Triton Test Kit
- Thread starter Tweaked
- Start date
BfishLpond78
FUPA
BfishLpond78
FUPA
LIRA puts on good meetings. Keep and eye out, I assume with that speaker coming a lot of people might have awesome corals for sale at steal of prices.
Vinny Kreyling
Premium Member
Generally we get frags from Reef Gen for the auction.
If you plan a road trip let me know for sure, so I can ask them to "sweeten the pot".
If you plan a road trip let me know for sure, so I can ask them to "sweeten the pot".
BfishLpond78
FUPA
Where do you hold meetings? Time and such?
I would definitely make Warren come down too.
I would definitely make Warren come down too.
Vinny Kreyling
Premium Member
Meeting is @ 75 Austin Blvd. Commack, NY 11725
Friday Nov. 7th 8 PM.
Exit 53 on LIE roughly an hour east of the bridges on a Friday.
Warren knows the place.
Friday Nov. 7th 8 PM.
Exit 53 on LIE roughly an hour east of the bridges on a Friday.
Warren knows the place.
SaltySammy
New member
Very interesting. I've toyed with sending in a sample too, so will be interested in folks experiences. I'm a card-carrying cynic, so that the company doing the tests also sells a range of additives sets of some alarm bells - but perhaps unfounded. Wonder why they don't included NO3 in the 'nutrients' tests? Also, while liberal use of the term 'professional' has come to imply level of competence, all it really means is that one is paid for one's efforts (see, cynical). Whether a new set of clothes for the emperor or an invaluable service to the reef keeper, I guess time will tell. $50 seems like a reasonable amount to begin to find out though.
Too funny!:spin3:
BfishLpond78
FUPA
I wonder if it would be less stressful to hop the on the ferry in Bridgeport vs dealing with all the traffic that prolly happens down there...
Collinrb
New member
Depending on the timing you're 100% correct. Pack a car and stick it on the ferry
Vinny Kreyling
Premium Member
That would put you in Port Jefferson, roughly 40 minutes away, however I don't know if it would run after the meeting is over.
I put my sample in the mail last Friday. I will also be sure to post my results.
Interesting thread and I have been interested in having a large test like this performed, however, the other testing companies always had an awful lot of criticism surrounding them. I placed a coral order with Unique Corals and thought what the heck, for $50 let's see what we've got.
-Mark
Interesting thread and I have been interested in having a large test like this performed, however, the other testing companies always had an awful lot of criticism surrounding them. I placed a coral order with Unique Corals and thought what the heck, for $50 let's see what we've got.
-Mark
Tweaked
FUP&A Member
Very cool Mark, looking forward to it. Also let us know what salt you use and if you dose any of the trace elements being tested.
pecan2phat
Active member
BfishLpond78
FUPA
Will Warren be attending?!?
pecan2phat
Active member
Lol Mike, you gotta leave by 5pm and don't get home till after midnight. I'm an old man, can't stay up that long 
BfishLpond78
FUPA
Lol good lord sir. Fine, then I'm just coming over your house. I need to go shopping anyway...what's for dinner?
Tweaked
FUP&A Member
Additional info:
Saltwater with a specific gravity of 1.025 is made up 96.5% of water. When put in that light, it almost sounds like there is such little difference between fresh and salt water, especially considering that fresh water is not really 100% water it too has its share of trace elements depending on geography. This view of course is faulty. "œSea salts" make up the remaining 3.5%.
That 3.5% sea salt can be broken up into two main categories, major elements and trace elements. The major elements are:
Sodium 30.6%
Chloride 55.0%
Sulfate 7.7%
Magnesium 3.5%
Calcium 1.2%
Potassium 1.1%
Major elements comprise the vast majority of "œsea salts." If you were to remove those major elements from the mix, what is left is a whopping 0.7%. Those are our trace elements. In total, there are around 70 different trace elements in salt water and they all fit into that 0.7%. The 14 most abundant are chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickle, phosphorus, selenium, tin, vanadium, and zinc.
These trace elements are vitally important to all sorts of biological processes that happen in our aquariums. In fact, too little or too much of any of them could cause serious problems. So the question remains, should reef aquarists be dosing trace elements regularly?
In short, it depends on the uptake of trace elements by your reef's inhabitants and the frequency of water changes. Most modern salt mixes today have more trace elements than natural salt water in anticipation of uptake by tank in habitants. In most cases, weekly water changes are more than enough to replenish trace elements. It is possible though that heavily stocked tanks will deplete trace elements faster than sparsely stocked aquariums. In this situation, a trace element supplement could help.
If you plan on adding trace elements, make sure you are testing for them especially considering the vanishingly small quantities they represent in our salt water. There are a number of test kits available for testing specific elements. A more esoteric method is to send a water sample off to a professional laboratory and have it tested there. Unlike our hobby-level test kits, a professional chemistry lab will have access to devices capable of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) that are about a million times more accurate than what is sold on the shelf of a local fish store. That might be overkill for a typical home aquarist however large aquaculture facilities and public aquariums regularly send off water to be tested in this manner.
The point is, if you plan to try trace element addition to your reef tank, it is important to know where your levels are before you start adding and know when you should stop. Blindly adding iodine because someone online said it was good for Xenia is going to lead to more problems.
Saltwater with a specific gravity of 1.025 is made up 96.5% of water. When put in that light, it almost sounds like there is such little difference between fresh and salt water, especially considering that fresh water is not really 100% water it too has its share of trace elements depending on geography. This view of course is faulty. "œSea salts" make up the remaining 3.5%.
That 3.5% sea salt can be broken up into two main categories, major elements and trace elements. The major elements are:
Sodium 30.6%
Chloride 55.0%
Sulfate 7.7%
Magnesium 3.5%
Calcium 1.2%
Potassium 1.1%
Major elements comprise the vast majority of "œsea salts." If you were to remove those major elements from the mix, what is left is a whopping 0.7%. Those are our trace elements. In total, there are around 70 different trace elements in salt water and they all fit into that 0.7%. The 14 most abundant are chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, iodine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickle, phosphorus, selenium, tin, vanadium, and zinc.
These trace elements are vitally important to all sorts of biological processes that happen in our aquariums. In fact, too little or too much of any of them could cause serious problems. So the question remains, should reef aquarists be dosing trace elements regularly?
In short, it depends on the uptake of trace elements by your reef's inhabitants and the frequency of water changes. Most modern salt mixes today have more trace elements than natural salt water in anticipation of uptake by tank in habitants. In most cases, weekly water changes are more than enough to replenish trace elements. It is possible though that heavily stocked tanks will deplete trace elements faster than sparsely stocked aquariums. In this situation, a trace element supplement could help.
If you plan on adding trace elements, make sure you are testing for them especially considering the vanishingly small quantities they represent in our salt water. There are a number of test kits available for testing specific elements. A more esoteric method is to send a water sample off to a professional laboratory and have it tested there. Unlike our hobby-level test kits, a professional chemistry lab will have access to devices capable of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) that are about a million times more accurate than what is sold on the shelf of a local fish store. That might be overkill for a typical home aquarist however large aquaculture facilities and public aquariums regularly send off water to be tested in this manner.
The point is, if you plan to try trace element addition to your reef tank, it is important to know where your levels are before you start adding and know when you should stop. Blindly adding iodine because someone online said it was good for Xenia is going to lead to more problems.
