Reef Water Sample from Maui Hawaii

brandon429 · Jul 12, 2018

We routinely see 20-50 point spread nitrate readings among hobby kits in posts, Red Sea vs api was one with a large diff in reporting

Icp will calibrate these readings above nicely

If icp comes back no3 49ppm then my whole algae theory is in distress

WetPets · Jul 13, 2018

brandon429 said:
For the first time ever I can ask the grand question

How do plants grow in those conditions (zero nitrate) to feed tons of grazers, and produce more algae daily forever, and HI isn’t even cleanest among reefs

*how are corals thriving in zero nitrate condtns there, but bleach out in our tanks? (Posit/low suspended heterotrophic feed avail compared to nature)

Fiji / cleaner I bet (not sure, let’s see) and still grows same grazer feed

The way we were all trained for reef keeping does not allow for the paradigm of algae growth in clean, healthy, ideal waters, something always had to be bad or off. That’s not supported by the data above.

That algae grows -wherever- a reef grows, and not necessarily an imbalanced one only, has extrapolations for algae prevention in our home reef tanks to a massive degree.

Ash. Check out this thread I was happy to get some clean hobby kit readings off natural reefs, i wish other travelers would link and post here / build

The natural sunlight has to do with the algae growth.

ncaldwell · Jul 13, 2018

Nice! I snorkeled molokini about a month ago when I was there, beautiful. Although seeing the size of the Achilles tangs made me sad about the sheer size of the tangs living there. Feel like you need a 1000 gallon tank to keep any tang

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 13, 2018

Joe's Coral Reef said:
I believe when they first came up with icp and triton, the idea was to gather samples from around the world, then be able to match that with dosing and icp testing. What they discovered was all the levels are the same or very close. I believe what you’ll find is the standard sea levels parameters.

The values in seawater are well known and don't really need Triton to do anything. IMO, such tests are more useful to validate the test, than to test the NSW.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 13, 2018

FWIW, ICP on trace elements collected in a galss bottle are not going to be useful for

brandon429 said:
We routinely see 20-50 point spread nitrate readings among hobby kits in posts, Red Sea vs api was one with a large diff in reporting

Icp will calibrate these readings above nicely

If icp comes back no3 49ppm then my whole algae theory is in distress

ICP is not useful for nitrate. It detects everything with an N in it, including N2 gas in the air.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 13, 2018

Colin Fowler said:
I’ll chip in. Fun. Let me contact ICP and see how much it might cost.

A random glass bottle is not suitable for testing trace metals in seawater. Too much leaching and/or binding to the glass. Collection methods are a primary reason why the "accepted" trace element levels in seawater has declined over the years, because the collection itself was contaminating the samples.

Here's a typical procedure to try to get decent data for iron in seawater:

https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/1588/2/JMendez_Thesis_1.pdf

Seawater was collected using Teflon-coated external spring niskin bottles using Teflon coated messengers (General Oceanics Inc. model 1010X5L) attached to ¼ inch polyester line. Niskin bottles were rinsed with surface seawater (15 - 40 m) before each day’s use and milli-Q (mQ) water after each day of sampling (18.2 MΩ, 2 x 500 mL), and stored wet.

Water was pumped from each niskin bottle through a 0.2 µm cartridge filter (Sartobran cellulose acetate P 150, 0.45 µm prefilter) with a peristaltic pump using C-Flex tubing (acid leached in 10% v/v reagent HCl) into a hepafiltered work space. The filter and tubing were rinsed with at least one liter of seawater before sampling to remove any residual acid and condition the walls to reduce sample iron adsorption (Buck et al., 2007). Samples were collected in 60 or 125 mL low density polyethylene (LDPE) bottles, rinsing each bottle 3 times with the seawater sample before collection. Final samples were acidified with hydrochloric acid (12 M, SeaStar® HCl) at an acid to seawater ratio of 1:1000, ultimately 9 reaching a pH of 2.0 - 2.3. All sampling and laboratory materials were acid leached using standard trace metal clean techniques.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 13, 2018

Colin Fowler said:
And the results are in!! Yep, they are pretty much spot on with the reference material I have for natural water, with the exception of Calcium, which was a little higher.

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - Not detectable in my kit / 0
Phosphate - more than 0, less than .25
Salinity - 1.024
PH - 8.2
Calcium - 452
Alkalinity - 7.5 dkh
Magnesium- 1260

So about half a bottle of the water left. What should I do with it: save it, dump it in my tank, or something else?

FWIW, the variation from NSW ratios of Ca/Mg/alk is more likely due to testing inaccuracies than real differences from known values.

For example, the calcium to magnesium ratio does not vary that much in the ocean, but our kits are well known to have such issues.

Clueless Reefer · Jul 13, 2018

Definitely watching this thread, I'd be pretty interested to see what your ICP tests will show. You can usually save 10 bucks if you just mail the sample into them directly instead of waiting for the box to show up at your house. I use the small bottles that Doctor offices use for urine samples and just send them in direct.

laverda · Jul 13, 2018

brandon429 said:
We routinely see 20-50 point spread nitrate readings among hobby kits in posts, Red Sea vs api was one with a large diff in reporting

Icp will calibrate these readings above nicely

If icp comes back no3 49ppm then my whole algae theory is in distress

There are many other factors that can limit algae growth, such as iron levels.

beaslbob · Jul 13, 2018

brandon429 said:
For the first time ever I can ask the grand question

...

How do plants grow in those conditions (zero nitrate) to feed tons of grazers, and produce more algae daily forever, and HI isn’t even cleanest among reefs

...

or perhaps the plants are the reason there are 0 nitrates.

brandon429 · Jul 13, 2018

then how does the ats effect not kick in and limit the plants wo the grazers

if you box off a section of the reef with gridding, algae grows in nearly every reef I can't envision one linked to the ocean that wouldn't. I know where you are going w the plants, so Ill throw the ats'ers under the bus heh. why does the gridded space still grow algae if the plants are the limiter

I can't fully rib on ats'ers. Reefing validity for me is found in post threads where we get to sift for pages of repeating patterns of something working or not. ATS threads are massive troves of dt cures, and huge feeding allowances which is neat, they are valid setups but still it seems in the end, a grazer does it or not

I know one can limit algae growth with iron, or other nutrients but that's how the whole backbone of reefing was built (starving algae as the sole allowed means) and it doesn't work as well as someone getting fed up with losing tanks to invasion and become willing to get the steak knives out. at that point you've got a determined human grazer, we simply needed permission to pre-act on day 1 but no book ever gave that. it was always add a snail, add phosguard, DONT shine free sunlight etc.

reefers should set every param including iron to what corals want, the focus of our tanks. algae can be handled independently~imagine a reefing course where we don't bound from here to there every year, guided by hundredths of something, led by another organism, always responding. We can preemptively hand kill invaders when they're on one rock

in my threads we like to advise that aquarists use your limiters as growth prevention but not for removal of established algae, be deliberate there, and have the job done within two hours. That's guaranteed to keep a reef uninvaded even with good or bad params, balanced or imbalanced grazer loading etc. comes down to human accountability for the invasion.

Cforbesz28 · Jul 14, 2018

I would like to know if radiation from Fukushima is present. May be a little off topic.....? But I am very curious to know.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 14, 2018

Cforbesz28 said:
I would like to know if radiation from Fukushima is present. May be a little off topic.....? But I am very curious to know.

I expect even if it was, the massive dilution factor by the time it got to Hawaii makes it invisible against the background radiation normally present in seawater. If one wanted to study this, you'd look for the specific element isotopes that come from almost exclusively a reactor (like the cesium isotopes mentioned in the article below), not the radiation itself.

To make this measurement, you'd likely use a sophisticated mass spectrometer, probably an ICP-MS.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...m-fukushima-meltdown-detected-near-vancouver/

"
The only cesium-134 in the North Pacific is there from Fukushima," he said. Cesium-137, on the other hand, is also present from nuclear weapons tests and discharge from nuclear power plants."