Trident Readings

Sun1914

Sun1914

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Pulled the trigger and purchased a Trident yesterday. The initial reading came back
Alk 8.7
Cal 405
Mag 1080
Which I was surprised by since my Mag is usually high (testing with Red Sea Kit) but i know manual kits can be funny at times.
The next reading a few hours later came back
Alk 8.7
Cal 710
Mag 1110

In order to see true readings I stopped my Dos so I have not added anything to the tank since. Next reading shows a drop in levels but Cal still high..
Alk 8.63
Cal 693
Mag 1110

Theres isnt any crazy build up on my equipment nor a drop in Alk which leads me to believe the Cal reading is definitely off. My plan is to let it run another 24 hrs (4 more test) and then calibrate the Trident.

Wanted to know if those with Tridents have had a similar experience? If so what did you do? How long until readings become reliable?
 
Sun1914 said:
Pulled the trigger and purchased a Trident yesterday. The initial reading came back
Alk 8.7
Cal 405
Mag 1080
Which I was surprised by since my Mag is usually high (testing with Red Sea Kit) but i know manual kits can be funny at times.
The next reading a few hours later came back
Alk 8.7
Cal 710
Mag 1110

In order to see true readings I stopped my Dos so I have not added anything to the tank since. Next reading shows a drop in levels but Cal still high..
Alk 8.63
Cal 693
Mag 1110

Theres isnt any crazy build up on my equipment nor a drop in Alk which leads me to believe the Cal reading is definitely off. My plan is to let it run another 24 hrs (4 more test) and then calibrate the Trident.

Wanted to know if those with Tridents have had a similar experience? If so what did you do? How long until readings become reliable?
Click to expand...
Yeah. My readings climbed a bit for the first few tests and then leveled off. I’m going to give it a week and then run the calibration on it just to be sure. But once the leveled off, I checked with my Hanna checkers and they were within range.
 
The key is to not get wrapped up in the number you get as long as it is in the range of healthy.

Trident is best used to monitor stability and trends. The number itself is all over the place if you compare it to other test kits and even reagent changes. I can get up to a .5 dkh swing after I change reagents. I just rebaseline and go about my day.
 
Tomorrow I'll be within the 48-72 hour range and will recalibrate the Trident. I just can't see my Cal being that high. Red Sea Test Kit has me in the 400 range. Thats a huge difference.
Think I'll take some water to Premier and have them test it for me as well before calibrating.
 
My conclusion has been that the test kits we pay good money for are borderline horrible and generally pretty inaccurate.

I started doing a DIY test for Alkalinity a while back - much cheaper, easier, more accurate and easily repeateable. I was surprised to find that the Trident was closer than the test kits I was using.
 
Sun1914 said:
Tomorrow I'll be within the 48-72 hour range and will recalibrate the Trident. I just can't see my Cal being that high. Red Sea Test Kit has me in the 400 range. Thats a huge difference.
Think I'll take some water to Premier and have them test it for me as well before calibrating.
Click to expand...

Until you calibrate I wouldn't put too much thought into it. Despite the fact they say it comes factory calibrated and should be "close" out the box, I remember my alk being pretty dang close, my cal being off over 100 points and mag being off nearly 250. Calibration got me to within +/- 10% of my manual testing.
 
Before the Trident came out they talked about this at length. If you can get any of the test kits available to us to test within 10~15% of each other you're doing pretty damn good, Trident included. Even ICP tests aren't 100% accurate, they require interpretation from the operator preforming the test. If after settling in for 3 to 7 days and calibrating, the Trident is more than that 10~15% off the first thing to look at is your testing methods. If those are sound and repeatable compared to a store or another reefer testing your water? Yes. then it's time to contact Neptune. If it's way off, 20% or more and stays that way then it's also time to contact Neptune.

Once you have stable readings coming back from it then it's time to start tracking. I'd still manually test Alk weekly, Cal every other week and Mag monthly to verify the unit is still preforming correctly. If at any time I got an odd result from the Trident I'd test that one manually. That one off too? Test it again to verify before taking any corrective actions to the tank chemistry. That goes for any test too, not just the Trident. Always retest anything that doesn't look right. If it stays off test it with a different test kit, take a sample to a store or another reefer. Better to rule out bad reagents and/or testing errors before making changes to the system.
 
Did you ever calibrate the unit or get premier to test your water?

what were your results after calibration?
 
I let thw trident run for a week as is.
Last night i calibrated and then allowed test schedule to continue as is. This morning I received the first calibrated results and they were more in line with my Red Sea test kit.

I never had the LFS test my water but i will bring them a sample when i go get water next week for my water change.

I also started allowing the Dos to dose according to Trident results. We'll see how that goes.
 
Sun1914 said:
I let thw trident run for a week as is.
Last night i calibrated and then allowed test schedule to continue as is. This morning I received the first calibrated results and they were more in line with my Red Sea test kit.

I never had the LFS test my water but i will bring them a sample when i go get water next week for my water change.

I also started allowing the Dos to dose according to Trident results. We'll see how that goes.
Click to expand...
You're a brave soul jumping right in. I am about to calibrate my trident as well, still nervous about automated dosing.
 
My last week of ALK on the 180. Automated Dosing - I upped it to 8.4 is the reason for the slight increase.

7.9 - 8.5 slow rise over a week.

ALK.jpg
 
trizzino said:
You're a brave soul jumping right in. I am about to calibrate my trident as well, still nervous about automated dosing.
Click to expand...
My levels aren't fair off just from weekly water changes. With work being what its been for me I want to want to push it to biweekly this last go around. I skipped my water change last week in order to give the Trident time and I think i can stick to that without levels of phosphate and nitrate getting too high.

The cool thing with the Trident Dosing is the fail safe and the fact I can see results right away. Im up at work while the night test are going on so I can make changes on the spot. In theory parameters shouldnt swing out of control as long no equipment failure occurs.
 
So here is my experience with Trident. I have been running 1 for about 9 months and another for 2. Since I have more tanks than tridents, I still pull out the Hannah alk checker once per week and test the tanks with tridents as well as the ones that don't. For alkalinity, the Hannah checker and trident are within 0.1 dKh every time on both units. I have done multiple ICP tests over this time and have not had quite as good results. The trident I have had for 9 months is consistently 50 ppm high on Calcium and 25 low on Magnesium vs ICP. This is after calibrating twice with multiple reagent kits. The newer unit matched the ICP test within 10-15 ppm for the 1 ICP test I had to compare. As for reliability, I did have a clogged input line on the first trident. The trident detected the clog and notified me with an alarm. There is a technique for clearing clogs with a syringe. I would consider the clogging to be somewhat expected in a reef tank. So overall I am impressed with how well these things work out of the box. The accuracy though is no better than our existing test kits, despite what Jim Welsh (he invented it) and NS say. But that is ok. The only thing I would complain about is the packaging. First, they make a lot of noise. I often think an alarm is going off then I look at what time it is and realize it is the Tridents testing. Second, the sliding drawer for reagents is problematic in tight spaces and creates issues with pinched lines.

Now and prior to the Trident, my testing of these parameters has been weekly alkalinity testing with Hannah and quarterly ICP testing for Ca, Mg, and everything else. I dose kalk and balanced 2 part, so my Ca and Mg stay level enough that bolus dosing based on ICP results once a quarter has always worked. One thing that the Trident has done is confirm my method. So, is the trident going to make my tanks better than what I was already doing? Probably not. But I find myself looking at the numbers several times every day. It is addicting. So I bought my second one.

One final note, I wish NS would drop the Star Trek/HALO theme to their packaging. I feel geeky enough without someone seeing one of these in the basement.

Live long and prosper :)
 
I have to agree with you @gainesvillereef - the drawer is silly, the plate above the drawer where the testing vial is falls off constantly and I also have run in to the tank area looking for that strange new noise - only to notice and remember, it's testing time.

For me - the trident has made it much, much easier for me to maintain somewhat stable alk and that is it's main selling point for myself.
 
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