REEF KINETICS is a potential GAME CHANGER! Auto Water Tester

[ebushrow]

I'd plunk down a grand, but they'll have to add pH and salinity first...

why? I assume you would also have an apex for PH and i dont know anyone that has a salinity monitor in their tank....Pinpoint makes one, but i think its problematic...

 

[BlueCursor]

I knew I should have asked the rep this but I was too shy. How do you use guy use this machine to test with Salifert Mag test kit? I was told that this machine will use a pump to take in the reagent like how many drops of this and that and wait between the too steps and shake. That works out fine for most test kit. I don't know how they use that machine with Salifert Mag test kit ...There is no spoon in the machine to scoop out the powder reagent.....:-(

They obviously wouldn't use the Salifert approach, which requires powder. There are liquid only titration tests out there.

 

[BlueCursor]

Does anyone still remember the iDip....that was sold at the last MACNA....still isn't working correctly, yet people threw there money at it as fast as they could get one.... This unit seems to use real-world reagents that you would use to test the parameters and an optical/color reader that takes the "guessing" out of the colormetric testing. I think that this has much more promise compared to mindstream so far...The mindstream unit is really not capable of testing all they say it will....not without external additions. I am not sure what the test kits are going to run yet, however, I do know from the mindstream folks that the disk replacement every month is gonna be costly....and the unit is not cheap either.

Mindstream has already dropped magnesium testing, and they have stated nitrate probably won't happen. This new product basically allows any titration testing method to be used. And you can set it to only test once a day or once a week. My potassium is very stable, so I would be more than happy with once a week and not waste reagent testing every day.

 

[ngvu1]

My bad I was so into the statement they made "can be used with any test kits out there" but I guess liquid only which is perfectly fine

They obviously wouldn't use the Salifert approach, which requires powder. There are liquid only titration tests out there.

 

[Rick Mathew]

Anybody see "War Games"?....W.O.P.R...."Take the human out of the loop"....did not end well. Not Sure I would like to be "bleeding edge on this one"...will give it some time!

 

[drernesto Verified Sponsor]

My bad I was so into the statement they made "can be used with any test kits out there" but I guess liquid only which is perfectly fine

Dear,
Only with any liquid reagent kit.

 

[drernesto Verified Sponsor]

I'm amazed no one has asked this.....especially since we have the developer right here ^^^^

Instead everyone is distracted by the simple things like "no way it works" or "it costs how much??!?" Maybe it's just the engineer in me.... This concept is certainly feasible and by no means fantasy with enough money for mega-fancy sensors and pumps. The hard part is finding "good enough" pumps and sensors that are reliable enough for the job, at cheap enough prices for the masses.

Okay now that we have the skepticism out of the way....

I haven't heard a single thing about how this will integrate with other people's systems. For example,

Say someone has an ATO on their sump. They just drop a grand on this spiffy little tool. How many mL does this thing suck per test? Say it's like many of the standard test kits out there, 5mL per test. Say it's testing only dKH, pH, NH3/4, NO3, PO4, Mg, Sr, I, Ca. The big ones. At 5mL a piece that's 45mL a test-set. Say you have this thing going once a day, your ATO is now backfilling exported saltwater with freshwater thinking its evap.... In about 12 weeks we've already exported a gallon in tests....and back filled with fresh.... Now if you have a BIG system.... This may not be an issue.....

Point is, and I preach this at work probably 5 times a day, automation is good, but over-automation is real. Even with this system you likely will be looking at a different-new kind of maintainance routine. Yeah, might not be testing parameters, but it'll be something else!

Also, the idea of this machine pumping the unused portion of the water it draws in, back into my tank.....if any of you have ever worked in a ChemLab.....or a restaurant filling ketchup bottles, you must know that you never ever pour what's been poured back into the source.....ever! Being that many of these testing Chems are extremely deadly to aquatic life (look on the box or instruction book of your test kits now...) I don't want any reverse flow into my tank. I want a completely separate, sealed location for chems and for the test-product-waste. Far far far from my tank.

Dear, thank you for these interesting questions.
First of all the device will use the same amount that you use for your manual reagent testing. You don't have to test for all the parameters everyday. I test once a week for Ca, Kh and every 2 weeks for other parameters, so a minimal amount of water is replaced by RODI and I have the salinity probes that tells me if I'm below my levels.
Finally there's nothing pumped back to the system. Everything the washed away to the drain.
Please keep these interesting question asked and Im more than happy to answer.
Best,
R.

 

[MarsRover]

I think he said that the flushing 20ml was wasted off and the residual in the lines would be flushed to the waste before re-testing. The water use is an issue, however, maybe with the use of the water, we can just use sw in the top off....might be wishful thinking, but maybe....

20ml? Yeesh that's even more added to the testing volumes.... Also, with respect to top off with NaCl water, then you'll be heading in the opposite direction, with salinity creep up, due to evap....


So all this is to say then you'd need another controller to dose saltwater when sal is too low and roDI when sal is too high.

Lol imho not worth it until you have Hal up and running on your tank with full access to everything you'd dose.

Maybe I'll make one for my own tank.......

 

[MarsRover]

Also, I read somewhere that this thing can be used with any test kit that uses liquid reagents? So how does that work.... How do you calibrate your system so that it can work with the colorimetric charts from any kit? Software downloads? Free or pay for?? Or does the user have the ability to some how insert the chart into an optical sensor and program it?

What is maintainance like?

Do we have to re calibrate the optical sensor? Do you provide the tools to do this ourselves? Or do we have to send the unit off to you to do that for us?

In all honesty, the usefulness of a unit like this is to be able to test on the frequency of or around daily. Weekly or biweekly many of us don't mind spending the 15 mins to do that in a hobby. Daily or hourly or shorter monitoring of things like CA and dKH and PH is my interest.

 

[drernesto Verified Sponsor]

Also, I read somewhere that this thing can be used with any test kit that uses liquid reagents? So how does that work.... How do you calibrate your system so that it can work with the colorimetric charts from any kit? Software downloads? Free or pay for?? Or does the user have the ability to some how insert the chart into an optical sensor and program it?

What is maintainance like?

Do we have to re calibrate the optical sensor? Do you provide the tools to do this ourselves? Or do we have to send the unit off to you to do that for us?

In all honesty, the usefulness of a unit like this is to be able to test on the frequency of or around daily. Weekly or biweekly many of us don't mind spending the 15 mins to do that in a hobby. Daily or hourly or shorter monitoring of things like CA and dKH and PH is my interest.

Thanks for all that!
Ph will be measured with a probe, so it's a live result.
As for the saltwater dosing, you just gave us a cool idea for an auto dosing unit [emoji6]

 

[MarsRover]

Haha I'll pm you my address so you can send me the beta unit as payment

 

[locito277]

Haha I'll pm you my address so you can send me the beta unit as payment

Me too!!

 

[ebushrow]

20ml? Yeesh that's even more added to the testing volumes.... Also, with respect to top off with NaCl water, then you'll be heading in the opposite direction, with salinity creep up, due to evap....


So all this is to say then you'd need another controller to dose saltwater when sal is too low and roDI when sal is too high.

Lol imho not worth it until you have Hal up and running on your tank with full access to everything you'd dose.

Maybe I'll make one for my own tank.......

Your probably talking about 1/2 to 1 gallon of water a week....I would bet most of us would only test once a week...

 

[locito277]

I wonder if you would be able to connect it to the outgoing Genesis water supply. This would eliminate the problem of your ATO adding freshwater to replace the water taken out for testing?

 

[dragonfish]

following

 

[drernesto Verified Sponsor]

Your probably talking about 1/2 to 1 gallon of water a week....I would bet most of us would only test once a week...

Hey, yes if you test for around 8 parameters daily, you would use around 1/2 gallon per week.

 

[Sharvey103]

Following but would like to see beta testing results and pricing before committing

 

[Alfrareef]

With that estimated price, limitations and amount of pieces/components I don't see why to buy it!
With my 2 Hanna checkers and a JBL standard kit I've got all I need for weekly water test.