PhotoSniper
Supporting Member
Just getting a feeler to see if anyone has used the Trident NP and is happy with it, or is it just another useless dead paper weight.
Trident NP is it worth it
- Thread starter PhotoSniper
- Start date
- People seem to have a lot of issues with neptune testing products
- expensive
- takes up space
- how frequently do you really need to test N and P? once your tank is established they don't move around much
- These hanna tests are easy, quick, and reliable - so what are you really saving/improving?
This is my thought process.
Agree with #1-4. For #5- The testing actually gets done
I don’t have the NP, but I have the regular Trident. I’m not in love with it. It works ok but also needs more TLC than I’d like. For the past few days I’ve been troubleshooting it again. It’s pretty frustrating. But since I have it, the question always is, is it more annoying to have it not working, or to put the effort into getting it working again. Similar to a gym membership or personal trainer- Is it more mentally painful to be wasting the money because you aren’t going, or to just go.
It’s like a commitment device in my opinion. And as far as commitment devices go, the more expensive, or otherwise committed, the better.
All the logical talk about how it doesn’t really save time/effort since you can manually test misses this point, which I think is the main point. Of course they would be better if they worked reliably, but that’s not the world we live in.
So in my opinion, you should get the NP if you really would like to test for N and P on a regular basis, but you need a commitment device to get yourself to do it.
$700 is not cheap for the new NP tester that some have reported issues with. I do have the original trident that when it works -seems useful for measuring alkalinity on a regular basis.
For phosphate and nitrate I am pretty good at using the Hannas 2x a week. Testing the phosphate checker with a standardized testing tube from them shows it is in sync.
Once a week should be sufficient unless you are reducing phosphate with GFO, carbon dosing, etc to keep an eye on it. (I use both carbon dosing and lanthanum chloride)
For phosphate and nitrate I am pretty good at using the Hannas 2x a week. Testing the phosphate checker with a standardized testing tube from them shows it is in sync.
Once a week should be sufficient unless you are reducing phosphate with GFO, carbon dosing, etc to keep an eye on it. (I use both carbon dosing and lanthanum chloride)
tribbitt
Supporting Member
For $650 +$60x6 for reagents/year
The cost of NP reagents alone each year is nearly double the cost of a years worth of salifert n and p. $360 vs $204.
If I, instead, offered my little brother a dollar a day to test, it’d take 3.3 years of daily testing with salifert before the Apex begins being more economical (not that he’d maintain interest for that long)
but
if manual testing takes 5min per test, in that 3.3 years that takes 200 hours of testing (60hrs/year)
Do you need the daily testing, and if so, it’s up to you if the time saved is worth it. And like JVU mentioned, equipment does take some time tinkering. Just probably less than 200 hours
I hope my math was right
The cost of NP reagents alone each year is nearly double the cost of a years worth of salifert n and p. $360 vs $204.
If I, instead, offered my little brother a dollar a day to test, it’d take 3.3 years of daily testing with salifert before the Apex begins being more economical (not that he’d maintain interest for that long)
but
if manual testing takes 5min per test, in that 3.3 years that takes 200 hours of testing (60hrs/year)
Do you need the daily testing, and if so, it’s up to you if the time saved is worth it. And like JVU mentioned, equipment does take some time tinkering. Just probably less than 200 hours
I hope my math was right
Arvin R
Sponsor
From what I've read/heard is that some of the early units were widely inaccurate and wouldn't even get corrected with calibration. Some fellow reefers I know have had to send their in. Once they got it back it worked fine.
Wether it's financially worth it or not is completely up to you and what you want to get out of it. I don't feel nitrate and phos are something you need to monitor daily. But having automated testing along with automated dosing of LaCl into the skimmer I could see being worth it to have automated Phos control if you have trouble keeping phos down.
If for the past year you've tested N and P weekly or biweekly and its been stable I'd spend your money elsewhere.
Wether it's financially worth it or not is completely up to you and what you want to get out of it. I don't feel nitrate and phos are something you need to monitor daily. But having automated testing along with automated dosing of LaCl into the skimmer I could see being worth it to have automated Phos control if you have trouble keeping phos down.
If for the past year you've tested N and P weekly or biweekly and its been stable I'd spend your money elsewhere.
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
I am committed to test nitrate and phosphate once a week aligned with my water change schedule. I am not committed to keep calibrating half baked and expensive devices and worry about whether they are accurate or not. This stresses me more than it helps me keeping my routines. Buying devices which are not good supports the development of other mediocre devices. I am not a fan of that either for reefing or outside the hobby.
H2OPlayar
Supporting Member
The idea with the trident NP (and the trident) is less about overall accuracy and more about watching trend lines. The devices are relatively accurate compared to itself and in the ballpark overall, which is good enough for most. I've been a big fan of the regular trident and could see where having the np on my tank could help tell me if my phosphate is rising, constant, or falling without me needing to weekly test.
I agree with you (I have an Alkatronic that tests alk every 12 hours).
But I think #5 is related to #4 - if you are testing frequently (or want to test frequently) then the device can be a big help to make sure it happens. The less frequently you test, the less value the automatic tester adds (or potentially adds). In the case of N and P you just don't test them that often in established tanks. I went from daily, to weekly, to bi-weekly...now I'm testing every month or two. Hanna is just not that big of a chore at that cadence.
No argument there, I didn’t buy the NP for that reason. I’m just trying to frame the discussion in a way that makes more sense to me and I think is actually the more important consideration- that it’s a commitment device, vs the more obvious aspects people usually talk about (cost comparison, accuracy, reliability, etc).
So if you want to be testing N and P regularly (a big if) but find yourself not doing it, then the NP adds value as a commitment device more than as an actual good way to test.
PhotoSniper
Supporting Member
Thank you all for the feedback. Yeah, I personally did no find it that useful other than keep track of trends. I use Hanna checkers on a weekly basis as well, and I fail to log my results every time in Fusion. Though I do log it in my tank journal.
Matthew Meyer
Supporting Member
The main thing is, what will you do with the results of the tests. If you don't take any intervention, it really isn't worth it
RandyC
Supporting Member
Discussions about automated testing usually misses a major point. In no world (at the moment) will the cost of automated testing save you money and I’ll pretty much argue with anyone that it’ll actually save that much time.
The real benefit of automated testing is to maintain a baseline and try to ward off crashes and disasters. It can help to inform you sooner of when bad things happen, such as dosers failing on two part, 2-part containers empty, your kalk reactor just completely drained into the sump, feed pump stopped working on calcium reactor, auto feeder dumped all the contents in the tank, etc. etc. Whoever created the marketing for automated testing, IMO, really botched framing the discussion. Saving money from crashes and ensuring safety of your livestock should have been the first reason you’d want automated testing.
The real benefit of automated testing is to maintain a baseline and try to ward off crashes and disasters. It can help to inform you sooner of when bad things happen, such as dosers failing on two part, 2-part containers empty, your kalk reactor just completely drained into the sump, feed pump stopped working on calcium reactor, auto feeder dumped all the contents in the tank, etc. etc. Whoever created the marketing for automated testing, IMO, really botched framing the discussion. Saving money from crashes and ensuring safety of your livestock should have been the first reason you’d want automated testing.
H2OPlayar
Supporting Member
Replacing coral after a crash can be expensive and take time. There is your cost and time savings!
But that's more for the original trident. I don't foresee n or p causing a crash like alk.
JustinBolton
Supporting Member
Thales
Past President
I use it and am happy with it. It depends on what you want it for. I like it because I just don't want to manually test anymore, and am looking for trends regarding n and p - not because I care about n and p (I largely do not) - trends around feeding and dosing. If I wasn't interested in that stuff the NP would not be something I use because I think chasing N and P is largely a snipe hunt. Ha. I used largely twice!
When I first got the NP I was testing manually daily with several test to check P and A. That was a pita for me and I am glad it is done. I hate manual testing because I have been in the hobby too long and because of the inherent innacuracy issues involved. I would much rather have a machine do it the same way every time and leave me out of it.
Unlike others, the tridents have largely been set and forget, besides reagent changes. I have been using them since before public release and kinda haven't had some of the problems people report. I have had a tube pop off - my fault because I created backpressure by putting a bucket on the waste line - but then I greased and excersied the pinch valve and its all good. I have had Test A fail a couple times, but that is pretty easy to clear, and if you have prefilters installed, rare. I did the swap out of my original trident at 3 years and that was easy. My couvetts nerver seem to get dirty. I dont mess with the tridents and just let them do their thing. I get the feeling that people like to mess with them a lot and that leads to weird stuff happening, but maybe it is something else.
Like any automated thing, you have to learn its eccentricities, until then, it can seem like a pita.
TLDR - if you have a reason to want N and P tests, great, if not, skip it.
Alexander1312
Supporting Member
You almost convinced me to buy automated testers, since I would throw money at disaster prevention (or detection). Specifically with my 17-day summer vacation planning already underway...
So this is a great point you already made previously when this same topic came up in another post
, and I remember you did even before you made it again, and thought about these benefits.But are there no other ways to do this with more reliable equipment in many cases? A great opportunity to explore this.
Going through your scenarios.
1. dosers failing on two part / 2-part containers empty: For alk, this should be visible through the PH testing. CA would be a blindspot but it would also take a while to materialize unless you have a fully stocked SPS tank. So automated CA testing has some merit. I wonder though if the Hydros sole dosing pump would be a better way to be notified when this happens.
2. Your kalk reactor just completely drained into the sump: This should be immediately detectable by a PH swing. No additional tester is needed beyond PH monitoring unless I am missing something.
3. Feed pump stopped working on calcium reactor: I am not using one but from my generic understanding, the reactor would stop working if this happens, lowering CA over time. Same comment as under 1., and more relevant if there is very high CA consumption. However, would it not be more effective to connect the feeder pump to an automated system such as a Hydros XP8 which would alert you if the pump is no longer working?
4. Auto feeder dumped all the contents in the tank: Now this happened to me a little while ago with the AVAST, connected to a KASA wifi plug. My son accidentally tapped on the 'on' icon for the plug (we have many) when swiping away the app on a laggy Amazon Fire tablet which we use for the tank. I have noticed that this happened through an unusual ORP development. So an ORP probe seems to be a better way to detect this and similar issues. I have since connected the AVAST to a Hydros XP8 to hopefully not have this specific issue going forward.
Overall, automated testing could be a cheaper way to detect disasters, but I am not sure if it is the most reliable way to do so. That is my hypothesis so far
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This scares me. In addition to accidentally turning on in the app, could do the same with the physical button on the outlet. The Plank being silent is a problem in this regard.