Reef crystals vs esv - triton test

NooPsyche CORAL LIGHT
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Got the new "A", nice job ESV!
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Top Shelf Aquatics
hart24601 said:
I hope you do! Test the salt too if you don't mind spending 50 bucks, haha.

I emailed ESV tech support and showed them this thread and results just for a FYI and to get their thoughts, very quickly they replied asking for the batch numbers to sort it out on their end. I hope they do, I like mixing the components.
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It looks like ESV has been on top of all of this but due to continued high numbers in December Triton test decided to finish up my ESV salt I was working in and make a switch just to see what happens in my tank. I have been using ESV for about 4 years and have always loved it. I have major bad mojo going on in my tank with super high Tin and aluminum, nothing to do with the salt brand I use but since those numbers on the ESV kept reading so high I decided to make a change just to see how my display reacts. Nothing horribly scientific but a change was needed. I am giving Tropic Marin Pro Reef a try. It mixed up really nice for me so that was the first positive thing I can report. I am using it for a month and then sending in a double sample to Triton, fresh made salt water sample and tank water sample and see how my parameters measure up to the ESV numbers from my last testing. So far I am happy with the results of using the Tropic Marin salt on how my tank inhabitants reacted, colors are looking better and LPS look more fluffy. I did two very large water changes two days apart with the Tropic Marin Pro in hopes of diluting the tin and aluminum levels in the display. I did a 55g water change followed by a 45 water change two days later on my 120g, I also sent in a sample of my tank water to Triton after the large water changes to see if the tin and aluminum numbers dropped as much as I expected, I am still waiting for those results. I expected to see some negative reaction with using a new salt and such a high percentage of water change, but the exact opposite happened. Time will tell how this salt works out for me but so far I am happy with it.

I am glad to see ESV making some changes and hope it brings the parameters of their salt into a quality range, I love their products. Who knows, maybe I'll eventually go back to their 4 part salt mix.
 
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slojmn said:
It looks like ESV has been on top of all of this but due to continued high numbers in December Triton test decided to finish up my ESV salt I was working in and make a switch just to see what happens in my tank. I have been using ESV for about 4 years and have always loved it. I have major bad mojo going on in my tank with super high Tin and aluminum, nothing to do with the salt brand I use but since those numbers on the ESV kept reading so high I decided to make a change just to see how my display reacts. Nothing horribly scientific but a change was needed. I am giving Tropic Marin Pro Reef a try. It mixed up really nice for me so that was the first positive thing I can report. I am using it for a month and then sending in a double sample to Triton, fresh made salt water sample and tank water sample and see how my parameters measure up to the ESV numbers from my last testing. So far I am happy with the results of using the Tropic Marin salt on how my tank inhabitants reacted, colors are looking better and LPS look more fluffy. I did two very large water changes two days apart with the Tropic Marin Pro in hopes of diluting the tin and aluminum levels in the display. I did a 55g water change followed by a 45 water change two days later on my 120g, I also sent in a sample of my tank water to Triton after the large water changes to see if the tin and aluminum numbers dropped as much as I expected, I am still waiting for those results. I expected to see some negative reaction with using a new salt and such a high percentage of water change, but the exact opposite happened. Time will tell how this salt works out for me but so far I am happy with it.

I am glad to see ESV making some changes and hope it brings the parameters of their salt into a quality range, I love their products. Who knows, maybe I'll eventually go back to their 4 part salt mix.
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What do you think is causing the High Tin and Aluminum Readings then?

What made you decide on Tropic Marin Pro Salt as opposed to other Brands?

I just switched to Tropic Marin Pro and like it alot.

I cannot wait to see the Results of your Tropic Marin Pro Tests.

I will be following this Thread.

Thanks so much for Posting.
 
FWIW I switched to TMP around December. I moved everything into my new 120 at that time, but in general the move and salt swap went well, nothing I noticed at least. I have gone through 400g of TMP, but figured for fun I would swap back to ESV. The tank has done well with both salts, and I have not done any more Triton tests, but I should just to check. One thing I noticed was that TMP has really low ORP. I know that doesn't really matter much, but I thought it was strange. I have a bit about it in my build thread, but even running ozone the ORP was generally in the 200-300 range (300 nearing a waterchange). Swapping back to ESV I am generally above 400.
 
Ecoscape Reef Rock
What is ORP?

I have heard about that before but always wondered what it was?

Are there any negative effects to having 200 to 300 ORP?
 
that Reef Guy said:
What is ORP?

I have heard about that before but always wondered what it was?

Are there any negative effects to having 200 to 300 ORP?
Click to expand...

ORP is a measure of the oxidation/reduction potential of the aquarium. A value in the 200's can be fine. It is not a value I recommend targeting.

I detail what it is in exacting chemical terms here:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-12/rhf/feature/index.htm

here's a nonscientist description of what it is from the article:

Simplified ORP

Imagine a reef aquarium as a vast battlefield. No, more vast. Much, much more. OK, that's ORP. That is, ORP is a measure of who is winning and who is losing the battle. The battle is never won by one side or the other. As an aquarist, you do not want it to be, or else everything in the tank would be dead. In other situations, such as the purification of tap water for drinking, allowing the oxidizers to win is fine. A high enough ORP (650+ mv) can kill most bacteria in a few seconds.

On one side of this aquarium battle there are the oxidizers. They all want to get electrons, and they rip them off of the bodies of the enemy. The foot soldiers of the oxidizers are oxygen molecules (O2). Did I say the battle is vast? On one day last week, there were 342,418,226,849,748,675,496,726 of these little guys roaming my aquarium, looking for action. Some of these are paratroopers, arriving at the aquarium out of the air. Others are made in secret labs, otherwise known as photosynthetic organisms such as many corals and algae.

Unfortunately, despite their vast numbers, the oxygen molecules are not very effective fighters. In many cases, they can swarm all over the enemy and still not prevail. The true leaders of the oxidizers are far less numerous, but considerably more potent fighters. These include ozone (O3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), triplet oxygen (3O2), and a variety of oxygen radicals, some with such inspiring names such as superoxide radical (O2-). They also include chlorine (Cl2) and chloramine (NH2Cl). It turns out that oxygen molecules (O2) can occasionally morph into some of these better fighters (such as hydrogen peroxide), sometimes all on their own, but most frequently when they get blasted with UV light.

The oxidizers also have other types of fighters. Some are present at very low concentration, but are so sensitive to the state of the battle, that one can gauge the battle by how many of them are left standing at any given point in time. Metals, for example, such as iron (as ferric ion, Fe+++) can serve this purpose. The other oxidizers also include anions such as hypochlorite (ClO-), iodate (IO3-) and nitrate (NO3-), among a host of others.

On the other side are the reducers. The reducers all want to get rid of electrons, and they virtually throw them at the oxidizers. Many of these are organic molecules. They are not as numerous as the oxidizers, but many are much larger. Some are more than 10,000 times as large as an oxygen molecule. So they can make up for low numbers with pure brawn. That is not to say that the reducers do not have small but potent soldiers. The antioxidant vitamins, like vitamin C, for example, are small but extremely potent reducing agents. The reducers also number on their side some inorganic compounds, such as ammonia, iodide, and a really nasty fellow, sulfide.

The reducers come from fish food, metabolic waste products, the breakdown of dead organisms, and certain additives put into the aquarium (e.g., iron supplements that contain ferrous ion). The surfaces of most organisms themselves enter the fray as reducers, waiting to be oxidized by the enemy.

Interestingly, most soldiers on both sides are suicide attackers. Oxygen, ozone, and hydrogen peroxide are all destroyed when they react with a reducer. While not strictly suicidal, most organics are heavily damaged by oxidizer attacks, and are slowly degraded, eventually ending up as carbon dioxide if oxidized enough. They tend to be found in areas that the oxidizers hate; that is, in areas of low oxygen. Yet, the reducers are also sneaky, and even manage to get their hands inside cells (even finding positions in photosynthesis itself).

So where does ORP fit into all this?

ORP is a measure of the relative fighting ability of the oxidizers and the reducers. Think of the surface of the ORP electrode as a surface that these various fighters are hurling themselves against for practice. If there are lots of potent oxidizers around, and not so many reducers, ORP rises because the electrode senses more oxidizing "power" in solution. Likewise, ORP drops if it senses more reducing power in solution.

The exact value reported by an ORP electrode is, consequently, a constantly varying number that represents the ebb and flow of the battle. If you add oxidizers to the aquarium (ozone, permanganate, hydrogen peroxide, etc.) then the ORP rises. Alternatively, if you add a lot of organic molecules to the solution, or restrict the oxygen supply, the ORP drops.

What about pH? pH can impact the ORP readings in aquaria. Often, ORP goes down as pH rises. A typical aquarium ORP reading will change on the order of 59 mv/pH unit. The easiest way to understand this is to simply think of pH as a measure of hydrogen ions (H+) in solution, and to think of H+ as being on the side of the oxidizers. In reality, H+ doesn't usually oxidize things itself (though it can), but more typically it can hype up other oxidizers, like oxygen, making them much more potent. So during the course of a 24-hour day in a reef aquarium, ORP will vary as pH and O2 also vary.

Is ORP a useful measure? That is, should aquarists really care how this incredible battle is going? To some extent, yes. If the oxidizers carry the day, the ORP would rise to the point where the organic molecules that represent the bodies of organisms would be burned away. If the reducers won outright, the ORP would drop below 0 mv. In that case, there would be little oxygen left, and toxic hydrogen sulfide would rule the aquarium. In either case, the aquarium would be a disaster.

So aquarists have to hope for, and to some extent maintain, this battle in a sort of middle ground. That middle ground is typically described as being between 200 and 500 mv. Most aquarium authors have recommended a range of 300-450 mV. Why? Mostly because the ocean often has ORP in this range, and because these authors have successfully operated aquaria in this range.

HOWEVER, there is a significant potential to misunderstand cause and effect with ORP. If a crappy looking tank that is overrun by algae has a low ORP, is the low ORP the cause of the algae, or is the algae the cause of the low ORP? Or are both simply the byproduct of some other process? Does artificially raising ORP by adding an oxidizer like ozone actually improve anything? The answers are not obvious. These and other related questions will be addressed in greater detail in subsequent sections of this article that go into the scientific details surrounding ORP in aquaria.

Most reef aquarists, aside from those that use ozone and must therefore monitor ORP to prevent overdosing, use ORP to monitor if anything unusual happens in the aquarium. A sudden drop in ORP, for example, suggests that the reducers are suddenly gaining ground. That might be because a gush of organic molecules has been released from a dead organism, or because the oxygen supply is not keeping up with demand for some reason. Aquarists might use such information like an alarm suggesting the tank needs to be looked at closely. Most aquarists do not target any specific ORP value as being optimal, in part because ORP measurement is subject to considerable potential error.

So is ORP measurement and control recommended for nonscientists who also happen to be reef aquarists? My suggestion is no. There are interesting things to learn by measuring ORP, and I recommend that everyone with any interest read the following sections to better understand it and decide for themselves if it is worth doing or not. Nevertheless, I have not measured ORP in my aquarium for years, despite having the tools at hand. It is simply not very high on the list of things that one can usefully do to maintain a high quality reef aquarium, in my opinion.

ORP in the Ocean

As it turns out, the redox potential of the open ocean is not something that most oceanographers appear to pay much attention to. Chemical oceanography textbooks often don't even mention it. That is probably because it isn't an especially useful measurement for most of the features of the ocean that they are actually interested in understanding.

The places where it does become an important tool are usually places where the ORP has deviated significantly from that of the open ocean. These include anoxic basins, such as the subsurface regions of the Dead Sea. Here the ORP has been reported to be 155 to 236 mv on the surface and -315 to -384 mv in the deeper anoxic regions.1

ORP is also frequently used to evaluate interstitial water in sediments on the bottom of the ocean (often in the range of -200 to -400 mv). I've not measured the ORP down in the sand in my aquarium or refugium, although I have measured pH down deep in the sand, and it is well below the pH of the water column. I have also not seen such ORP measurements for other aquaria, but they could be very interesting. Perhaps such measurements could shed light on the aging of sand beds. Or perhaps on how deep a layer of sand is necessary to drive nitrification as a function of particle size. It might possibly even distinguish different types of sand (e.g., silica vs. aragonite).

Those embarking on such tests should be aware of certain complications which will be discussed later in this article. Specifically, it may take a substantial period of time for an ORP probe to come to equilibrium with the ORP in a sand bed. Additionally, the act of inserting the probe will likely skew the ORP, so one may need to wait a substantial period (days or longer) for the sand bed to re-equilibrate.

Other scientists have used small ORP changes in the open ocean as an indicator of possible hydrothermal vent activity below. Unless you are measuring ORP in sand beds, or some similarly unusual place, these types of measurements are probably of little interest to most aquarists.

The ORP of the open ocean (and on coral reefs) has been reported to have values ranging from 0 to 450 mv.2-5 The fact that these values are very prone to error for a variety of reasons makes them not very useful in setting a target ORP for aquaria. These sources of errors are discussed more fully in subsequent sections of this article.
 
I was waiting for Randy's reply! Nothing wrong with TMP or that ORP range, many fantastic tanks use it. I just decided to switch because I run ozone at night and with TMP even with ozone on the ORP didn't change much even when using large (for me) amounts, hard to get it over 200mv when fresh and it normally was around 230-240 for me when running ozone constantly. Maybe Randy will say that doesn't matter, but for the same 50mg/hr O3 with ESV I can see a rise from mid/upper 300s into low 400s at night with my shutoff at 450. With TMP I was worried about ozone byproducts since I could run the ozone flat out at 100+ and not see much ORP change - leading me to worry that it would be easier to produce harmful ozone byproducts since I couldn't get a baseline of the ozone even changing the ORP. I thought my probe/ozone machine was not working correctly until I switched.

The other issue was that I thought it was strange how the TMP ORP was so low, but over a period of weeks would drift up (from below 200 to maybe 250) unless I did any sort of WC, then it would stay below 200. Some interesting things happening in the tank over time, but I switched salts and don't notice the creeping, which I didn't really like to see.
 
Nutramar Foods
The ORP of new salt water is going to be a factor of the exact form that various trace elements take, such as iron. I don't think we have any reason to think higher ORP in new salt water is better, and may make some needed trace elements less soluble (Fe+++ (ferric iron), which predominates at higher ORP, is much less soluble than Fe++ (ferrous iron) which predominates at lower ORP, for example)
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
The ORP of new salt water is going to be a factor of the exact form that various trace elements take, such as iron. I don't think we have any reason to think higher ORP in new salt water is better, and may make some needed trace elements less soluble (Fe+++ (ferric iron), which predominates at higher ORP, is much less soluble than Fe++ (ferrous iron) which predominates at lower ORP, for example)
Click to expand...

What is your thought with this "With TMP I was worried about ozone byproducts since I could run the ozone flat out at 100+ and not see much ORP change - leading me to worry that it would be easier to produce harmful ozone byproducts since I couldn't get a baseline of the ozone even changing the ORP. I thought my probe/ozone machine was not working correctly until I switched."

To expand a bit I was concerned that whatever was keeping the TMP below 200 was making it hard for me to notice the effects of the ozone addition into the tank. Or if the ORP doesn't change is that not an issue? For example (stocking and feeding is the same) 50mg/hr O3 raises my ESV from 370-410 overnight, but 100mg/hr O3 didn't do much to raise TMP. Generally 200-230 when constantly on. Or does that not matter at all? If TMP with a ton of ozone does not go above 250 can you just keep adding all you want? My main concern was being able to tell if my ozone was even working and how much to add without producing harmful byproducts.
 
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IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%

  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
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