New Cycle - Seneye vs API

[brandon429]

LRT agree fully. His findings validate bottle bac ability to carry bioload immediately it’s counted as skip cycle available.


he was running safely well before api ammonia agreed. a fascinating lag time results from that delay…what metabolites keep that ammonia running 2 ppm for days when it wasn’t?

the panic that has caused for hobbyists, innumerable. is my bacteria dead panic, should I buy more?

 

[brandon429]

Even though it pains me to speak of it, nitrite is noted compliant within cycle chart timeline dates. This marks the date even the most skeptical cyclers agree it’s three part ready. Now we have a core benchmarking for future Fritz troubleshoots

fastest bottle bac of them all.

 

[LRT]

Even though it pains me to speak of it, nitrite is noted compliant within cycle chart timeline dates. This marks the date even the most skeptical cyclers agree it’s three part ready. Now we have a core benchmarking for future Fritz troubleshoots

fastest bottle bac of them all.

I would have loved to have seen another kit to cross refference api nitrites here.
Something tells me api nitrite was way off in line with api ammonia tests.
Either way i feel like the addition of livestock brought in necessary biodiversity to make quick work of whatever was happening and that had to be happening at a much smaller scale than api was showing.

 

[brandon429]

UKR

what did seneye read for you regarding pH in the first few days of the cycle

being able to tie in pH reports off this meter, right or wrong, tied into the pics you have could prove vastly educational for seneye owners and cycle umpires.

If possible could you post the pH readings from right at the start of your cycle setup on this seneye

your thread here is ironclad immune to inputs using fear based cycling, or pH harm, because your whole tank is already in motion

we just had a seneye-completed bottle bac thread exactly like this one taken off the rails regarding pH registry on the seneye.

I never minded the small errors that may produce, we liked how each seneye bottle bac thread shows compliance either immediately or at most within ten days, as a pattern, given common setting variances like pH temp and salinity differences across homes the ready date isn't changing.


your reef is weeks running with life and corals, all we have is the look back. nobody can doubt the current status. the API reports looked ok, what did seneye show for pH?



common pH variance in a home does not affect the cycle quality or completion dates, I never track it in my threads of start dates analyzed. managing ideal pH is independent to our start date assignments in updated cycling science, we realize some homes or tanks will be unideal, mine's unideal for pH and I know it runs low because my 12 year old brain coral has some loss of skeletal mass that I had grown during years of far better routine care on the small system and also changing to smaller home clearly altered stasis.

 

[Logical_Plan]

So just to add my results to this thread. Started 3 bricks of marine pure cycling in a brute trash can with Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria, dosing ammonium chloride. 17 days in right now and ammonia is down in the thousandths. Haven't done a validating dose yet because I am watching the pH without any changes to see what it does. No fish for a while for me as tank and stand are being built.

Here are the pH and ammonia graphs for the past week. I assume the nitrite lowered the pH, they seem to align in the cycle. Will be interesting to see if pH continues to climb back up as nitrite is consumed. Going to watch it for another 10 days before I change anything. For fun.

 

[LRT]

So just to add my results to this thread. Started 3 bricks of marine pure cycling in a brute trash can with Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria, dosing ammonium chloride. 17 days in right now and ammonia is down in the thousandths. Haven't done a validating dose yet because I am watching the pH without any changes to see what it does. No fish for a while for me as tank and stand are being built.

Here are the pH and ammonia graphs for the past week. I assume the nitrite lowered the pH, they seem to align in the cycle. Will be interesting to see if pH continues to climb back up as nitrite is consumed. Going to watch it for another 10 days before I change anything. For fun.

Cool thanks for sharing. What was your beginning dose?

 

[brandon429]

And we needed a comparison to api or Red Sea the whole time


this thread is about seneye compared to those, clearly that’s the standout detail where you’d add seneye data here Logical


the comparison between digital and eyeball guess TAN kits was really what we need, if possible can you run one and post it just to see how it reads against the safe zone seneye

there must be 200 seneye threads to choose from to update vs make a new thread, was hoping new data here was in continuance with how this thread is unique among threads

one pic from a red sea would be gold though as the tank sits now

we can see API’s lag



what about Red Sea, that’s gold info.

 

[brandon429]

Let’s say that Red Sea shows perfect zero



to still make gold, dose the tank with ammonia post the seneye rise, then re take with the non digital kit, show it showing that rise

this thread hopes to calibrate digital readings, change rates, between api Red Sea and seneye.

 

[brandon429]

Also

you clipped off every reading of the seneye for the 17 days I only see a line


can you fix all the information to fully reveal in the pic, we have an incredibly high standard of detail here to maintain


its among our best digital vs non digital comparison threads, it never was just seneye only.

was it .04 until the drop etc, or .4… we want to see the readings for the charted dates



UKR withheld nothing, his charts are full disclosure so we are spoiled

nice pH

soon your rock stack will be two inches shorter

a dissolutioner’s joke.

 

[Logical_Plan]

Also

you clipped off every reading of the seneye for the 17 days I only see a line


can you fix all the information to fully reveal in the pic, we have an incredibly high standard of detail here to maintain


its among our best digital vs non digital comparison threads, it never was just seneye only.

was it .04 until the drop etc, we want to see the readings for the charted dates



UKR withheld nothing, urgently wanted to help build data his charts are full disclosure

Sorry, my bad. Didn't mean to do things not to your standard or muddy up your thread. I will go on with my own experiments. Happy reefing!

Also, thanks for all the work you have done on the forum, it has been insightful.

 

[brandon429]

Can’t we get the api or Red Sea though, or the full info just to round out what you listed above


was hoping so much to keep this thread as a really open disclosure comparison works, it’s the only way it can stand apart from all kinds of material added


your current pH reading looks concerning too, we should check out calibrations so you get most from machine along the way

 

[Logical_Plan]

Cool thanks for sharing. What was your beginning dose?

Dosed 2ppm, 3 times, once to start and twice more per instructions. You can see a slight ammonia rise in the graph for the second two doses. There were some interesting observations, but I don't want to muddy this thread further. I did not have api data to compare. So going to bow out of this thread now.

 

[Logical_Plan]

Can’t we get the api or Red Sea though, or the full info just to round out what you listed above


was hoping so much to keep this thread as a really open disclosure comparison works, it’s the only way it can stand apart from all kinds of material added


your current pH reading looks concerning too, we should check out calibrations so you get most from machine along the way

I will grab a read sea kit for the next time I dose and post the comparison. I will clip the appropriate seneye chart at that time too.

To validate pH I am going to test a fresh batch of saltwater on the last day of the slide, then dip and test rodi water, the back to salt water. Should be able to see a nominal pH in the fresh saltwater, then pH 7 in rodi and then nominal in the saltwater again as long as the rodi doesn't strip out the slide. Will grab a pH tester too to validate.

 

[brandon429]

I’m still learning about its pH abilities I have no idea how that part calibrates, it would not surprise me if some of these kits do need trimming function ran off the shelf they’re certainly not complication free

watching Dan and LRT work with them in calibration posts is boggling I think, its nice to see additional patterns here thanks for adding the drop times and red sea boost when possible, that’s perfect

 

[LRT]

I’m still learning about its pH abilities I have no idea how that part calibrates, it would not surprise me if some of these kits do need trimming function ran off the shelf they’re certainly not complication free

watching Dan and LRT work with them in calibration posts is boggling I think, its nice to see additional patterns here thanks for adding the drop times and red sea boost when possible, that’s perfect

Its really not difficult to calibrate at all. Click on tab, slide bar where it needs to be and done.
@Logical_Plan id love to see a new seneye thread with some more testing.
I'm getting ready to do some more myself
Dan has done some great experiments with seneye side by side with hach and has given us some pretty solid numbers as baselines actually super fine tuned between concentrations of .004 -.020 respectively.
Id start there but reccomend PH moniter and calibration fluids as well as a cpl temp probes for control for accurate readings.

 

[LRT]

I have some answers. The LOD is probably in the single digit ppb. I examined three slides and they gave accurate measurements between 0.004 and 020 ppb. By accurate I mean based on temperature, pH and total ammonia, the calculated and Seneye reading agreed. The Seneye can detect NH3 below 0.004 ppb but the number is not correct. The same for much above 0.02 ppm.

At for the kinetics, the film responds quite quickly to changes in free ammonia concentrations, minutes, but when I did my calibration work, I let the Seneye film equilibrate 20 minutes.

Nice review!

The Seneye film probably can detect free NH3 in the single digit ppb range but not quantitate it. LOQ vs LOD, right? The Seneye film and the calibrated device are able to indicate a change when the free ammonia is above 0.001 , maybe, but the number it shows does not reflect the true value until 0.004 or greater. This is what I saw with three films.

Also, every analytical device needs to be calibrated before you believe the numbers. Otherwise, the device is producing at best approximate values.

Pulling these over here because its pure gold.

 

[Johnny_Reefer]

Looks like I found the right place to get some validation on my cycle. Hope I can contribute, want to get this right.

First reef tank.

Like tech and have done a bunch of research and have all the toys. Using Dr. Tim's One and Only and Ammonium Chloride. Day 12 of cycle. Seems 'stuck' but I joke.

Getting NITRITE around 1ppm and NITRATE 20ppm from API for the last 5+ days. LFS tested as well on Sunday NITRITE 4ppm with Salifert and said no reason to test NITRATE yet. Need another week or two...

If I have read this thread properly I may be done and not need to worry so much about NITRITE and can deal with NITRATE with a 25% water change soon. Am I correct, or still missing something.

Since the start the temp has been between 24-26C and pH 7.95 and 8.1 these are based on APEX EL with a calibrated pH probe and InkBird temp control.

I have Seneye as well now. I didn't setup properly at first. I didn't soak the slide. I also didn't realize how the device will calculate NH3, NH4 based on temp and pH which was off. So I adjusted the Seneye to match temp and pH readings from Apex and everything started making more sense. This happened on Sunday the 9th. So Seneye results before then for HN4 where off, not sure on NH3.

Here are a few API pics:
Start 24hrs after adding Ammonium

1 week ago:

Today:

Cheers,

Thoughts???

 

[UKReefer67]

Hi there, lovely looking tank You are essentially doing the same comparison that I did at the start of this thread - Following the discussion and advice on here, I carefully started to introduce livestock on the back of the Seneye results. Added a few fish each week and some hardy corals with no problems at all. I did get a fairly heavy algae bloom and some of that still remains but it is very manageable and I dont believe that that has anything to do with the cycle, just the usual tank maturation process. The API may not be accurate but it does tell you something about whats going on in the tank and your results are very very similar to the ones I saw during my cycle. With the slow introduction of some livestock and a sensible, gradual build up, you will be ok based on my experience.

 

[brandon429]

Johnny thanks for posting and UKR for the comparative assessment. This thread remains among the best seneye threads for comparing test kit read outs and getting to see some pH comparisons with seneye and a digital reader is very nice and rare too


all of these information snippets compound over time to eventually give us new information on how reef cycles work. Power is leaving the hands of the bottle bac sellers and winding up in the hands of the buyers.


that final api reading is a passing color for sure. I’m studying it’s timeframes above to relate to the seneye portion

 

[Johnny_Reefer]

You guys were correct! I have fish since Wednesday and they seem pretty happy

Seneye is 'stable'

Still learning the new testing. Using Hanna for Phosphate ULR, and Alkalinity, Nyos for Nitrate and Salifert for Calcium. Not sure if these initial results are accurate.

Alkalinity 7.39
Phosphate .01
Nitrate 12
Calcium 250? (I don't think I did this correct) but is this important right now?

Any other tests I should be doing now or regularly?

pH seems to have gone up in the last 24 hours.

I'll be adding some photos to my build thread this weekend, keep an eye out.

Thanks for the help.

John