Automatic Water Testers

[SleepyReefing]

What do people think about the automatic water testers that are currently on the market? I know the mastertronic essential just came out and the reviews seem pretty mixed with a bias maybe leaning towards more unhappy customers. Then there's the trident and trident NP series but i'm currently on hydros and would have to switch over to neptune's ecosystem which would be financially painful haha. The Maven just seems like a false promise at this time. Anyone have any recommendations?

 

[VacavilleFC]

theres also the GHL Ion Director

 

[Alexander1312]

AquaWiz appears the only one worth buying at the moment. I have yet to read negative comments about it and really like mine.

 

[Darkxerox]

What do people think about the automatic water testers that are currently on the market? I know the mastertronic essential just came out and the reviews seem pretty mixed with a bias maybe leaning towards more unhappy customers. Then there's the trident and trident NP series but i'm currently on hydros and would have to switch over to neptune's ecosystem which would be financially painful haha. The Maven just seems like a false promise at this time. Anyone have any recommendations?

The biggest question is what do you care most about testing or what parameters are important to you? All testing has downsides and their own flaws.

 

[rygh]

I had the reefbot a long time ago. First revision. It worked pretty well for a couple of years, then died.
Nice that it tested a lot of different values.
New version looks pretty nice.

I switched to the Neptune Trident. Also old version.
That worked well, and had a big advantage that it could control Alk/Ca dosers automtically.
Very handy.

That said, as I go to a smaller tank in the future, I am not bothering.
For a large tank, it was worth having the auto warnings and doser controls.
For smaller, I am just going to stick with auto-water-exchange, no dosing, no worries.

 

[clownvan]

I had the reefbot a long time ago. First revision. It worked pretty well for a couple of years, then died.
Nice that it tested a lot of different values.
New version looks pretty nice.

I switched to the Neptune Trident. Also old version.
That worked well, and had a big advantage that it could control Alk/Ca dosers automtically.
Very handy.

That said, as I go to a smaller tank in the future, I am not bothering.
For a large tank, it was worth having the auto warnings and doser controls.
For smaller, I am just going to stick with auto-water-exchange, no dosing, no worries.

What do you plan to use for the auto-water exchange?

 

[rygh]

What do you plan to use for the auto-water exchange?

Apex Dos pumps. I used them before on the large tank. They are quite well matched.

I have a 50G mixing garbage barrel, and a 100G SW storage tank. Total overkill for the future.

 

[Slingfox]

I have been eying the Aquawiz for the last year. Great user reviews on that unit.

 

[SleepyReefing]

AquaWiz appears the only one worth buying at the moment. I have yet to read negative comments about it and really like mine.

Yeah, I think the AquaWiz is a really neat device but the price point right now is just insane for me to justify one parameter. I get the argument that it doesn't use reagents but at the end of the day, it's an air pump, a peristaltic pump, a raspberry pi equivalent, and two pH probes. The equation they use to calculate alkalinity is well described in academic research, being conservative with the price I'd imagine it's still a 200% - 400% markup. Hopefully more come on the used market.

The biggest question is what do you care most about testing or what parameters are important to you? All testing has downsides and their own flaws.

Ah I should have clarified. The parameteres I care the most about are Alk, N, and P. I find that Mg and Ca are all pretty stable for me but these are the biggest movers even with my water changes. I have periods where I'm really consistent with testing, then life gets busy and one of these goes out of whack and something happens with the tank. It doesn't hapen often but usually it's a really long journey to get the tank back to being stable again.

I had the reefbot a long time ago. First revision. It worked pretty well for a couple of years, then died.
Nice that it tested a lot of different values.
New version looks pretty nice.

I switched to the Neptune Trident. Also old version.
That worked well, and had a big advantage that it could control Alk/Ca dosers automtically.
Very handy.

That said, as I go to a smaller tank in the future, I am not bothering.
For a large tank, it was worth having the auto warnings and doser controls.
For smaller, I am just going to stick with auto-water-exchange, no dosing, no worries.

I have a smaller 25 gallon lagoon that is doing ok! This is the strategy I've done for a while but my schedule has since become much busier where I can't be as consistent as I used to be. That's why I'm looking to get something that can help me take some of the responsibility off the tank so I can catch problems earlier especially since they happen faster in a smaller tank. I also realized you mentioned getting automatic water changes but thats something I dont have right now... Maybe that'll be more worthwhile than an auto tester for such a small tank.

 

[rygh]

I have a smaller 25 gallon lagoon that is doing ok! This is the strategy I've done for a while but my schedule has since become much busier where I can't be as consistent as I used to be. That's why I'm looking to get something that can help me take some of the responsibility off the tank so I can catch problems earlier especially since they happen faster in a smaller tank. I also realized you mentioned getting automatic water changes but thats something I dont have right now... Maybe that'll be more worthwhile than an auto tester for such a small tank.

The downside to auto-water exchange is the need for space. Although these water testers take space also. Especially the reef-bot.
You need a place to mix salt water, a decent size salt water storage, and a place to drain the old water.
The plus side is you only need to run 1/4" RO tubing, so you can often put those tanks in an outside shed.
Important: I was talking serious water exchange. Like 15% every day.
And you still likely want to dose Alk.

Keeping the chemistry stable on small tanks is tricky. Easiest fix is to go to a bigger tank.


If you are thinking of ONLY using water exchange, a great old thread is here: Water exchange only

 

[Alexander1312]

Yeah, I think the AquaWiz is a really neat device but the price point right now is just insane for me to justify one parameter. I get the argument that it doesn't use reagents but at the end of the day, it's an air pump, a peristaltic pump, a raspberry pi equivalent, and two pH probes. The equation they use to calculate alkalinity is well described in academic research, being conservative with the price I'd imagine it's still a 200% - 400% markup. Hopefully more come on the used market.

I tend to agree. To me, the value of stable alkalinity was not clear for some time, but I do not want to miss that anymore.

In fact, I would instantly buy a device that can do the same for CA, if available - reagent free (they will be releasing other devices but I do not think CA will be reagent free).

My German friends have debated the pricing of this device at length - the price is the same as here but in EUR (!), and income there is not on par with ours. So even more to complain about there.

The low number of them being sold (despite their global success - Europe, US, and Australia etc), makes them mainly so expensive - so over time, price could come down if sales go up.

Also, despite the widespread knowledge of how alkalinity can be measured, no one has been able to pull it off.

It is both Hardware and software (including cloud-based operation), and the effort to get to this point, and most importantly (other than the regent free operation), the repairability of this device is exceptional, with every single part being available at reasonable prices, makes this still a financially attractive longer term solution, to test for one of a reef tanks top 3 parameter (Salinity, Alkalinity, CA).

 

[SleepyReefing]

The downside to auto-water exchange is the need for space. Although these water testers take space also. Especially the reef-bot.
You need a place to mix salt water, a decent size salt water storage, and a place to drain the old water.
The plus side is you only need to run 1/4" RO tubing, so you can often put those tanks in an outside shed.
Important: I was talking serious water exchange. Like 15% every day.
And you still likely want to dose Alk.

Keeping the chemistry stable on small tanks is tricky. Easiest fix is to go to a bigger tank.


If you are thinking of ONLY using water exchange, a great old thread is here: Water exchange only

Yeah, you bring up a good point about the space constraints. Oh 15% every day is a lot! I guess your system would be pretty darn stable with that haha. Would you run into issues with too low nutrients though? I feel like my corals tend to like it when N and Phos are around 5-10 and 0.01-0.1 respectively. I feel like that'd be hard to keep with that much water changing unless you feed heavy.

Haha the plan is to go to a larger tank but that's when I find a more permanant situation.

 

[SleepyReefing]

I tend to agree. To me, the value of stable alkalinity was not clear for some time, but I do not want to miss that anymore.

In fact, I would instantly buy a device that can do the same for CA, if available - reagent free (they will be releasing other devices but I do not think CA will be reagent free).

My German friends have debated the pricing of this device at length - the price is the same as here but in EUR (!), and income there is not on par with ours. So even more to complain about there.

The low number of them being sold (despite their global success - Europe, US, and Australia etc), makes them mainly so expensive - so over time, price could come down if sales go up.

Also, despite the widespread knowledge of how alkalinity can be measured, no one has been able to pull it off.

It is both Hardware and software (including cloud-based operation), and the effort to get to this point, and most importantly (other than the regent free operation), the repairability of this device is exceptional, with every single part being available at reasonable prices, makes this still a financially attractive longer term solution, to test for one of a reef tanks top 3 parameter (Salinity, Alkalinity, CA).

Yeah these are all valid arguments and I think that over time the device would eventually break even and maybe pay for itself in the reagents that you'd be saving. It's just a really high price to justify one tank parameter, even if it's an important one like Alk. Maybe some used ones will come onto the market in a few years when I hopefully get a bigger tank.

 

[rygh]

Yeah, you bring up a good point about the space constraints. Oh 15% every day is a lot! I guess your system would be pretty darn stable with that haha. Would you run into issues with too low nutrients though? I feel like my corals tend to like it when N and Phos are around 5-10 and 0.01-0.1 respectively. I feel like that'd be hard to keep with that much water changing unless you feed heavy.

Haha the plan is to go to a larger tank but that's when I find a more permanant situation.

Some history: Most experience is on my 240G tank, with both a lot of big fish and a lot of SPS. Difficult combination! Salt water exchange was maybe 5% per week. Trident water testing drove automatic Apex dosers. I also had an algae scrubber (obliterates Nitrates, perhaps too well). I fed fairly heavily. That mostly worked well. Alk/Ca/N/Mg/Minors were great and very stable. The main problem I had was phosphates and lack of automatic control for that. I had a large GFO reactor, which worked, but you end up with large swings as you forget, then change media.

 

[rygh]

I feel like my corals tend to like it when N and Phos are around 5-10 and 0.01-0.1 respectively.

I tend to agree with those numbers. Corals do better with nutrients, but you need to limit P to keep nuisance algae down.