Mindstream in the house!

[karlandtanya]

The basic idea is very appealing, but you have to subscribe to their service and you can only buy consumables from them: $995 plus around $420/year...assuming the thing lasts for more than a year.

I'd pay a grand for a unit that reliably automates testing, but 400+ bucks a year for the privilege of vendor lock-in?

They should sell printers. No thanks.

 

[Twolfe22]

The basic idea is very appealing, but you have to subscribe to their service and you can only buy consumables from them: $995 plus around $420/year...assuming the thing lasts for more than a year.

I'd pay a grand for a unit that reliably automates testing, but 400+ bucks a year for the privilege of vendor lock-in?

They should sell printers. No thanks.

So I can assume you don’t use any other test kits that involve the purchase of hardware and the need to purchase “vendor locked-in” reagents or consumables (I.e. Trident, Hanna Checker or any other test kit)?

 

[reef_ranch]

The basic idea is very appealing, but you have to subscribe to their service and you can only buy consumables from them: $995 plus around $420/year...assuming the thing lasts for more than a year.

I'd pay a grand for a unit that reliably automates testing, but 400+ bucks a year for the privilege of vendor lock-in?

They should sell printers. No thanks.

You definitely shouldn't buy it. For me the tech in the unit is worth the grand. And having a pre-calibrated disk sent to me each month for $35 so that the the unit has something to read with the same accuracy and precision is worth it.

But there is no doubt in my mind that this will not supplant all other testing methods available. Free markets are pretty awesome in that regard.

 

[salty150]

This is very interesting from their website:

Controller Integration

• SAI will offer automated doser control at some point in the future
• Wireless controller capability is already built-in with the latest IoT protocols
• SAI is developing partnerships with key aquarium equipment providers for controller integration

 

[rushbattle]

I am not a fan of all of this negativity. I wouldn’t have thought of posting something like this but here it is:

I will happily pay what they are asking for the MM, it would be a bargain at twice the cost. Just O2 alone in real time with relatively good accuracy and precision and without really frequent recalibration would be worth what they are asking. For those that want value, the MM is clearly the leader. It’s up to each situation whether it is worth the cost however.

 

[Jeff_H]

The basic idea is very appealing, but you have to subscribe to their service and you can only buy consumables from them: $995 plus around $420/year...assuming the thing lasts for more than a year.

I'd pay a grand for a unit that reliably automates testing, but 400+ bucks a year for the privilege of vendor lock-in?

They should sell printers. No thanks.

I hear what you're saying, but would you be willing to pay a babysitter $35 per month to check 10 parameters 24X7X365 and alert you within 15 minutes if one of the 10 parameters gets out of tolerance. I consider that money well spent given my investment and time in my tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I also have a Salifert kit and it usually confirms the Alkatronic spot on. The Mindstream measures Alk using the Co2 which gives the Carbonate Alkalinity while the titration tests give you the total alkalinity. The difference? From what I'm reading now, they are not linear. So, I'm going to have to watch the two tests and see how they relate to each other with the view to keeping both readings stable.

What is not linear? Total alkalinity from a titration and carbonate alkalinity from the mindstream or other method are not the same thing, due to borate and a few more minor things contributing to total alkalinity.

There's no reason to prefer total alkalinity over carbonate alkalinity for maintaining a reef tank. But if the difference between 7.0 dKH and 6.9 dKH is significant to you, it is worth your while to understand the difference.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Why does it say in the alert that your salinity is 53.1 when the table above says it's 34.9?! What's up with the ammonia? is that real?

Edit...never mind on the ammonia. Didn't notice the PPB that's only 0.002 PPM.

53.1 is presumably a mS/cm conductivity value. The 34.9 is likely a ppt or PSU salinity reading determined from it. Maybe there's a glitch in the software that is confusing them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Oddly, I'm getting an ammonia reading of 1 or 2 ppb. I didn't expect that.

Assuming it is accurate, this is one of the things that I think reefers might learn about their systems: how ammonia rises and falls over time, and why. It might even help us set a target level that is optimal (as opposed to always just saying it should be low).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I wonder how uniform these numbers are within a tank anyways. Like, if you measured 3 different places would they all be the exact same? I wonder what a safe standard deviation is for each parameter.

There's no variation in magnesium through a reef tank system, except where you are actively adding fresh water top off or some similar thing. Same for calcium. Alk would deviate near a source like an additive, or a sink, like the effluent of a sulfur denitrator. Ammonia might vary a lot place to place if flow is not high.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If there isn’t a conversion from carbonate alk to total alk, there has to be some sort of “norms”. Anybody know what those are?

Carbonate alk is just very slightly less than total alkalinity. How much less depends on the amount of borate and pH, mostly. If you assume a tiny bit less (say, 3% less), you will be close enough.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

Total alkalinity also includes hydroxide ions. There’s a calculator on that site to calculate carbonate alkalinity. Ill look and see if it goes backwards if not, I’m sure we could develop ranges. The ranges will be specific for each ph level. May be something g we can hear map so people can quickly look and see what their levels mean.

EDIT: It’s an app and isn’t very useful for aquariums.

The hydroxide contribution is too small to be important. Borate is the biggest, but still very small, contributor.

i describe it in detail in these articles, but the web site is having security certificate issues at the moment:

Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alkalinity? ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alkalinity? - Reefs.com

Randy provides an overview of alkalinity as to why it's important, how it's measured, and how can it be tested.

www.advancedaquarist.com

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Boron In A Reef Tank ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Boron In A Reef Tank

This article also discusses the sources and sinks for boron in reef tanks, and shows that while typical tanks may be slightly depleted in boron with respect to natural levels, most are not so significantly depleted that any correction is required. Nevertheless, how to test for and supplement...

www.advancedaquarist.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I saw that as well. Not very helpful for us. Mindstream posted a response in a thread on the forum somewhere asking about the differences (don’t know how to link to it). I’m thinking that conversion will not be possible and I’ll just have to be content now tracking both total Alk and carbonate Alk. (No, I’m not getting rid of my Alkatronic anytime soon!)

The difference is small and generally not important to everyday reefers (~2.9% in ordinary natural seawater), but it depends mostly on the borate level and the pH.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So this one does a better job of explaining. And this was my argument for not measuring alkalinity when I ran freshwater. My understanding of alkalinity was that it was the pOH (percent hydroxide), which is the opposite of pH (percent hydronium). If you knew ph, you indirectly know alkalinity. And if all your alkalinity comes only From hydroxide ions, that’s true. But we necessarily have a high concentration of carbonated and bicarbonate in our water, which directly impacts alkalinity. At pH’s below 4.2, there is no hydroxide present, meaning all alkalinity or buffering capacity of the water, comes from carbonates and bicarbonates. If you’re ph is that low, there’s an issue. We want to keep our tanks much closer to a neutral ph, which means nearly equal hydronium and hydroxide ions. Even at the more desired 8.1-8.3 range, the difference in hydronium and hydroxide ions are near negligible. To repeat, if all your alkalinity came from hydroxide, there really is no reason to measure alk, if you know ph, but that’s not the case. Still, the hydroxide ion concentration gives us very little information about the buffering ability of water at our desired levels Of ph. The carbonate and bicarbonate concentrations are what will truly affect the buffering ability of the water.

Hydroxide plays very little role in telling us much about the buffering ability of water until Ph’s Start pushing beyond 8.4, which again, is not desired in our tanks. So, by taking out an extraneous value (hydroxide) we can get a much more precise and (more importantly) controllable value of alkalinity. When you want to increase alkalinity, you add Carbonate, not hydroxide ions. Corals are also uptaking carbonates, not hydroxide ions. So carbonates are really the thing shifting into the alkalinity equation.

Now here’s where I’m not certain if im coming to the correct conclusion. Because total alkalinity includes hydroxide ions, I would anticipate the buffering capacity to be greater with hydroxide ions present. In order to account for that, I’d imagine the buffering curve for only measuring alkalinity would be at an inflection point around ph of 7. Meaning, the further you move from 7, you’d expect the rate of change between total alkalinity and carbonate alkalinity to be increasing such that carbonate alkalinity would coincide with lower total carbonate at phs greater than 7. I can also make an argument for carbonate alk running lower than total alk, but I like the argument I made better. If I end up being wrong - that we expect the carbonate alk to coincide with a higher total alk, then I’ll explain the reasoning for that. (Basically it requires no normalized curve...)

Sorry for the dissertation.

Google

Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

www.coalgeology.com

Unfortunately, most of this discussion is not correct. Instead of going through it point by point, I'd refer folks who want a detailed understanding of alkalinity to one of my articles on alkalinity, such as one posted a few posts earlier.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If you can simply calculate it from pH and total Alk it should be very easy to add this field to the application.

You cannot. It depends on many other factors, mostly borate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Show me how.

It is not.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

link? It’s highly unlikely there is a carbonate alkalinity test kit.

There is, but it is not, IMO, accurate, at least when I tested it. The Seachem borate alk test gets to carbonate alkalinity by subtracting borate alk from total alk. I did not find it particularly accurate when i reviewed it years ago. it is posted at advanced aquarist.

 

[Bleigh]

The hydroxide contribution is too small to be important. Borate is the biggest, but still very small, contributor.

i describe it in detail in these articles, but the web site is having security certificate issues at the moment:

Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alkalinity? ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alkalinity? - Reefs.com

Randy provides an overview of alkalinity as to why it's important, how it's measured, and how can it be tested.

www.advancedaquarist.com

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Boron In A Reef Tank ? Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

Chemistry And The Aquarium: Boron In A Reef Tank

This article also discusses the sources and sinks for boron in reef tanks, and shows that while typical tanks may be slightly depleted in boron with respect to natural levels, most are not so significantly depleted that any correction is required. Nevertheless, how to test for and supplement...

www.advancedaquarist.com

It won't let me open the links.

** Edit: You said that it wouldn't open. Helps to read the whole message.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It won't let me open the links.

** Edit: You said that it wouldn't open. Helps thread the whole message.

You can get to it now in either of two ways.

1. right click the link, open in a google chrome incognito window, and click go to the "unsafe" site anyway.

2. Copy the link and enter it in the way back machine (internet archive) then pick any date it shows.

 

[Bleigh]

You cannot. It depends on many other factors, mostly borate.

I read up a little on borate with respect to alkalinity. Should we all be testing for borate? I'm new to this, but I think most people adjust alk using carbonate and no one's ever mentioned borate alkalinity to me. Seems like a build up of it could be quite bad and I've never seen it discussed before. This may be due to my newness to saltwater, or it may be a reality that people aren't talking about it much.