements with known biological function somewhere in some organism. Mercury is not one of them.'

Accumulation is a tricky concept for a chemical like mercury that exists in multiple forms in a reef tank even when only one one form is added. Some forms are far more toxic than others, and some accumulate in higher organisms while others do not. Organic mercury forms are among the most toxic. Chemists have died in recent years from accidental exposure to organic forms, and in the past, lots of people suffered from mercury poisoning from the metallic form.

 

[HalfHand]

according to this it looks like mercury might have some kind of biological role in bacteria, but among more complex organisms who can say.

First biological function of mercury discovered

Purple Non Sulfur Bacteria may play a role in reducing the amount of methyl-mercury in the oceans by converting it to a less harmful form.Sincerely,

www.zmescience.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

according to this it looks like mercury might have some kind of biological role in bacteria, but among more complex organisms who can say.

First biological function of mercury discovered

Purple Non Sulfur Bacteria may play a role in reducing the amount of methyl-mercury in the oceans by converting it to a less harmful form.Sincerely,

www.zmescience.com

It's perhaps just semantics, but I would not characterize that as a biological need, just that it is a chemical food that certain bacteria might consume and process.

It's like finding a bacterium that can consume crude oil, then extrapolating it to crude oil having a biological
"role" in organisms. Perhaps it's semantics, but I doubt Lou will follow it up and incorporate crude oil into his salt mix. lol

Unique oil-eating bacteria found in world's deepest ocean trench

Research that reveals what lies at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean -- the Mariana Trench. Until now, scientists knew more about Mars than the deepest part of the ocean. But an expedition to collect samples of the microbial population at the deepest part of the Mariana Trench (some...

www.eurekalert.org

 

[Citruspeel]

I expect that most aquarium companies do not add any mercury (and a few other chemicals) as an independent ingredient, and it just rides in as an impurity in other chemicals that are intentionally added. Maybe Lou adds it specifically, or he just uses other chemicals that wind up with reasonable mercury levels. In any case, It would not likely be a cause for concern unless it was well above NSW levels.

Personally, I would not add it if I had a choice. There are many trace elements with known biological function somewhere in some organism. Mercury is not one of them.'

Accumulation is a tricky concept for a chemical like mercury that exists in multiple forms in a reef tank even when only one one form is added. Some forms are far more toxic than others, and some accumulate in higher organisms while others do not. Organic mercury forms are among the most toxic. Chemists have died in recent years from accidental exposure to organic forms, and in the past, lots of people suffered from mercury poisoning from the metallic form.

Are lead and arsenic used by any aquarium inhabitants? They're both there in the list of trace elements too.

 

[highest_tides]

Great question, even better answers, this is why i R2R

 

[Hans-Werner]

Are lead and arsenic used by any aquarium inhabitants? They're both there in the list of trace elements too.

Hi, I am Hans-Werner Balling and I am doing the R&D at Tropic Marin. I have published a few articles about consumption and functions of trace elements.

We add all trace elements that are in seawater to our sea salt mixes in natural concentrations, also if no biological function is proven.

If a biological role is not proven yet it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Take for example arsenic. In the last decades different positive biological effects have been found and meanwhile it is suspected to be essential for birds, mammals and other organisms.

It is very difficult to investigate the essentiality of some elements and their biological functions because it is difficult to exclude the tiny amounts that are required. To make sure all elements are found in our salts in their natural concentrations we add them.