Mastertronic - Alkalinity?

CasperOe · Mar 21, 2023

Hi Reefers

Does any of you use your Mastertronic to test/control alkalinity in your reef tanks? According to Focustronic, the Master is good for testing for:

Measures PO4/ NO3/ Ca / Mg / dKH* / OLI (may add parameters in near future)
• Nitrate (NO3)Accuracy / Precision (+/-) : 0.5 ppm / 0.1 ppm
• Phosphate (PO4)Accuracy / Precision (+/-): 0.01 ppm / 0.005 ppm
• Magnesium (Mg) Accuracy / Precision (+/-): 20 ppm / 20 ppm
• Calcium (Ca) Accuracy / Precision (+/-): 6 ppm / 6 ppm
• Alkalinity (dKH) Accuracy / Precision (+/-) 0.1 dKH / 0.05 dKH
• OLI – our derived parameter measures the organic matter in water. Can indicate when users should run or replace carbon

Focustronic claims the precision on the two devices is exactly the same- so why should i get both?

Cheers,

Queen City Corals · Mar 21, 2023

At our store, we use a Mastertronic to test all of those parameters and it works incredibly well once calibrated properly. As far as Alk goes it is always within less than half a point from our Hanna checker and that could be the Hanna checker being off or both being off slightly. I don't think you need both unless you want more frequent alk testing but I don't really know why you would need that unless you are dosing large amounts of Alk throughout the day.

reef_ranch · Apr 25, 2023

Mastertronic alk measurement is not as accurate as the alkatronic because the former uses colormetric while the latter uses pH. The Mastertronic manual makes this clear. I have the alkatronic so don't use the mastertronic for alk testing. My matertronic is set up to test Nitrate, Phosphate, Calcium and Magnesium. The final spot for me will be iodine once I can find a Colombo or Geisemann test kit for sale somewhere.

Our Alkatronic is superior to measure the alkalinity. But despite that we have chosen to include a KH measuring function also in Mastertronic, to for all customers. It’s very important to understand here the difference between a high-end ph electrode based dKH value, like we do in Alkatronic, and a colorimetric method based on color change.
The ph electrode-based test (like in Alkatronic) is the only way to get that high-end reading that Alkatronic has, and that you need to also get the regulatory features. The KH part in Mastertronic is a service to make Mastertronic 100% complete and superior but should never be instead of a ph electrode based KH test (Alkatronic).
In MT the alkalinity test is limited to 1 scheduled test per day, and therefore the KH from MT will not be able to control the DT.