Looking deeper into different media’s | What is bound or released

[Reefahholic]

Been waiting for this for a while. @Christoph and his team are digging into the juicy details. @Randy Holmes-Farley


And the Facebook link doesn’t work here. ^^
Still active on Facebook. What a shame!


Here we go! VVVVVV

An ICP-MS look onto reactor media Part 2 | Oceamo

What is released into the aquarium water by activated carbon, zeolite and phosphate adsorbers? What trace elements and pollutants are bound?

en.oceamo.com

 

[Doctor Derp]

An ICP-MS look onto reactor media Part 2 | Oceamo

What is released into the aquarium water by activated carbon, zeolite and phosphate adsorbers? What trace elements and pollutants are bound?

en.oceamo.com

 

[Garf]

Been waiting for this for a while. @Christoph and his team are digging into the juicy details. @Randy Holmes-Farley


And the Facebook link doesn’t work here. ^^
Still active on Facebook.


What a shame!

Wow, GFO takes a lot of stuff out.

 

[Spare time]

How do I access the post? Is it the one shard by doctor derp?

 

[Garf]

How do I access the post? Is it the one shard by doctor derp?

Yep, I hope so, lol

 

[Spare time]

I am curious if these were statistically analyzed

 

[Reefahholic]

How do I access the post? Is it the one shard by doctor derp?

Yes, this one. Have to link straight from the website:

An ICP-MS look onto reactor media Part 2 | Oceamo

What is released into the aquarium water by activated carbon, zeolite and phosphate adsorbers? What trace elements and pollutants are bound?

en.oceamo.com

 

[Miami Reef]

I’m a little skeptical.

First, ICP isn’t that good of a method for tracking trace elements like iron.

The article stated that zeolites released potassium, however, it is known that zeolites remove it.

GFO releases iron, but this article stated that GFO removed it.

I’m not sure. I’d like to hear @Randy Holmes-Farley ‘s opinion about this.

I’m not trying to be a “Debby Downer,” I am simply trying to understand.

 

[Reefahholic]

Prime example of why I don’t run anything like that unless I have a very good reason or it’s an emergency.

 

[Reefahholic]

I’m a little skeptical.

First, ICP isn’t that good of a method for tracking trace elements like iron.

The article stated that zeolites released potassium, however, it is known that zeolites remove it.

GFO releases iron, but this article stated that GFO removed it.

I’m not sure. I’d like to hear @Randy Holmes-Farley ‘s opinion about this.

I’m not trying to be a “Debby Downer,” I am simply trying to understand.

Well, this is exactly why I posted it. I want to get the conversation going and hear all opinions, so I appreciate yours.

I’ve been looking at the MS results from several different tanks, and they seem to be very accurate. The samples are filtered which yields more accuracy with nutrients. I like that, because I do believe there is some degradation taking place when the sample is in transit. Hopefully this will minimize some of that if it’s happening.

 

[Dan_P]

Been waiting for this for a while. @Christoph and his team are digging into the juicy details. @Randy Holmes-Farley


And the Facebook link doesn’t work here. ^^
Still active on Facebook. What a shame!


Here we go! VVVVVV

An ICP-MS look onto reactor media Part 2 | Oceamo

What is released into the aquarium water by activated carbon, zeolite and phosphate adsorbers? What trace elements and pollutants are bound?

en.oceamo.com

I was interested to see the results but surprised by the way the data was reported.

A red flag for me was the mixed Y-axis, increases reported ”+” and decreases as a per cent of the initial value. Also, without error bars, there is no way to judge the statistical significance of the results. This sort of approach for reporting data imakes me think the data was salvaged. If the data was reported in a straightforward manner, I suspect the study results would appear confusing or questionable. Without seeing the raw data, it is diffucult to judge whether there were any significant findings.

Another problem with the data is the ”so what” factor. For this type of observation to be relevant or useful, it ought to show that the results matter. For example, GFO might remove certain elements. So what? What is the context? How much are the concentrations of these elements lowered per 0.05 ppm drop in phosphate? Just showing an effect with an arbitrary volume of water is interesting but only a start.

I wonder why Christoph did not post these results on R2R?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks very much for posting this.

I agree it is hard to interpret without actual numbers, and this bolded part concerns me:

"Then 10 bed volumes of sample solution (natural seawater, partly with element spikes) were slowly allowed to drip through the media bed."

What was spiked, to what level and in what form?

Trace elements come in many forms (say, ferrous and ferric iron), and most importantly, are often bound to organics in natural seawater and in reef tank water. But if they are spiked in an unbound form, may have very different properties before they are bound again. I'd speculate that some are much more likely to bind to media surfaces when unbound than when bound.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, 10 bed volumes of seawater used is a massive media to volume ratio compared to actual use. It may not alter the direction of release or absorption, but it might have a huge effect on percent declines. A problematic -80% might become a trivial -1% in real use.

It would equate to, for example, using 10 gallons of media in a 100 gallon tank.

 

[taricha]

Setting aside the Y-axis labeling choices: hard to do concisely when the amounts might be 1000's of ppm for one bar and 10ppb for another or 20% absorption in one bar and 100x increase in another...

The Calcium illustrates Randy's point about the volume of test water vs amount of media. The tests show a 10-20% decrease in Calcium with GFO and Aluminum media. Obviously - that just isn't seen in a reef tank. (but it might point to that mechanism occurring on a much smaller scale.)

One thing I do wonder about is the across the board reduction of trace metals by GFO - including Iron. I wonder if this is because metals in seawater often hang out with binders, and the binders (natural or man-made) may be attracted by GFO. Which brings up Randy's point about the element spikes - if the addition of the traces included stuff like EDTA, would that get sucked up by GFO?
no idea.
Unsure if you need a chelating agent like EDTA explain GFO sucking up all the metals, or if you can get that same result with just bare metals.

BTW, This earlier posted result had numbers for Ba and Si. Looks like some GAC can add significant Si (0.8ppm at 1g GAC / L water)
https://en.oceamo.com/reactormedia

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Unsure if you need a chelating agent like EDTA explain GFO sucking up all the metals, or if you can get that same result with just bare metals.

Unchelated metals are known to bind to mineral surfaces directly. They will bind to the negatively charged oxygen atoms present. Chelation will deter the binding.

The adsorption of Cu, Pb, Zn, and Cd on goethite from major ion seawater

The adsorption of Cu, Pb, Zn, and Cd on goethite from major ion seawater

The adsorption of Cu, Pb, Zn, and Cd on goethite (αFeOOH) from NaNO3 solutions and from major ion seawater was compared to assess the effect of the ma…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[Reefahholic]

Agreed, it would be nice to have more specific data. However, not many folks are doing this kind of testing so I’m appreciative.

 

[Superlightman]

Zeolite seems the less harmful and interestly it release rubidium ,which some people claimed they see good results on corals,could this be one of the reason of success of some zeolite tank?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Zeolite seems the less harmful and interestly it release rubidium ,which some people claimed they see good results on corals,could this be one of the reason of success of some zeolite tank?

IMO, rubidium is not useful and it has no known biological role in any organism.

As to the harmful part, it certainly may bind less, but the question is what does it actually do that is useful.

As far as I can tell, it’s just a substrate for bacteria to adhere to.

 

[Superlightman]

IMO, rubidium is not useful and it has no known biological role in any organism.

As to the harmful part, it certainly may bind less, but the question is what does it actually do that is useful.

As far as I can tell, it’s just a substrate for bacteria to adhere to.

The advantage I see,it seems good for nitrate and phosphate control,make the water clear,it is cheaper than the other absorber. It may also give better colors,why seems to be unclear,I remember in the past to have tried it for nitrate control a few months,it worked good and at the end the colors became very nice,zeovit close,even if I was not Uln .but then I switched to carbon dosing,but never got this kind of color again.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The advantage I see,it seems good for nitrate and phosphate control,make the water clear,it is cheaper than the other absorber. It may also give better colors,why seems to be unclear,I remember in the past to have tried it for nitrate control a few months,it worked good and at the end the colors became very nice,zeovit close,even if I was not Uln .but then I switched to carbon dosing,but never got this kind of color again.

Zeolites do not bind phosphate from seawater. I doubt they bind much nitrate, but may bind a little. Certain zeolites can bind a small amount of ammonia. I don’t see that as a benefit, but I suppose someone else might.

I don’t think water clarity (a somewhat vague term) is a strong effect of a zeolite.

Folks should be careful to not confuse effects of bacteria growing somewhere that may happen to be on a zeolite with direct effects of the zeolites themselves.