Lab Grade vs Standard Grade Phrobes.

[SeanCallan]

What's the real difference in these two except the huge price difference?

For an everyday hobbyist, are lab grades required?

[nyfireman3097]

i would like to know myself im thinkin lab grade is alot better more precise and last longer then standard but again i dont know thats my educated guess
Nick

[SeanCallan]

Nick, I think you put on every single one of my threads

[nyfireman3097]

LMAO well i figured if u were gonna follw me around id backfire it on you lol always lookin to help
Nick

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

Reagent grade, Lab Grade, Food Grade, Standard grade, US Bioanalyzed grade, Molecular Biology grade ... the mind boggles ... .

What's the real difference in these two except the huge price difference?

The difference is very real ... as are the differences in prices. It all comes down to PURITY. The fundamental difference between chemical grades is the level of contamination. Purification can be an expense process ... you get what you pay for.

For an everyday hobbyist, are lab grades required?

Given the very real problem of long-term accumulation of contaminants in a reef system, I would think that lab grade is the MINIMUM level of purity required.

The standards flow from definitions determined by The American Chemical Society (ACS) ... BUT, their application can be very manufacturer dependent. An example is ...

ACS Reagent Grade: Meets the limits of purity for inorganic chemicals as established by the American Chemical Society.

CP Grade (Chemically Pure): Meets the requirements of the Food Chemicals Codex, but not intended for food use.

USBioAnalyzed: Meets USP or NF chemical testing requirements but is not sold as USP or NF Grade; USP and NF Grades (United States Pharmacopeia and National Formulary) must meet the requirements of those compendia and will fall under this category.

USP Grade: Meets the requirements of the U.S. Pharmacopeia.

NF Grade: Meets the requirements of the National Formulary.

MB Grade (Molecular Biology): Applies to products that are suitable for a variety of Molecular Biology applications including those which require ultra-low levels of trace metal contamination, and low levels of DNase's, RNase and Protease. These products are also functionally tested when applicable.

Reagent Grade: Suitable for use in general laboratory applications; meets in-house established limits in the absence of any compendial reference for the given compound.
In-house established limits and their associated test methods are in many cases derived from common compendial methods such as USO, NF, ACS, etc.

High Purity Grade: Generally meets more stringent requirements than Reagent Grade products, such as higher assay limits or lower levels of trace contaminants. When available, this grade is more suitable as a reference material than the Reagent Grade.

Extracted from: http://www.usbweb.com/grade.asp

The website of the American Chemical Society (ACS) is:
American Chemical Society
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/home.html

The link to the ACS publications page is:
http://pubs.acs.org/

HTH.

[nyfireman3097]

MES where the he!! do you get this sh!t from its amazing lol
Nick

[SeanCallan]

Alright, thanks Mesocosm

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

MES where the he!! do you get this sh!t from its amazing lol

I taught high school biology and chemistry for eight years ... it's kind of spooky what is retained ... that, and the saltwater aquarium obsession/addiction runs back to 1976 ... reefkeeping back to 1984. The game has changed entirely ... LOTS more cool toys than there were in the late 1970's.

And yet, it seems I might be off on the wrong tangent in terms of SeanCallan's question ... I missed the word 'phrobes' ... I was talking about chemicals ... was SeanCallan talking about instrumentality? ... if so, a thousand pardons ... ooops.

If we're talking about instrumentality, it's kind of different. There can be a big gap in the output/data between lab grade toys, and non-lab grade toys ... purchase choices can strongly depend on the application, the manufacturer, and the precision required for the data/output. Having said that, we're talking about the diffrence between +/- .01 to +/- .00001. I'm not at all sure that 3 extra significant figures means anything in relation to the numbers we typically need with reefkeeping. More important to me would be the quality and durability of the instrument. For example, the La Motte field spectrophotometer gives me all the precision that I need and it can withstand my abuse, while the desktop spectrophotometer gives me the serious precision that peer reviewed documentation requires ... but it has no patience at all with my fumbling technique. I'm not at all sure that the desktop version is worth another $6,000 to me ... JMO.

I haven't checked out the specs lately, but the last time I was looking Hanna made some "reasonably" priced probes for horticulture applications that might work quite nicely with saltwater analysis.

If I screwed up on the focus of the thread ...

... sorry about that, everyone ...

... no more internet until AFTER the morning caffiene ...

[nyfireman3097]

OK heres aquestion do these lab quaiity probes work on any monitor or controller or there own monitor and controller ?
Nick

[moonpod]

use standard bnc connecters in general.

Hunt around. Don't buy the probes from neptune.

[Orion76]

What's wrong with neptune probes?

[moonpod]

the $. just like their x10 stuff. way overpriced.

[Orion76]

Ah ok, yes they're a bit pricey.

Your post made it sound like they are bad

[nyfireman3097]

where can i get lab phrobes for my aquacontroller ? cheapest place !!!!!!! lol
Nick

[SeanCallan]

I used to known a woman who could order lab grade probes for about $120 a piece.

I'll have to hunt around and try to see if I can get her to do some favors for me