Anyone need any elemental analysis?

[victor_c3]

I don't have a tank set up at the moment (I just moved to a new house, have a toddler, and a newborn in the house) but I've been lurking and following the NPS community for quite some time and I would love to help out somehow.

I'm a chemist by trade and I have access to some various analytical equipment in my lab. I specialize mostly in precious metals and my lab is geared mostly in the direction of elemental and metal analysis, but at the moment I have access to an optical emmision spectrometer (ICP/OES).

In short, this piece of equipment can look for a set of elements and tell you the concentration of the elements in a sample (so long as I know to look for a certain element). You can't just plug a sample into the piece of equipment and ask it to tell you what it is, but it will spit out the relative quantity of calcium, magnesium, copper, or any other elements if we program it to look for those elements.

So, if anyone in the NPS community has an idea for an expirement where they are looking for a certain or set of elements in a sample, I might be able to help out.

Contract labs in my area will typically charge $75-90 just to run a sample on a piece of equipment like this (and that doesn't include sample prep or method development) - so this could be a valuable contribution to the community if anyone can come up with a use for it.

Just throwing the offer out there. Post any ideas below and maybe, as a community, we could come up with some worth-while experiments.

 

[victor_c3]

I just re-read what I wrote and I don't think I was 100% clear. I'm offering this for free and I'm not looking for any money. I'm just interested in helping further our knowledge any way I can.

 

[breakdanc3]

aren't those spectrometers like really realyreally ......... really expensive .. seems like if u could get a sample of seawater from every major coral reef .... it could give u the most exact chemistry that makes up teh water. I know the seawater varies in different parts of the world though and matching a specific corals environment wouldn't suite the other coral i have that came from a different part of the ocean...

But ... if i had that tool .. i would take it to like the nearest zoo.. or somebody that had the nicest looking coral tank.. and get a sample of water... A sample from an ocean coral reef would be most ideal ..

It's so hard to diagnose though.. whether perfect water chemistry contributes to the success or failure of keeping your NPS type corals.. you could probably raise NPS corals on just your reef salt mix .. as far as chemical additives are concerned.

hmm I'd like to know What salt mix.. of ALL the salt mixes comes the closest to having these amounts .. .This list below is supposed to be for Indo-Pacific seawater .. i just googled and pasted this ...
Elements Found in Ocean Water

"Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills."
—Ambrose Bierce
[edit] Major Elements (Over 100 ppm)

Constituent - Symbol - Concentration (ppm)

* Chlorine – Cl - 18,980
* Sodium – Na - 10,560
* Magnesium – Mg - 1,280
* Sulfur – S - 884
* Calcium – Ca - 400
* Potassium – K - 380

[edit] Minor Elements (1–100 ppm)

* Bromine – Br - 65
* Carbon – C - 28
* Strontium – Sr - 8.5
* Boron – B - 4.6
* Fluorine – F - 1.4

[edit] Trace Elements (Under 1 ppm)

Biologically Important Trace Elements in Boldface

* Rubidium – Rb
* Aluminum – Al
* Lithium – Li
* Barium – Ba
* Iodine – I
* Silicon – Si
* Nitrogen – N
* Zinc – Zn
* Lead – Pb
* Selenium – Se
* Arsenic – As
* Copper – Cu
* Tin – Sn
* Iron – Fe
* Cesium – Cs
* Manganese – Mn
* Phosphorous – P
* Thorium – Th
* Mercury – Hg
* Uranium – U
* Cobalt – Co
* Nickel – Ni
* Radium – Ra
* Beryllium – Be
* Cadmium – Cd
* Chromium – Cr
* Titanium – Ti
* Molybdenum – Mo
* Vanadium – V
* Antimony – Sb
* Gold – Au
* Silver – Ag
* Krypton – Kr
* Xenon – Xe
* Bismuth – Bi
* Zirconium – Zr
* Niobium – Nb
* Thallium – Tl
* Hafnium – Hf
* Helium – He
* Argon – Ar
* Neon – Ne
* Tungsten – W
* Germanium – Ge
* Rhenium – Re
* Lanthanum– La
* Neodymium – Nd
* Tantalum – Ta
* Yttrium – Y
* Cerium – Ce
* Dysprosium – Dy
* Erbium – Er
* Ytterbium – Yb
* Gadolinium – Gd
* Praseodymium – Pr
* Scandium – Sc
* Holmium – Ho
* Lutetium – Lu
* Indium – In
* Terbium – Tb
* Samarium – Sm
* Europium – Eu
* Protactinium – Pa
* Radon – Rn
* Technetium – Tc
* Ruthenium – Ru
* Rhodium – Rh
* Palladium – Pd
* Osmium – Os
* Iridium – Ir
* Platinum – Pt
* Astatine – At
* Francium – Fr
* Actinium – Ac

I don't know what kind of tools they used to find those amounts... but should u decide to get an aquarium that tool would be the perfect chemistry guide to buying the best most complete aquarium salt .. so u wouldn't have to buy additives n such .. or to weed out the false advertisers who make bad salt mixes... or u could use it to see if your water filter is giving u the most pure water u need to make your synthetic seawater..

 

[victor_c3]

The price of the machines really depends on your application. The type of analysis I do in my lab isn't quite as finicky as the type of stuff they do in pharmaceutical industry. With elemental analysis you aren't trying to preserve any portion of the molecule. So it just gets bashed to pieces in the mass spec we use in my lab. In short, a mass spec like the one in my lab will cost about $250,000+. I believe that some of the mass specs used in the pharmaceutical industry gofor about $600,000+, but I've never seen a quote for a machine like that.

The piece of equipment that I mentioned I have access to is called an OES or optical emmision spectrometer and they run about $100,000+ for a really nice one.

In mass spectroscopy you break up your molecules and somehow measure the weight of individual particles. With optical emmsion spectroscopy you vaporize your sample (with a 7,000+ degree plasma) and look at the wavelength of light given off to determine what is in a sample.

Although it sounds like an interesting idea, I'm not sure how legal it would be to analyze a comercial salt blend and to post its contents. I know certain products, like cleaning solutions, companies don't have to disclose what is in them as they are "secret formulations" and they are protected like coke protects it secret formulation for coca-cola.

 

[aphenes]

Testing

Testing

Breakdanc3: Should you choose to do some investigating, there is a company called Midwest Laboratories in west Omaha that can test your water for most of your listed elements.
I have used them several times.
Victor_c3: I was always under the impression that sending a seawater sample for analysis was ill advised, as temperature, Co2/ O2 changes, etc., would alter the chemistry, and not give an accurate reading. Not to mention plankton and bacterial die off that would alter nitrogen readings. Your thoughts???

 

[victor_c3]

Aphenes, you're right about the changes in CO2/O2 changes in a samples and that various metabolic activities would still continue to occur in the sample, however ICP/OES wouldn't be able to tell you the relative concentration of CO2 to O2. It would just spit out the total ammount of Carbon and Oxygen. Since no additional carbon would be added to the sample, it doesn't matter what form or where the carbon is fixed (i.e. if it is still in sugars or in waste products [if that makes any sense]). It would just tell you how much carbon is present. The same would go with nitrogen. It wouldn't be able to differentiate between the nitrogen in ammonia, nitrates, or nitrites. It would just tell you that nitrogen is present.

In short, ICP/OES would be ill-suited to analyze a sample for the presence of specific molecules. The sample is introduced to a 7000+ degree Centigrade plasma which obliterates all bonds between the atoms.

It would be great at telling you if there were traces of iodine, magnessium, strontium, etc and their concentrations in the sample. However it wouldn't be able to tell you where or in what molecules these elements are locked up in.

For example, if you wanted to determine how much magnessium was in the stalk of a healthy dendronephthya versus an unhealthy one, OES would be the perfect tool. However it wouldn't be able to differentiate between magnesium that may be part of a bio-mineral lattice (an example of a bio-mineral lattice would be your fingernails or your bones) or if it is present in the form of free ions somewhere else in the samples.

However, if we were to do a study like the one mentioned, we would need to have a good reason to suspect that magnesium is a factor in the healthy dendronephthya versus an unhealthy one. Preparing samples and methods for the machine takes a decent ammount of time and I'm not willing to just "shoot in the dark" unless we have a reasonable reason to suspect magnessium.

Does that makes sense? I'm really not trying to sound like I'm above anyone. OES is something that I spend a lot of time doing at work and I've had a lot of experience with it. If there are any questions or ideas, I'm very willing to discuss!!

Thanks,

Victor

 

[slow_leak]

I would be interested to know Potassium level.

I run an Algae Turf Scrubber and am interested to know export effects on potassium. I read a lot of banter that potassium is unnecessary and that ATS will not work with SPS. I would like to get some facts to see if the heavily cropped scrubber has had effect on potassium.

I can send same fresh Tropic Marin Salt water as comparator. PM if offer is still valid. I only ask for instrument type and calibration method as same salinity.