I don't have one but it would be good to know what's out there if I ever get into one.

Funny the heartbeat one was promised when fusion first game out.  Feature tour is nice though.  

Would love to see further posts!

I'll do that over the next month or so.

The latest NSI going on is the long awaited Neptune Trident water testing module. I was lucky enough to be selected to be part of the NSI for this product (honestly this device is the reason I signed up for the NSI program and have been active in the other proiducts). I can't say much about the unit at the moment but I will fill in the details about it when I can.

The first set of actual tests is running right now.

A few hiccups getting my trident going but finally today success! I knew alk was low because well I haven't tested in a long time or done anything to keep it up. Now I can focus on just doing some dosing.

Let the fun begin!

I'll post more as time goes on with more screen shots and explanations.

No the waste is dumped into a waste container or into a drain and not back into the tank. at only 15ml of water used for the complete set of tests it's not a lot of water going into the waste container. You also set the size of the waste container in Fusion and it tells you went it's getting full and needs to be emptied.

Now let me explain some of the details of the shown graph. First the Alk graph looks like it is all over the place right? Well let me put some numbers to it to show how little it is actually changing. The high peak on the left side of the graph is 8.76dKh the last test at the right is 8.6dKh The low points throughout the graph are 8.56dKh so the represented range in that graph is 0.2dKh and that is over a 7 day period testing 4 times per day. The drop at the left is where I turned on the dosing control based on the Trident testing for my Alk and set the target number at 8.5dKh with a safety window of +- 0.3dKh. My Trident then started slowly reducing the dosing amount each day until the value is staying right around 8.5-8.6dKh consistently for the last 4.5 days. I plan on now using the dosing numbers that are logged to create a better dosing schedule that is closer to what the Trident controlled dosing is and that should tighten the swing up even more as the Trident will have to adjust my default dose less and less.

The Calcium graph is even more interesting. The peak just off the left side is 489ppm and the low dip just to the right is 469ppm. The bouncing up and down was the result of an empty new salt water container for my water change and my Trident trying to tune the new dosing amount to compensate. I then mixed new salt water and set a new target for the dosing and it flattened right out and has been 479-483ppm for the last three days.

Mag I am not dosing right now trying to get it to drop a little which you can see it is. The range on this graph is 1492ppm on the left to 1442ppm on the right. Target is 1420-1450ppm and then I will turn on dosing control to keep it there.

Questions on that part?

@nsfw dave, I am very busy and travel a lot, I am also not one of those reefers that like to test their tank. This has always caused me issues with my tanks. For me the cost of the Trident is absolutely worth it. I have already seen a huge shift in my tank stability since starting to use the Trident a few months ago. I have coraline algae growing again, corals that are open and happy that were struggling, and just an overall much happier system.

I also have a reefbot. I bought it a while back when there were again delays in the Trident release. I was hoping that it would be what my Trident has now become. It did not live up to the task. My reefbot is now only testing NO3 and PO4 on my system. It was setup to test the big three that Trident is now doing but the maintenance on the reefbot is almost as bad as just doing the testing manually. The vials and small and don't hold much reagent, the needle has to be replace of cleaned very often and the tests are not as consistant and accurate as I would have hoped (not surprised since they use test kits that generally are not very accurate to begin with and then you have to mix parts of the test together for some things). I also was always a little miffed that they tout the reefbot as being able to test 8 parameters but the only tests I know of that uses a single reagent is Alk and pH. Everthing else uses at least two reagents and reduces the elements that the reefbot can test for. It's also not very easy to setup the reefbot. Once it's done is works pretty well but it's not plug and play at all.

I actually run a Calcium reactor and then have my DOS setup to just dial the numbers in for me. My reactor is setup to hit my target ranges and dialed in for that but I always had a swing during the day due to uptake increases during the photoperiod of the day. So now my reactor keeps the levels steady during the evening after lights out and into the next morning before the lights come on and my DOS only kicks in during the peak usage of the day to keep the numbers from dipping at all. I was able to aquire a parastaltic pump that can be controlled by my apex to increase the effluent through my reactor and I plan to set that up to dynamically adjust the reactor flow instead of the combined dosing that I am currently doing.

@knowen87, Actually the way the controlled dosing works is that you setup the DOS to get your dosing into the ball park of where you want your numbers to be using the regular wizard setup for the DOS and creating intervals throughout the day for regular and increased dosing. Once you are keeping the numbers close with your settings you turn on Trident control. It doesn't modify your programming at all. It simply lets you set your target value you are trying to keep, a range of +- percentage around that number that is acceptable and then how much control adjustment you are willing to let the Trident adjust your dosing. Once you enter those values the Trident knows what to do in the background to speed up or slow down the dosing based on the test results. It doesn't actually change your code for the DOS.

If something happens and the test value is outside of the +- range that you set for the Trident then it stops adjusting and the dosing falls back to your original interval dosing that you setup. This is why it's important to get the DOS intervals close to where you want before you turn on the Trident control.

@knowen87, There is not a set maintenance for the Trident yet. What we do know is that somewhere in the 18-24 month timeframe from installation there are some parts that will need to be replaced. There will be a few options for getting this done:

1. A parts kit that will cost "less than $100" that you can DIY replace at your home (Neptune has said that this option comes with a very high risk of causing damage to some internal parts if not done correctly which would then result in you having to send the Trident in to get it fixed and would not be a covered repair which means it would cost more money).

2. A ship the unit in to have it replaced with an already refreshed unit after they receive yours. This option will cost more than the parts kit and you will be without a tester during the period of shipping the unit in and getting the replacement shipped back. This option is said to be in the $180-200 range but no price set for sure. This option does present almost no risk o funit damage unless it happens during shipping which would be resolved with another unit, or you damging it when trying to install it (which would not be covered and would result in additional costs). 

3. A pre-ship option where Neptune sends you a refreshed replacement unit, you swap yours out with the new unit and then send your old unit back. This option will cost the same as option 2 although there will most likely be a deposit required that will be refunded after they receive the returned unit. This option will be the least painful for being without a Trident but will be more painful to the pocket book during the swapout time.

There were a couple of other options discussed that we have been asked to keep under wraps for now.

This maintenance is not "Required" but knowing that there is a parastaltic pump and tubing inside this unit I would guess that at some point if it is not done the tubing will either collapse and stop working or split and start leaking tank water and reagents inside the unit.

Lots of people are "screaming" about this maintenance and the fact that the numbers and schedule for doing it are not solidified yet. The funny part is that Neptune doesn't know these things yet because they haven't had fully functioning units running the actual allowed schedules for the timeframe that they need in order to know that yet. They are currently basing the schedule interval off of part hours of use data from the manufacturer and calculations on Trident usage models. They want this to be as along as possible without risking having units start leaking before the maintenance is performed.

That is the best I can tell you right now. but that should let you know what to expect for now with more clarity to come later.

I only tested manually for about 2.5ish weeks when I first got the Trident so that I could see how far it was off from my manual testing but more importantly that the changes in the system showed on both tests and those changes tracked each other when the tests were performed at teh same time. Once I could see that they were consistantly reporting the same variations in the tank but that the values were different I stopped manual testing unless there was a significant change that I could not explain. My Alk testing with my Hanna checker was -0.5 to -0.8 less than my Trident but tracked the changes and spikes very consistantly. My Calcium was 70ppm lower on the Trident then my Hanna checker and 20ppm lower than my Red Sea kit. Mag was always within 10-15ppm of my red sea kit. I'm not sure that comparing a manual test with a visual result is a good comparison to a calibrated electronic sensor. The human eye just isn't that accurate to color levels and very slight changes. It was never important to me that the values matched each other. I only cared that the changes tracked each other because I have never chased numbers in my tanks and I never believed the manual test kits to be very accurate in the first place.

No, there is no way to do fewer than 4 Alk tests, 2 Ca tests and 2 Mg tests per day but you can do more than that. The biggest reason for that is because that is what it takes to make sure that the Alk is +- 0.05 dKh and Ca and Mg are +- 15ppm with every single test. There are other reasons for that but they are related to IP and cannot be discussed. Just in case those reading are not aware the default 4 tests per day consist of an Alk only test then a combined Alk,Ca,Mg test then an Alk only and then a second combined test. So the unit is only doing two types of tests. Alk only or everything.

I don't have my Trident physically hooked to my DOS. They do not actually connect to each other physically. The Trident uses either a 1Link cable OR a 24v power supply and aquabus cable to connect to the Apex just like other devices. My DOS is being controlled by my Trident for the small amount that my DOS is adding to make up for my reactor being set a tiny bit lower than demand. Is that what you mean? My reactor keeps my tank within 0.1dKh of my target and my DOS is setup to add about 22ml of Alk supplement a day to bring it up to my desired level. The DOS is currently adding 18.7ml per day based on the Trident control.

The only changes I have seen over time have been related to tuning. Each set of reagents that you get have a bottle of calibration solution with them. So every 2 months there is a recalibration of the Trident based on a reference sample. After each of those calibrations my test numbers have never moved significantly one way or the other from the test numbers prior to the calibration. The only way to really answer what I believe you are getting at is to not calibrate the unit at all and somehow not have any variation in tank usage or dosing. Or maybe to only test a known value solution for every test and see if there is a shift. From the stand point of a reef tank and slight up and down shifts that naturally occur and are part of our hobby I have not seen any degradation or shift in readings in the 3 months that I have been using it. In the 3+ weeks that the Trident has been controlling my DOS I don't believe that there has been any shift in the reading accuracy either but I'm not sure how you would know that without some other testing method and my Hanna is still giving me readings that are within the same gap that I have had since I got the Trident and started testing.

In my case yes it was right around 0.5dKh off of my Hanna. That doesn't mean it will be that close to yours as the Hanna can be effected by many things like scratches in the cuvet, dirty cuvet, expired reagent, the accuracy of the amount of water you put in the cuvet. I guess what I am getting at is if you know what your Hanna numbers have been and you track those numbers against the Trident for a period of time then I'm not sure how far off from each other the numbers are really matters. If you are looking to know that your numbers are exact then you would have to be able to take a water sample to a commercial lab and have it tested within and hour of you collecting it to get even close to exact. Alk is effected by CO2 in the air.

Hogie wrote: Why can't they be discussed? I thought the NDA was done? I would rather do 2 alk test and use less reagents. Since I don't have a DOS, I'm going to be using a 3rd party for the dosing anyways and having the extra tests doesn't do me any good or help increase stability. So there's no way to limit it to less then 4 test.

 

It can't be discussed because it has to do with their intellectual property and design details that are not released to the public and are included in patents that are in filing. Release from the NDA is for general information and excludes some topics that Neptune has deemed sensitive.

Fewer tests does not show you usage numbers through out the day. You don't have to have a DOS to have dynamic dosing that increases or decreases throughout the day. You only have to have a DOS if you want the adjustments to be made by the Trident automatically. 4 test per day has actually come in handy a few times during the NSI to show clogged dosing lines, empty dosing containers and a few other mishaps that testing once a day or less would not have caught. There is also the issue of the reagent life once it's opened being only 2 months so reducing tests and saving reagents is really just wasting reagents as they start to break down after the 2 months.

Hogie wrote: I didn't know you were using a reactor, I though you were using 2-part. I haven't really though about the trident with a reactor. Interesting...I'm going to have to give that some thought!

 

Suprise!

Hogie wrote: Can you tell how much it changes during each calibration?

Well I can see the last test before the calibration, then the calibration numbers, and then the first test after the calibration. That should give you a pretty close value to any change in the baseline if you wanted to track that once every 2 months.

While doing this is not as simple as running a task like many other Trident related things are it is written up and being posted in the Neptune general forums for people to read and implement if they so desire.