Trident FAQ

[Thales]

Other NSI are free to reply, but for me it sounds like a whispering R2D2.

It is as quiet as Salifert tests!

 

[Thales]

Yea I ah
yea I have seen a lot fo them lately have had issues but even still your going to have a lot of people that want to know how these three tests stack up to other equipment. I understand if that trident can say you alk is 9 all the time that's fine and great but what if the alk is actually like 7 the whole time. Im not saying the trident isn't accurate but these are the kind of things I would think people would questions

How would you go about checking that?

 

[spartanman22]

I will note that Triton’s ICP, I would not personally consider to be a precise method. It would not be an approved method for water matrices testing. Mostly because Triton sandwiched the testing into one pass. I would put higher validity in tritons metals analyses than some of the non-metal analytes.

 

[Kyl]

@MnFish1
Its marketing at it's best by Neptune.
First they told us to buy new brain 2016 so you can upgrade and use trident. Now if you only upgraded to a new brain 2016, it doesnt come with 1link port. So now you upgrade again to either a eb832 power strip or buy a 1link module. All this is for USA and Canada.
It will ship with 1link cable in these 2 countries weither you can use it out of box or not it's your problem. And if it's a problem then You are forced to upgrade to either a power bar or 1link module to have a 1link port or simply spend more money with Neptune and buy a USB aqubus cable along with a power supply to run the unit and knowing Neptune's price track record I bet the aquabus and power supply will probably be the cheapest route.
Eb832 cost $250
1link module $150
Aquabus 3ft cable is the cheapest at $13 and I can safely assume power supply to run trident will be about $35-50.

In international market eb832 is not available as it's designed to work only on US standards of 120v 60hz while most other countries run 220-240v 50hz.
Thus 1link module is also not available or possible for international customers as it would need 110-120v to operate and to pass on to equipment.
So in order to make sales internationally they are forced to sell it working out of box with aquabus cable for data and power supply which are pretty standard now 110-240v.
Great marketing example again.

You can replicate the branded USB cord and DC brick with a $10 bill and a visit to an electronics store, or even Amazon. These minuscule amperage bricks are not expensive, and the "retail" brick I bought years ago for my classic apex brain to detect power outages was nothing more than a Chinese OEM brand you'd find online, as are all the bricks. I'd hazard to guess it's the exact same brick as are included with the DOS.

 

[ajhudson15]

How would you go about checking that?

im not the manufacturer so that's not my job to decide how to prove to people the testing accuracy lol. I know it would be hard but don't you agree that one of the first questions that comes up is accuracy compared to other testing.

 

[MnFish1]

I think you missed my point. Maybe in my follow up post. It basically said what you said.

And yes, we have confirmed serious flaws in some of these kits.

The point is, use them. They are close. They are close enough and have reasonable precision that they can be used successfully to have a great reef tank. However since the precision is not great due to many factors - including human ones- using them as a point of reference for another tests accuracy is problematic. If you have two thermometers, from two different companies, neither NIST, which is correct. Then you get a third. What does that say?

Did you see what BRS has found in their test equipment? The company-verified bugs they found?

And ICP is not much better either. Just look at the results from Marine Depots report.

Does the Trident come with some kind of calibration solution (reference solution) - to verify the results? Seems like that would be the way to see if the machine is properly working?

 

[MnFish1]

How would you go about checking that?

You have a reference solution of known alkalinity - and test that (of course it would have to have the same components of 'saltwater' - to avoid confounding variables)

 

[Thales]

im not the manufacturer so that's not my job to decide how to prove to people the testing accuracy lol. I know it would be hard but don't you agree that one of the first questions that comes up is accuracy compared to other testing.

It was a question to see what you would do. I know what I would do/have done, but am interested in what you would do. You are the person asking about 'proving accuracy to people' so I am also interested in what would be sufficient for you, you know, as a person .

 

[Terence]

This video linked below is a good watch. Even Hach could not do a seawater nitrate test with any kind of precision and it took BRS to actually show them a method that could work. Another thing BRS found in "certified" lab equipment was error in PAR sensors that required the manufacturer to rework their product significantly.


My point here is, as a president once said, "It depends on what your definition of 'is', is"

 

[Thales]

This video linked below is a good watch. Even Hach could not do a seawater nitrate test with any kind of precision and it took BRS to actually show them a method that could work. Another thing BRS found in "certified" lab equipment was error in PAR sensors that required the manufacturer to rework their product significantly.


My point here is, as a president once said, "It depends on what your definition of 'is', is"

That is everything I have been trying to pound since 2014.

 

[spartanman22]

This video linked below is a good watch. Even Hach could not do a seawater nitrate test with any kind of precision and it took BRS to actually show them a method that could work. Another thing BRS found in "certified" lab equipment was error in PAR sensors that required the manufacturer to rework their product significantly.


My point here is, as a president once said, "It depends on what your definition of 'is', is"

Hmm interesting, I have a DR3900. May have to play with the Nitrate. I can run it in comparison with approved methods for saline environments for water analyses to see precision and accuracy from the approved method vs the Hach TNT method.

 

[spartanman22]

Just looked at my methods binder, and TNT 835 is not for use in saline environments which demonstrates why it does not work for BRS.

TNT 835 uses dimethylphenol, which is a halogen scavenger. So it will, react with HOCl forming 4-chloro-2,6-DMP. So, you’re going to get false positive readings with that method at low ranges due to reaction with available free chlorine.

Ideally, to accurately and precisely test nitrate in seawater you’d probably want to use Method 353.4.

TNTs are great but you gotta make sure you’re using them on the right matrices! Seems like a bit of oversight on BRS’ part there.

 

[Thales]

Hmm interesting, I have a DR3900. May have to play with the Nitrate. I can run it in comparison with approved methods for saline environments for water analyses to see precision and accuracy from the approved method vs the Hach TNT method.

The problem with Hach nitrate is the vigorous shaking needed. Vigorous changes.
I’ll also check the method I am using - all Craig Bingman approved so I assume it’s right.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

You can replicate the branded USB cord and DC brick with a $10 bill and a visit to an electronics store, or even Amazon. These minuscule amperage bricks are not expensive, and the "retail" brick I bought years ago for my classic apex brain to detect power outages was nothing more than a Chinese OEM brand you'd find online, as are all the bricks. I'd hazard to guess it's the exact same brick as are included with the DOS.

You are absolutely right I have bought generic power supplies for my Vegas led lights before that worked better than factory for 1/4th of the cost but company finds out they will void warranty. I am pretty sure Neptune wint sell them for $10.

 

[Kyl]

The caveat is 'there are different levels of China quality', which is true, but lets be honest they're not shooting for a top of the line efficiency AC > DC transformer with this gear since the price tag would be much higher on their product BOM and we're talking 24v 2 amp or even less. Not that it matters much this gear all has a piddly 1 year warranty anyway.

 

[Ryanbrs Verified Sponsor]

Just looked at my methods binder, and TNT 835 is not for use in saline environments which demonstrates why it does not work for BRS.

TNT 835 uses dimethylphenol, which is a halogen scavenger. So it will, react with HOCl forming 4-chloro-2,6-DMP. So, you’re going to get false positive readings with that method at low ranges due to reaction with available free chlorine.

Ideally, to accurately and precisely test nitrate in seawater you’d probably want to use Method 353.4.

TNTs are great but you gotta make sure you’re using them on the right matrices! Seems like a bit of oversight on BRS’ part there.

I don't think many of the TNT methods work with seawater sadly. We worked directly with them on a whole variety of methods and approaches. Maybe a few hundred samples attempts, dozens of calls with the lab and it just didn't work in the ranges we needed it to. I think the ones they do approve for sea water are based on the Cadmium Reduction Method.

They eventually helped us make a custom program to accurately read the Red Sea method. Then tested against a series of standards and it met the accuracy requirements for what we are using it for.

8192 Powder Pillows LR Cadmium Reduction

 

[rkpetersen]

What you will find is that the only thing you should be comparing Trident to, or any test kit or method for that matter, is one an experienced lab tech or scientist performs with proper methods and labware. Even then, some of these lab certified devices costing many thousands of dollars have incredible flaws. Just watch some BRS episodes from about a year or so ago and see what Ryan uncovered.

What's really eye-opening is sending multiple identical water samples to several different ICPOES testers.
I do this routinely and am often quite amazed at how different the values reported can be.
Evidence that currently available commercial analytical lab testing of our water is no 'holy grail'.

 

[rkpetersen]

Other NSI are free to reply, but for me it sounds like a whispering R2D2.

A sotto voce 'weep woop' when it's moving fluid, otherwise silent.

 

[rkpetersen]

Does the Trident come with some kind of calibration solution (reference solution) - to verify the results? Seems like that would be the way to see if the machine is properly working?

There is a calibration Task and calibration solution. It's pretty impressive how it goes about it, actually.

 

[spartanman22]

What's really eye-opening is sending multiple identical water samples to several different ICPOES testers.
I do this routinely and am often quite amazed at how different the values reported can be.
Evidence that currently available commercial analytical lab testing of our water is no 'holy grail'.

The problem with these is that an ICP is expensive, a qualified chemist to operate the instrument is expensive, and running several independent analyses is expensive.

To get by it sounds like these aquarium ICP tests are trying to sandwich a catalogue of analyses into a “single-pass” type analysis, where one sample is run through and various parameters analyzed. This greatly reduces the cost and availability to the average reefer, but takes serious concessions with accuracy and precision versus running the analyze independently with the appropriate method.