Smoking gun? Lithium at 5,922 ug/l! Whoa!

[David.Basti]

Hi Randy,

I just got my Triton results back, and the lithium is listed at 5922 ug/l. I have been witnessing a progressive decline and mortality of my SPS, mostly acropora and montipora and a T. maxima, over the last 8 months. I have largely ruled out multiple pests, alkalinity swings, and poor water quality (except for lithium, LOL). Could this just be a spurious result? I have been using Crystal Sea Marinemix for 4 years now with apparent success. But could the problem be a bad lot of salt, or is the lithium in my well water (which tested fine, although they don't routinely test for lithium)? Maybe I should switch salt and work on multiple small water changes since there is not likely a quick fix? Oh well, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ~

Dave

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If I recall correctly, some folks (e.g., Larry Jackson, I think) in the past where certain salts (e.g., Coralife) had super high lithium had issues with certain star fish. I do not know if it is an issue for SPS at the level you post.

There are folks who also have very high lithium and I do not recall them saying they had any apparent problems. Maybe some of them will post here.

 

[jason2459]

@JimWelsh has or had very high Li levels with no apparent issues with it.

 

[Swaefa]

Today I received my test results from Triton and was surprised to see, according to Triton, my tank had high levels of lithium as well. Not as high as yours, but mine was 467ug/l, which is still twice as high as Triton believes is a reasonable level. Currently I am using HW Marinemix Reefer Salt. In the next day or so I will mixing up a batch of new water and submitting it to Triton for testing. If the results indicate the salt was the problem, I will come back and post here.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Today I received my test results from Triton and was surprised to see, according to Triton, my tank had high levels of lithium as well. Not as high as yours, but mine was 467ug/l, which is still twice as high as Triton believes is a reasonable level. Currently I am using HW Marinemix Reefer Salt. In the next day or so I will mixing up a batch of new water and submitting it to Triton for testing. If the results indicate the salt was the problem, I will come back and post here.

No, this is no concern. MANY people have lithium at that level from salt mixes with no issues.

Lithium is just not very toxic. It looks very much like sodium, and is present at far, far, far lower concentrations.

Mine was 353 ug/L:

http://www.reefedition.com/my-triton-testing-results-by-randy-holmes-farley/

Lithium (Li). The lithium is elevated, and that is probably from the salt mix. A great many people have elevated lithium, and I’ve seen some fresh artificial salt water samples that also had it. It is probably an impurity in one of the main ingredients of a salt mix, but it can also come from calcium and alkalinity additives, such as calcium chloride. At this level it does not concern me. It’s biological properties (such as a medication in people) seem to happen at much higher levels, and in many ways it is chemically similar to sodium that is present at 30,000 times higher concentration.

 

[David.Basti]

Hi, Thanks everyone. Well, still no reports from anyone with levels anywhere close to as high as mine, but I am getting my well water tested for lithium, and for what it's worth the Crystal Sea people assayed lithium in their salt at just over 0.1 ppm, so we'll see what happens. Starting to worry now that the lithium is a "red herring" and I'm missing something somewhere.

 

[Mikemccafe]

Hi, Thanks everyone. Well, still no reports from anyone with levels anywhere close to as high as mine, but I am getting my well water tested for lithium, and for what it's worth the Crystal Sea people assayed lithium in their salt at just over 0.1 ppm, so we'll see what happens. Starting to worry now that the lithium is a "red herring" and I'm missing something somewhere.

I was having a conversation with the owner of my lfs and he mentioned that some supplements that people add contain high levels of lithium as a preservative and they experience coral die off due to this, many manufactures never disclose ingredients so reef keepers constantly keep scratching their heads looking for the reason why

 

[RussiReef]

my lithium 882 ug/l . using red sea coral pro salt.no negative effects on my sps corals

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I was having a conversation with the owner of my lfs and he mentioned that some supplements that people add contain high levels of lithium as a preservative and they experience coral die off due to this, many manufactures never disclose ingredients so reef keepers constantly keep scratching their heads looking for the reason why

That sounds unlikely to me. Lithium as a "preservative"?

 

[salty joe]

ATI measured my lithium at 2229. It was the only thing that was way out of whack. The Trochus snails that I carefully acclimated died in a day and a conch lasted a week or so. IDK what else might be the problem. I'm doing a total water change.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What salt mix and dosing products are you using? Some types of calcium chloride have a lot of lithium in them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Note that these tests of mine were many years ago (so the hobby brands have very likely changed sources between then and now), but it shows that some bulk sources of calcium chloride can have substantial lithium:

Purity Of Calcium Chloride
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2004/3/chemistry

Lithium does not seem to pose as much of a toxicity concern as many other ions, but in three of the samples (Dow, Warner, ESV) it is greatly elevated. Over a year, each of these would add about 2 ppm lithium, or 12 times the natural level. Is that too much? I am not sure. In a prior analysis of artificial salt mixes, Craig Bingman found that two salt mixes started out with greatly elevated lithium levels (90X over natural levels for Coralife and 6X for Seachem, with the others ranging from 1.5X - 3.1X). Typical aquaria surveyed by Ron Shimek contained about 0.6 ppm of lithium (3X over natural seawater) with a range from 0.015 ppm (0.08X) - 7 ppm (39 X).

 

[overclockwise]

Interesting. I am about to switch to ESV for my two-part when I run out of my BRS supply. I'll do an ICP test right before and right after I've dosed 1 ESV jug and see if there's any difference in Li levels.

EDIT: Did anyone do a test of BRS salts to see if it has elevated Li?

 

[salty joe]

What salt mix and dosing products are you using? Some types of calcium chloride have a lot of lithium in them.

I used Instant Ocean and all kinds of critters from the live rock were doing well for a year or so. All this time with no coral or fish. I used very little calcium chloride because I added kalk and played with a calcium reactor. The tank had a lot of coralline algae and went through a lot of mag. I think the lithium came from Mag Flake and/or Epsom salt.

To the OP-Did you have any snails?