ATI results back, sources of vanadium?

[scottrotton]

Tagging ong this is an interesting one

 

[reefwiser]

Its the sand. While black sand may look "cool" you can get metal leaching from it. I have had several club members thru the years have this happen.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Its the sand. While black sand may look "cool" you can get metal leaching from it. I have had several club members thru the years have this happen.

Thank you for this confirmation. I was almost positive this was my problem. Nothing else makes sense. I'm away for the weekend, but monday my sand gets replaced along with a large water change.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Looked up my triton results from December. Most critically elevated elements declined while Al was elevated from Dec to Apr...

December

Sn 34 ug/l
Ni 598ug/l
Mo 332ug/l
V 2422 ug/l
Ba 152ug/l
Al 21ug/l

April

Sn 2ug/l
Ni 41ug/l
Mo 55ug/l
V 1472ug/l
Ba 97ug/l
Al 49ug/l

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The trend looks good.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

The trend looks good.

It does, now if I can just pin point the source... have you heard of any of those elements from Marine Pure. I know the Al is a known leach from ceramic media. Itnhas been removed from the tank and a few water changes have been done since. Tank is still not normal.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I don't think Marine Pure is the source. If it is the sand, the most readily dissolved minerals will come off first and the residual sand may dissolve more and more slowly.

 

[Brew12]

I’ve never been a fan of black sand from a chemical standpoint, but I have no idea if it’s the cause.

I figured you would find this interesting. Turtle sent me a sample of the sand from his tank. I had a lab tech who was kind enough to run it through an electron microscope. As you can see, the cluster in the green box is fairly high in nickel. The more cubical shapes around the cluster are salt crystals. Most of the grains of sand we looked at did not have these clusters, but the ones that did had multiples of them. My thinking is that this is a fairly isolated problem in this particular batch of sand and these nickel inclusions may not be common.

We didn't have as much luck on the Vanadium side. We could find trace amounts like you can see here but were unable to find any high levels or any definable clusters. This wasn't the highest vanadium peak we found but unfortunately we didn't record that one.

Not that it matters much, but I'm pretty sure he was running the SEM at 5000x magnification. ​

 

[Velcro]

Wow that's some next level stuff hahaha

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Thanks again for confirming the sand @Brew12.

Since removing the sand, the tank is improving daily. These two photos were taken with the same S8+ on the same settings with no funny trickery. The first one was taken on Tuesday, 5-1-18 the day after removing the sand. The second one was taken today, 5-4-18. Before the sand removal it was almost nothing but white skeleton. The only thing different is the sand, and a 15g water change to make up for water lost in the sand removal. I still don't dose and I've fed the fish the exact same thing. No coral food or aminos to boost PE...

 

[Velcro]

Concerning that such a melt player in substrate would allow this to of thing to happen

 

[scottrotton]

Amazing effort brew

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Very nice.

Maybe the vanadium rich materials already dissolved, if this was from an in-tank sample.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Very nice.

Mayb the vanadium rich materials already dissolved, if this was from an in-tank sample.

It was out of the tank, and that was my thinking also. Vanadium was the highest raised element in the tank, it might have been the most soluble in sea water.

 

[Brew12]

We also put a sample of the Hawaiian black sand in the SEM. They couldn't look more different. This sand was much more chemically uniform and had few inclusions of any type. It was also distractingly beautiful.

 

[Brew12]

Very nice.

Maybe the vanadium rich materials already dissolved, if this was from an in-tank sample.

It is possible. We may have also just missed it. Keep in mind we only scanned one side of 20 or so grains of sand. That took almost an hour. We only found nickel on 4 or 5 of the grains. It is very possible that we didn't find the vanadium because of the small sample size.

 

[GoVols]

@Robin Haselden
Great thread!!

FWIW:
Always heard that the "Tahitian Moon" has magnetic properties and have stayed away from that sand.
Hope your reef makes the turn for the better.

@Brew12
Great job with the scope... ;Woot

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Love your forum and there's always something to learn ;Writing

 

[SashimiTurtle]

"Magnetic properties"

 

[Maggie321]

We also put a sample of the Hawaiian black sand in the SEM. They couldn't look more different. This sand was much more chemically uniform and had few inclusions of any type. It was also distractingly beautiful.

So are you saying the Hawaiian black is ok? I just bought 5x20 lb bags of the indo-pacific black and I am greatly concerned now. I know you have not said you tested the indo-pacific, but if the Hawaiian black is ok, I may mix that and the good 'ol dry aragonite to get the black and white mix.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

So are you saying the Hawaiian black is ok? I just bought 5x20 lb bags of the indo-pacific black and I am greatly concerned now. I know you have not said you tested the indo-pacific, but if the Hawaiian black is ok, I may mix that and the good 'ol dry aragonite to get the black and white mix.

When I removed the 'Tahitian Moon' sand, I replaced it with the Hawaiian black because I had some on hand. This is last week, Tuesday thru Friday of the same forest fire digi frag.

Here is today...