Artificial Seawater Woes

[MiNdErAsR]

Hi Ron,
In your article you wrote, For those aquarists who must use artificial seawater, it is imperative to find out the contents of the salt mixes that are available, and to use the one with the lowest concentrations of trace materials. However, in reading Atkinson and Bingman's article, it seems even the salts with the lowest concentrations of heavy metals are far above NSW levels. You also mention how skimming may assist in removal, but to what extent? Would aggressive skimming reduce trace elements enough to bring levels closer to NSW or less life threatening numbers? Also how would regular and large water changes help slow the accumulation of trace elements if the salt used is the very source of said trace elements? Is there anything we (as hobbyists) can do to convince the producers of commercially available salt mixes to reduce trace elements to a more natural level?

Thank you for a most enlightening article.

[cvye]

Imagine, after all these years, Al Thiel was right to use Polyfilters!

What if we pretreat our water-change-artificial seawater with Polyfilter/GAC? How effective are they at reducing trace elements? (It's not just that they do, but is the effect big enough for us to bother!)

[rshimek]

Originally posted by MiNdErAsR

Hi,

However, in reading Atkinson and Bingman's article, it seems even the salts with the lowest concentrations of heavy metals are far above NSW levels.

Yes, and those levels are in ranges that are toxic to some, if not most, animals.

You also mention how skimming may assist in removal, but to what extent? Would aggressive skimming reduce trace elements enough to bring levels closer to NSW or less life threatening numbers?

I have just gotten the raw data from my tank export study, wherein (with the help of a dozen or so aquarists) I was able to examine skimmates, etc. Unfortunately, I have not yet fully analyzed those data, so I really can't address your questions. I hope to get an article on that topic out within a couple of months.

Also how would regular and large water changes help slow the accumulation of trace elements if the salt used is the very source of said trace elements?

The salt is not the sole source. It is the main initial source, but many of these same elements are concentrated in foods, so they are continually added to the tank as we feed. Water changes would help reduce these added levels.

Is there anything we (as hobbyists) can do to convince the producers of commercially available salt mixes to reduce trace elements to a more natural level?

I don't know. I expect a lot of resistence.

[rshimek]

Originally posted by cvye

Hi,

Imagine, after all these years, Al Thiel was right to use Polyfilters!

But he also promoted the use of additives and supplements... probably balanced out somehow...

What if we pretreat our water-change-artificial seawater with Polyfilter/GAC? How effective are they at reducing trace elements? (It's not just that they do, but is the effect big enough for us to bother!)

This is what I intend to do once I set up my revised lagoonal reef (in a couple of weeks). I am in the midst of some discussions with the folks who make Polyfilters, and it appears that the filters can pull enough of the trace metals out to make it well worth while to use the filters.

Another alternative would be to make our own salt mixes out of analytical grade chemicals. There are several simple recipes for this in the scientific literature, and these mixes work very well. I suspect that any of us could mix them up and use them in our systems and that the cost would not be too much more than what we pay now for salt (I think most of the cost of the salt now is shipping, packaging, and profit).

[cfockler]

Originally posted by rshimek
Another alternative would be to make our own salt mixes out of analytical grade chemicals. There are several simple recipes for this in the scientific literature, and these mixes work very well. I suspect that any of us could mix them up and use them in our systems and that the cost would not be too much more than what we pay now for salt (I think most of the cost of the salt now is shipping, packaging, and profit).

OUTSTANDING! Please enlighten us with a few web links and if you've got recipes by all means please share them! This sounds a lot better than paying for salt mixes with inappriopriate toxins and then paying for polyfilters to remove the toxins.

If it doesn't require a "mad scientist" laboratory and expensive chemical test kits I'd like to give salt mixing a try.

[rshimek]

Hi Clint,

I will do this, but not just yet. I have yet to do some of the research necessary - such as to see where we can get some of the chemicals.

It will not take much of a "Mad Scientist" lab to mix the salt, but it will take a fairly sensitive scale.

[SciGuy2]

Dr. Ron,

Thank you for the brilliant set of discussions on trace metals you have written in the last few months.

You have started asking questions that we hobbiests have not been bright enough to ask and research. Most of us have been concerned regarding what the best salt mixture was to use in making up our tank water; but I don't think that any of us would have realized that all of the salt mixes have such a high potential for initial toxicity.

I know I wouldn't have questioned the salt formulations. This is coming from someone that uses hydrogeology to make a living and that opted to start a 20 gallon tank 12 years ago instead of a larger tank because he wanted to use only distilled water for evaporation make up.

I look forward to hearing you speak in Dallas in September.

Sincerely,

[rshimek]

Originally posted by SciGuy2

Hi Lee,

You have started asking questions that we hobbiests have not been bright enough to ask and research.

Thanks for the compliments, but I am sure most hobbyists would be bright enough to ask these questions. I think it more simply that most hobbyists - for a long time, myself included - presumed that the salts were manufactured with some regard to their potential toxicity.

Actually, I think they are simply manufactured in the cheapest possible way, with little regard to potential toxic side effects of the excess trace elements. In a lot of regards, the manufacturers have just been following the lead of hobbyists who think that somehow trace metals get "used up" in their systems.

This is an interesting train of thought, but it certainly been derailed off the logic railway.

[ATJ]

Dr Ron,
Would Ott's (1965) Artifical Seawater mix as described by Bold and Wynne (1978) for marine algae cultivation be any good?

They also list the following alternatives:
"Instant Ocean" - we all know about that...
Utility Marine Mix (Utility Chemical Company, Paterson, NJ)
Dayno (Dayno Sales Co, Lynn, MA)
"Rila Marine Mixture" (Rila Products, Teaneck, NJ)
although, a quick search of the White Pages suggest that the companies no longer exists - at least not under those names.

[rshimek]

Hi Andrew,

Sounds like you need to get more up-to-date sources.

See some of the other threads in this forum. There may be other alternative sources of salt water mixes available, at least on this continent, and I will discuss them as soon as I can. What you folks in Oz are going to to do... ??? I haven't a clue.

[Gman]

In talking over the OTS issue with my LFS, he had an interesting point. He stocks many of the brands in the study and says that all of them are shipped directly from 1 plant owned by Instant Ocean. It was his opinion that all of the formulations are derived from the same base salt. There were definite differences in the data, but all explainable by mineral additions to a base 'sea salt' to differentiate the products. Is this the root of the resistance to changing the formulations? Maybe they have no real control of 95% of the salt. Interesting questions.

Greg Buckles - certified forensic/environmental chemist

[mswt5]

....those levels are in ranges that are toxic to some, if not most, animals.

Im not trying to get in here to say anyone is wrong.....but....
It would seem to me if this were true EVERYONE would be having problems in their aquarium.....well at least everyone that is using these salts and i dont know of anyone making their own. I dont see really anyone complaining about them tho.....i think if it was really hurting our animals wed be having problems with all of our aquariums.....im sorry but i just dont see it.....i think wed all have dead fish on our hands

which elements were you refering to anyway?

[rshimek]

Originally posted by mswt5

Hi,

Im not trying to get in here to say anyone is wrong.....but....
It would seem to me if this were true EVERYONE would be having problems in their aquarium.....well at least everyone that is using these salts and i dont know of anyone making their own. I dont see really anyone complaining about them tho.....i think if it was really hurting our animals wed be having problems with all of our aquariums.....im sorry but i just dont see it.....i think wed all have dead fish on our hands

We do have a lot of dead fish and dead animals on our hands.

There are data (Morgan Lidster of Inland Aquatics has presented these) showing that most fish imported into the country do not live much beyond 11 weeks, and for several hundred species the survival is significantly less than that. The fish will look just fine for 5-8 weeks and then simply die of unknown causes.

I would suggest a lot of these mortalities are due to metals poisioning.

In an average year, well over a million host sea anemones get imported into the US. Most die within days.

Similar data can be found for just about every animal group we keep.

Some animals have innate tolerances to these chemicals. These we can keep. When we get corals that do well they are fragged and traded and sold. However, this is not survival of a lot of corals, it is the survival of one coral in a lot of places. In actuality, we are able to keep a relatively small number of species, and in all likelihood, a small number of individuals of those species.

By the time an animal makes it to a hobbyist, it has been through a lot of "filters" and there have been a lot of mortalities. These are unseen by the end user. Also consider, most marine fishes live for well over 20 years in nature, and animals like corals and sea anemones are immortal. If they die from chronic metal poison, but it takes a year or two or twenty to occur, we still have killed them.

which elements were you refering to anyway?

Pretty much all heavy metals, but specifically in the article - copper, zinc, nickel, vanadium, arsenic. These are the ones we have good data about. Most other heavy metals are likely as toxic, but have simply not been tested for or examined.

[cfockler]

Originally posted by mswt5
Im not trying to get in here to say anyone is wrong.....but....
It would seem to me if this were true EVERYONE would be having problems in their aquarium.....

Nearly everyone IS having problems with their aquariums! Look a little closer and you'll see that we're all losing fish and corals at alarming rates. Just because the fish don't always go into death spasms as soon as they go in your water don't assume that all is well. Toxins build up and slowly kill just like tobacco carcinogens do in humans.

[cvye]

We obviously are trying to root out a small subset of the multitudes of causes-of-mortality here, but there ARE aquaria, public and private, that use NSW.

Should we not see a PROFOUND viability in those systems?

Maybe we do, but tend to gloss it over....I seem to remember C. Delbeek reporting the success of his current employer with Goniopora and other hard-to-keep species...

Let's look closer at NSW systems and try to determine if they ARE much more successful...

[richardb42]

These threads about mixing your own salt reminds me of the back-room tour I took years ago at the Montreal Aquarium (maybe about 15 years ago when it was still in operation); there were pallets of 'Sifto' brand salt stacked up in the back rooms; they were obviously mixing their own back then. (Sifto is a major canadian salt manufacturer...)

[rshimek]

Hi Richard,

If they don't have access to natural sea water or wish to have medium more consistant, most researchers that I know of who work with invert larvae mix their own.

I have, too, when doing that research, for the simple reason that it works.

[cfockler]

We obviously are trying to root out a small subset of the multitudes of causes-of-mortality here, but there ARE aquaria, public and private, that use NSW.

A subset, yes. But small or large is yet to be determined.

Let's look closer at NSW systems and try to determine if they ARE much more successful...

I agree. Comparative studies of tanks using NSW would be interesting. Although it sounds like they'd still accumulate a lot of toxins through the foods normally used for reef tanks.

Also the results of these tests might prove worthless to many of us since we can't get ahold of NSW. It's a long way from Ohio to the ocean.

[cvye]

Originally posted by rshimek


Hi,

Imagine, after all these years, Al Thiel was right to use Polyfilters!

But he also promoted the use of additives and supplements... probably balanced out somehow...

What if we pretreat our water-change-artificial seawater with Polyfilter/GAC? How effective are they at reducing trace elements? (It's not just that they do, but is the effect big enough for us to bother!)

This is what I intend to do once I set up my revised lagoonal reef (in a couple of weeks). I am in the midst of some discussions with the folks who make Polyfilters, and it appears that the filters can pull enough of the trace metals out to make it well worth while to use the filters.

I've had no success trying to purchase a PMA-1 polyfilter unit from either petswarehouse or Cole-Parmer - the 2 retailers Poly-Bio has told me about. Are you able to get the filters directly from Poly-Bio or elsewhere?
If it's a minimum # thing, it might be possible to set something up with this forum for purchase....

[rshimek]

Hi,

I got some polyfilters which I am now using.. .. from Pet Warehouse: www.DrsFosterSmith.com

[dgplexus]

I'm puzzled. I'm trying to ascertain which metals Polyfilters can remove from a marine aquarium, and how effectively.

I found this at the manufacturer's website (link and quote are below):

http://www.poly-bio-marine.com/polyfaq9.htm

[begin quote] Does Poly-Filter® remove "Trace Elements" from
freshwater or marinewater?
NO!! In synthetic seawater the American Society of Testing & Materials states "Barium, Manganese, Copper, Zinc, Lead, Silver are the only added trace elements occurring in substitute ocean water" Standard D 1141. ASTM further states "Trace element occurring naturally in concentrations below 0.005 mg/L are not included". In other words naturally occurring impurities are not considered. The sodium chloride adds iron at 0.255 - 0.398 mg/L concentration to synthetic seawater mixes. Ref. Morton Salt's Purex Analysis. Many of the other listed trace elements concentrations are below the part-per-billion detection range via Atomic Absorption w/Graphite Furnace. Simply, those other 40_ trace elements presence can't be detected or proven under modern EPA Methods of Analysis. Poly-Bio-Marine, Inc.® published a study showing Poly-Filter's® effect upon Copper , Zinc, Iron, Lead, Mercury, Cadmium + Trihalomethanes Sept. 97 FAMA [end quote]

Can someone help clear up this issue?

[rshimek]

Hi,

You will find a more in-depth discussion of this topic here.

I suspect that it is best to consider these filters as being an insurance to keep the metals from spiking too high. It appears that Polyfilters will not remove a lot of them in the concentrations in our tanks.

[dgplexus]

Thanks, Ron!