Triton test sample freezing

Lazys Coral House · Jan 7, 2015

I was going to send in my triton test sample but first wanted to check to see if I should wait for it to warm up a bit outside. Since we have negative temperatures here in Ohio should I wait? Could the sample freeze or expand and leak or break the vials?

Shep · Jan 7, 2015

Water does expand when frozen so if the vials are tightly capped and the water froze it could break them. Is there a larger vial you could send it in? One with extra room to allow for the water to expand.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 7, 2015

Freezing will also potentially cause precipitation of calcium carbonate as the remaining solution gets more and more concentrated. That may take out some trace elements with it as well.

As an aside, here's a Reef Chemistry Question of the Day on that topic:

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/re...hemistry-question-day-74-frozen-seawater.html

Triggreef · Jan 7, 2015

If you turn it straight in to your post office, rather than leaving it in an outside box for a length of time, I would think it probably won't freeze. But maybe thats a question for Triton, as far as whether or not they are leaving our samples outside on arrival. Who know maybe they have a drop box where they can be left when they are delivered...

Triton US · Jan 7, 2015

Triggreef said:
If you turn it straight in to your post office, rather than leaving it in an outside box for a length of time, I would think it probably won't freeze. But maybe thats a question for Triton, as far as whether or not they are leaving our samples outside on arrival. Who know maybe they have a drop box where they can be left when they are delivered...

Fortuantely, we receive them and keep them in our nice warm facility here in L.A., and they are then sent priority to German via Fed Ex, so they never sit out in frozen conditions as far as we're aware!

-Scott

Triggreef · Jan 8, 2015

Awesome because I just sent a couple samples.

Reef Pets · Jan 8, 2015

A heat pack or two could help them from freezing. You can generally pick up a heat pack from a sporting goods store or even in the sporting section of Walmart.

dgrigor02 · Jan 9, 2015

I asked the same question when forum first opened.

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/triton-us/176847-what-about-freezing-during-shipment.html

This was the response:

Triton US said:
This is actually not a problem, as the sample is essentially "atomized" during the analysis. Freezing will not affect the capability of the ICP-OES detection system.