I’m currently trying to find out if any of the manufacturers laboratories have any recognised accreditation. During your study did you find any information related to any accreditation of their processes or their initial method validation?In a study we (@taricha, @Rick Mathew ) are conducting of ICP vendors, ATI flunked the RODI test in which I spiked an RODI sample with a little Instant Ocean. ATI detected nothing while ICP-Analysis.com detected the elements correctly.
As for the aquarium water test, both ATI and Triton do OK with the elements that are present at more than 1 ppm. The trace element (<1 ppm) analysis from both vendors seems very imprecise, +/- 100% or worse for some elements and results that can range from detected to non-detected.
Take the ICP analysis for trace elements as a rough estimate. @Randy Holmes-Farley has recently commented about this in regards to managing reef aquarium water. I forget which post it was. Maybe he won’t mind repeating himself.