Extremely High Mercury & Tin Levels... Possible Culprit?

[sgrosenb]

Hi there,

Just got my first ICP test back from Triton. My tank has been up for about 2.5 months. I use Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt, and a SpectraPure RO/DI. I've only dosed Soda Ash from BRS and literally one cap full of Purple Up.

Below is a picture of the test results for heavy metal. I have extremely high Mercury and really high Tin. Not sure what the source could be? Anyone have a similar experience who found a solution? Or anyone have an ideas? Thanks in advance.

-Scott

 

[sgrosenb]

I should also note that I am using PE Mysis shrimp as food. I only have 2 cardinalfish in the tank right now.

 

[Reefltx]

That’s not really high, I had 35ug before. But I wonder if that little ball inside the purple up bottle can get corroded

 

[sgrosenb]

Ah ok. If not the purple up, any other thoughts on what could be causing it?

 

[Coralsea_co]

Shrimp contain low levels of mercury !
This is not about Purple up !

 

[sgrosenb]

Ah ok - so you think it's the shrimp I'm feeding? Any indication if the levels shown are too high? Also - any thoughts on the Tin? Thanks so much for the help

 

[Coralsea_co]

I also think about tin that is from shrimp.
In the case of mercury, due to a broken thermometer in the water can be.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/mercury-in-aquarium-fish-foods.199398/
Good luck

 

[datBme150]

I have the same results. I have had a big die off too. Tank has been in this form for about 6 months. But just took the rock and sand out of my old tank and put it in this one. Went from AIO to a tank with overflow and sump. How do I correct it? It's been in a bad way for a few weeks.

Also went to tropic Marin for a couple water changes. Got the salt missing it's lid so figured something got in. Switched back to red Sea in a couple weeks.

Any idea how to correct? I have been doing tons of watch changes.

 

[sgrosenb]

I too had some die off. 4 fish died. no idea why. still have a cleanup crew but snails and crabs are dying slowly. still have a pair of cardinalfish that seem to be doing fine. datBme150 what do you feed, and did you have high Tin too?

 

[datBme150]

No fish have died but a whole lot of coral has. I feed a few this. Mysis about once a week, reef roids every 2 weeks or so, I recently feed some cheap store bought caviar, (9 bucks) and feed neptune CD crossover diet pellets twice a day.

I did have elevated aluminum but not tin.

 

[Coralsea_co]

I recommend reading the following article :
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rhf/feature/index.php

 

[miPapareef]

Add me to the list of people that received high Mercury result today. Triton had my sample in Germany since Monday and just posted the result at 6:37am. Might be they are having a problem. No other elements are out of range.

 

[sgrosenb]

Interesting @miPapareef is this your first Triton test? Have you had mercury before? Anything you've been doing differently recently?

 

[datBme150]

This is my second test and I have never had it before.

 

[datBme150]

Where did you guys get your kits from?

 

[miPapareef]

Interesting @miPapareef is this your first Triton test? Have you had mercury before? Anything you've been doing differently recently?

It’s my 8th test. I do it every 2 months. Here’s all my heavy metal results. The first Sn result was after I added new flex pvc and UV, so I attribute to that and I used Curisorb. The tungsten result came and went I didn’t do anything. Now this Mercur. nothing is new but in the last month I ran out and got new batches of Core7, ROX carbon, brightwells Neonitro, frozen food.
I do have some coral bleaching but I really think that’s from declining nutrients and a few swings in alk. I have been traveling and away from the tank a lot in the last 3 months. I did just put 70ml of Cuprisorb in a reactor just in case.

 

[miPapareef]

Where did you guys get your kits from?

I bought all the ICP test kits from BRS. The N-DOC came from unique corals, because they had them a month earlier.

 

[datBme150]

BRS as well. I'll send the a quick heads up and link to this thread tomorrow.

 

[sgrosenb]

I'm not sure how the source of purchase makes a difference? it's just a vial. I'm still thinking it might be the frozen food?

 

[ReefRoss]

Add me to the list of High Mercury Test results. This is my 1st time using the test so I don’t have a baseline. I also purchased the test kit from a LFS.