Chip
Community Member
Did you ever find the source of your tin? I've been battling this for quite a while now.My SPS frags weren't doing well. I know there could be a million reasons, but 3 ICP tests showed Sn levels of 18, 22, then 45 and I am fairly convinced that it is causing a problem. I started a thread about this a couple of months ago and will add comments soon. I've tore down my tank and set up temporary "make-shift" tanks to soak various items separately, like: live rock, artificial rock, pvc piping and pvc products, protein skimmer, kalk reactor, RO/DI filter, Salt and salt mixing tank, RO/DI mixing tank, hang-on algae filter, etc. I cleaned and rinsed the tank and sump with RODI, filled them with new saltwater and tested each separately. Those tests from the tank and sump ruled out tin coming from the glass.
Note that many believe that when Sn is elevated without any other metal being elevated, then it isn't likely that the Sn is coming from corroding metal, but rather, from plastic or glass (and I'm not sure if acrylic is included with "plastic.")
I've run 19 ICP tests so far (awaiting for 4 to come back next week). This will sound crazy, but at the moment I've narrowed it down to two completely unrelated sources:
A. Protein skimmer and/or Sched 80 piping that came with Red Sea Reefer. (These were soaked in a 10 gal tank, known to be "free" of tin. (Of course, out of all the variables, one needs to be being able to believe the results). Sn came back around 150!
AND
B. Kalkwasser and/or Kalk reactor. Sn came back also around 150!
(Everything was brand new 7 months ago).
I've separated each of the above 4 items, soaked them for 4 days, and sent out samples recently. (These are the ones I am waiting for). So, I will receive separate results for:
1) Kalkwasser (in RODI)
2) Kalk Reactor (soaked with RODI)
3) Sched 80 PVC and green tubing that came with Red Sea Reefer
4) Protein skimmer (minus the pump; a similar DC pump was previously ruled out)
Some things I found along the way:
-I have strong reason to believe that rock can adsorb the tin (and release it) similar to how rock adsorbs phosphates or copper, probably. (This has added a small degree of confusion to interpreting results).
-I used Cuprisorb, Continuum Power Cleanse, Polyfilter, MetaSorb and carbon, not all at the same time, but many overlapped, for 7-8 days. During that time I performed major water changes. The Sn should have decreased from 22 to about 7, just from the water changes, (even if these products did nothing) but it came back higher, around
45. (This doesn't necessarily mean these products didn't work, the leaching may have been occurring faster than it could be removed).
-From a lengthy discussion with Jack Kent (CEO of Continuum and owner of Brightwell) I learned:
-Nobody to his knowledge has studied the ability of any of these products to remove tin, but he felt there is a very good chance that they should. (You will notice that none of these products lists tin as a metal it will remove).
-There is a "pecking order" as to which metal/element is removed first, second, etc but nobody knows what this order is.
-His product, Power Cleanse, is similar, if not the same, as Cuprisorb. (It looks identical to me). It consists of 2 resins that bind metals without affecting pH. I would recommend his product over the Cuprisorb: you get a whole lot more of it and he recommends using a much larger volume than what you get with Cuprisorb. He feels that, if it is going to work, it should "work" in just 24 hours. (Remember that any of these problems will throw off most of the trace elements so it might be prudent to perform huge water changes after finsishing with any of these products).
- He has no idea what is in MetaSorb. (I opened it and found a white powder; definitely not a resin). Polyfilter is a resin-like material sprayed on the "sponge".
I'll post again after I get the results.
Good thing I've got a lot of free time these days!!This has definitely been a frustrating challenge....but I'm determined to figure this out!
