My ICP test came back with a reading of 11ug/l I'm trying to figure out how concerned to be and what to do about it.
The commentarty on what to do is:
To help you find the source of the error, we have listed the most common iron sources (sorted in descending order by frequency):
1. Contaminated trace elements
2. Metals nearby or in the aquarium (eg rusty hose clamps or screws)
3. Contaminated salts
4. pH in the aquarium too low.
5. PO4 iron-based adsorber
I've also searched and found Randy's comments about Iron:
Iron (Fe). The natural iron level varies a lot with depth, but surface seawater may have only 0.006 µg/L. The Triton LOD = 0.3 µg/L. I dose iron, and when I dose it I boost iron to roughly 1-2 µg/L, which would be detectable. This sample was taken more than a week after the last iron dosing, and none was detected as it gets depleted in the meanwhile. I’ve not yet seen a Triton test result for a real aquarium sample that had detectable iron, but that doesn’t mean these tanks are necessarily deficient. Iron is also a case where the form is critical, and ICP cannot distinguish form. Binding to organic matter, for example, can alter the bioavailability of iron.
I dose Red sea Colors. I have a 75 gallon SPS dominant tank, and my daily consumption of Calcium is 85 ml of BRS Pharm grade Calcium. Based on that, my dosing of Red Sea Colors is 1.66 ml (85ml/51).
I haven't found any rusty hose clamps or screws.
I had been using Red Sea salt, but rec'd a free box of Reef Crystals. I used it up and have switched back to Red Sea salt.
PH runs 7.8-8.0
Phosphates have risen and I changed out my GFO. Wanted to lower phosphates slowly so set the GFO reactor to run 8 hrs/day.
I've stopped dosing Red Sea Color C (Iron) for about 2 weeks now.
Questions are:
1) How concerned should I be about the reading of 11 ug/l?
2) How long should I stop dosing Color C?
3) The Red Sea colors documentation for Color C lists that dosing 1 ml/25g will raise iron by .02ppm. So that would be 3 ml/75g (my tank size) will raise iron by .02 ppm. So if I dose only 1.5 ml/day that would raise iron by .01ppm = 10 ug/l. Is my math right? If so wouldn't the daily dosage almost equal the 11 ug/l that was detected? Doesn't make sense to me. What am I missing???
Randy - I hope you have some ideas!
My green corals all look good.
The commentarty on what to do is:
To help you find the source of the error, we have listed the most common iron sources (sorted in descending order by frequency):
1. Contaminated trace elements
2. Metals nearby or in the aquarium (eg rusty hose clamps or screws)
3. Contaminated salts
4. pH in the aquarium too low.
5. PO4 iron-based adsorber
I've also searched and found Randy's comments about Iron:
Iron (Fe). The natural iron level varies a lot with depth, but surface seawater may have only 0.006 µg/L. The Triton LOD = 0.3 µg/L. I dose iron, and when I dose it I boost iron to roughly 1-2 µg/L, which would be detectable. This sample was taken more than a week after the last iron dosing, and none was detected as it gets depleted in the meanwhile. I’ve not yet seen a Triton test result for a real aquarium sample that had detectable iron, but that doesn’t mean these tanks are necessarily deficient. Iron is also a case where the form is critical, and ICP cannot distinguish form. Binding to organic matter, for example, can alter the bioavailability of iron.
I dose Red sea Colors. I have a 75 gallon SPS dominant tank, and my daily consumption of Calcium is 85 ml of BRS Pharm grade Calcium. Based on that, my dosing of Red Sea Colors is 1.66 ml (85ml/51).
I haven't found any rusty hose clamps or screws.
I had been using Red Sea salt, but rec'd a free box of Reef Crystals. I used it up and have switched back to Red Sea salt.
PH runs 7.8-8.0
Phosphates have risen and I changed out my GFO. Wanted to lower phosphates slowly so set the GFO reactor to run 8 hrs/day.
I've stopped dosing Red Sea Color C (Iron) for about 2 weeks now.
Questions are:
1) How concerned should I be about the reading of 11 ug/l?
2) How long should I stop dosing Color C?
3) The Red Sea colors documentation for Color C lists that dosing 1 ml/25g will raise iron by .02ppm. So that would be 3 ml/75g (my tank size) will raise iron by .02 ppm. So if I dose only 1.5 ml/day that would raise iron by .01ppm = 10 ug/l. Is my math right? If so wouldn't the daily dosage almost equal the 11 ug/l that was detected? Doesn't make sense to me. What am I missing???
Randy - I hope you have some ideas!
My green corals all look good.
