Triton Test - Trying out for... SCIENCE!

[Electrobes]

So the Triton Test has become available today (Via Unique Corals) and I thought for 50 bucks, it's worth a try-out. I want to specify, I am not trying out the Triton Method, I am merely subjecting a water sample to their battery of tests. I am curious about a couple things, and honestly, since it puts my own tank under no risk and it's been a bit of a hot topic these past few months, I thought why not add to a pool of data/results.

I haven't started a tank thread about my own aquarium as I flat out refuse to take pictures of it without it's tank skin... which is taking longer than I hoped. I hope to officially have it completed by 10-17-14, so I'll wait on the pics until then. That, and I am also waiting on my ATO to be completed, so I can stop having my ghetto rubbermaid gerry-rigged contraption on the side of my aquarium. For now, here's some info about my tank currently:

This tank was officially started July 9th of 2014. It's an upgrade from a 40Br sumpless mixed reef. I've been in the hobby for ten years, and have always had the same sized aquarium, if you can believe it! The concept of this tank is that it's a Montipora Digitata-only tank, minus a Yellow Fiji Leather that I just can't let go of. Everything else in my old tank was sold/given away... I had no Digitatas in my prior tank. My new tank is all frags, minus the YFL (Yellow Fiji Leather) which is about the size of my hand stretched out. Some unique things about my tank, aside from the species specificity is that 1) I use marine gravel as the substrate of which I siphon clean weekly. 2) My only flow comes from two 1" Sea Swirls on a Dart Hybrid Reeflo Pump (About 2300 GPH). 3) My aquarium is a 100G Half-Cylinder, at a crazy 1" thick acrylic.

Tank Details: Started 07-09-14

- 100G Half Cylinder (48" Back with a Backpack overflow.. the overflow is not really view-able in the display)

- 40G Next Reef sump running about half filled.

- Lighting: Originally was 2 X 250w MH SE Radium using non-reflected Bell Pendants. I switched about two weeks ago (Due to low PAR readings) to a T5HO Tek Elite 6X39w fixture that I modded (Better fans). Bulbs from front to back are B+, P+, B+, B+, P+, B+. The PAR readings were perfect for my Digi needs.

- Water Movement: Reeflo Dart Hybrid (2300GPH, full blast) with two 1" Sea Swirls

- Filtration: Cone Skimmer (Made for a stocked 200G tank, created by a friend), MarinePure 4"x4"x8" block, and a sump 1" thick block sponge to help keep micro-bubbles away from the return pump.

- Additives: I currently dose the following via my Kamoer Dosing pump (Per Day): Alkalinity 26mL X 4 ----- Calcium 62mL X 4 ----- Vinegar 8mL X 4 ----- In addition, I dose 20 mL of Acropower per week.

- Maintenance:

Once a Week:
- 10G water change: Had been using ESV (Got annoyed with the routine), but switched to Reef Crystals about two weeks ago (Two water changes). I plan on sticking with it for a while given I just bought two 160G buckets during the PetsMart sale.
- Using an Eheim Gravel Vac Pro, I suck out the funk in the gravel.
- Empty and clean skimmer cup
- Clean tank walls with a freakin' Great White Magnet Cleaner (My tank is 1" of Acrylic!)

- Livestock:

Fish:
- Medium Sailfin Tang
- Medium Foxface
- Large Sixline Wrasse
- Lyretail Anthias (Male) (I plan on adding one or two females very soon)
- Small Springer Damsel
- Platinum Clownfish (Used to have a False Perc Mating Pair, friend is a breeder and gave me these after I freely gave him my clownfish pair)
- Tangerine Clownfish (Same as above)

Coral: All are frags (But I have a ton of them not just one of each), minus the Yellow Fiji Leather.
- German Blue Digitata (ORA)
- Superman Digitata
- Peach Digitata
- Orange Digitata
- Forrest Fire Digitata
- Green Digitata
- Pink Smoothie Digitata (Or you know... Pink Digitata)
- Purple Digitata (Not ORA's... I wasn't crazy for the brown polyps.. these are all purple)
- Large Yellow Fiji Leather

Other Inhabitants:
- 3" Blue Squamosa Clam
- 2.5" Gold Maxima
- 2 x Skunk Cleaner Shrimps

Clean Up Crew:
- About 30 assorted Hermit Crabs

Feeding: I feed my fish Formula one Flake in the morning, sometimes New Era Algae Flakes for lunch (Sparingly), and one cube of Mysis Shrimp (P.E.) for dinner. I do not directly feed my corals.

My current test kits (All are Salifert) reveal the following about about my tank (Performed 10-11-14)

Alkalinity - 8.15 dKh (This is about normal)
Calcium - 500 ppm (This is high, I normally have it at about 480)
Magnesium - 1440 ppm (A little higher than normal.. usually at about 1420)
Nitrates - 5 ppm (I like to have a little bit of Nitrates, especially when carbon-dosing)

If anyone watched the Triton Founder's speak at MACNA... one thing super caught my ear. He insinuated that Montipora Digitatas liked an increase Barium level, or that levels in which tanks has a pronounced population of Digis always tend to have Barium at around 0.. He didn't elaborate, but out of sheer curiosity, I am curious to see what it lists at in the test result. I am an evidence-based reefer (Thanks Randy!) and have been so for years, and only take chances outside of evidence when I feel the risk is minimal (Like my use of Acropower).

Anyway, I'll update y'all on what I get... this should be interesting. I hope to probe Randy's mind on some of the parameters as I recall there being some questions about the accuracy/sensitivity of the results.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Great, looking forward to the analysis.

 

[Eienna]

*slaps radio tag on thread to track it*
Heh heh.

 

[Ehsan@triton]

Hah thats Crazy a DIGITATA Tank :bigsmile: monocolony tanks reveal a lot of info mate thats going to be good, Thanks for the efort of listing them.
May I ask you for a picture off the tank also just if it´s ok for you mate.

All the best Ehsan

 

[TheClark]

Tagging along on this one also! Feeling like a big Triton fan, or a fan of data in general.

 

[Reloadeddevil]

Tagging along

 

[Electrobes]

Thanks everyone!

Ehsan, I'll shoot a couple pictures of the tank itself tomorrow. I finally finished hanging my T5 Fixture today (In a pretty way) and I am hoping to finish my stand skin by Monday... Wednesday at the latest. I am a neat freak and my soul rebels if I try to take any other pictures of the tank.

Christian

 

[Sully]

Tagging along!

 

[Electrobes]

I apologize ahead of time for the terrible photos.. I used my iPhone 5 and with my tank being a half cylinder, the view is very "odd", plus the photos make it seem like the tank is a lot more blue than it actually is. Some notes that you may not notice about the tank as it currently is:

- About 30% of my limited amount of rock was covered in "mulm". Starting about three days ago it has been dying off and peeling off. I had green and even some black spots, but what's neat is that it all starting peeling off at the same time, as opposed to gradually. I have no explanation for this other than maybe the tank has stabilized further? The mulm issue had been going on for about a month. I have had no other issues related to the tank, otherwise.

The Yellow Fiji Leather should be on the small rock, I have not had a chance to fasten it there but will after I complete my stand skin.

I have three frags of ORA German blue polyp Digis on the substrate. I hate their plugs and fragged the frags when I was placing them into the tank. Funny enough, they have been on a growing war path. I am half tempted to just keep them there and let them grow from the ground up.. Wouldn't that be fun?

Below is my sump. The empty space on the top right is where my ATO will be, only giving RODI water.

 

[reefwiser]

Nice tank and pictures nothing wrong there.

 

[heathd.hd]

Kinda off topic but where do I start? Wanna get my tank enrolled! Ie order kits and stuff.

 

[Electrobes]

Heaths.hd - Unique Corals sells the kit (Test stuff) that they send to Triton. You'll need to register at Triton.de (If I remember correctly). The UC website will tell you what you need to do.

 

[Electrobes]

Nice tank and pictures nothing wrong there.

Thanks! One day I'll learn how to appropriately take pics ; )

 

[heathd.hd]

Ty! Following along to see you results.

 

[Electrobes]

Heathd.hd - No problem!

Ehsan - I know it was brief, in the MACNA speaking event, but you touched on some information about levels in tanks with Montipora Digitata that you observed over the years. Aside from Barium levels usually being lower (Down to 0), is there any other information you've noticed that these tanks typically showed with these corals in mind?

 

[Electrobes]

Triton Test Submitted Today

I received my Triton Test package on Friday or Saturday(Brain Malfunction), but I collected the sample today and put it into the mailbox today.

A couple notes:

- I collected the samples today at 10:45am (Florida Time). My dosing pump doses all three parameters in 20 minute increments after each other (Pump A (Alk) goes first, 20 mins later, Pump B (Cal) goes, and 20 minutes after that, Pump C (Vinegar) goes). The sequence of the pumps goes every six hours (12am, 6am, 12pm, 6pm). This puts the collection close to the middle of when the dosing pump sequence went off.

- I was due for a weekly water change (Of 10G Reef Crystals) yesterday but I was out of town for the weekend and did not come home till late in the evening. Instinctively, I was going to do a water change, wait a day, and then submit the sample. I don't think the water change would have shown much of a difference in the Test Results, but I thought to instead submit the test as the tank stood: One day late water change (Meaning I did not do a water change before the sample was collected), no scrubbing the tank walls, no gravel siphoning, and unfortunately.. the fish did not get fed two cubes of Mysis (One cube per evening.. Anthias is super mad I'm sure) and one feeding of Formula One Flakes.

- I was super diligent (Read: Excessively) about the sample collection. I used stainless steel tongs to rinse out the vial three times in the tank, capped it still using the tongs and one hand, and profusely dried the vial with a paper towel. I marked the stickers and applied them to the vials as instructed.

We'll see in about two weeks time what the results give us. I am hoping within that time frame to more deeply learn about the result parameters on two fronts. I'd like to ask Ehsan about outlier parameters he's noticed with tanks that have Montipora Digitatas (I doubt I could specify the quantity past some or a lot of Montiporas.. as opposed to a more accurate count). He's mentioned Barium being low in those type of tanks, but past that I don't know what his experiences have shown. I also need to figure out (Hopefully Randy or Ehsan can answer this) what the LoD are for each of the parameters. I expect some of the results to say 0, but I'd like to know what the LoD is for that parameter, and whether that's significant or not.

Christian

 

[Electrobes]

I completely forgot to mention something of importance in keeping up with details. The additives I use via my dosing pump are the following:

Alkalinity: Arm and Hammer Baking Soda, cooked at 320F for an 1.25 hours.

Calcium: Bulk Reef Supply

Vinegar: Publix Brand White Distilled at 5% acidity

I hand dose Magnesium as I need it, which is rare: Bulk Reef Supply's mix

Water Changes: I mix the newly made saltwater overnight with an 800GPH Koralia Powerhead in a tote.

 

[Electrobes]

Triton Results

And here we are, a bit odd, but oh well:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're one of the tin people! Don't know what that means yet.

Curious on the aluminum.

Do you use any white phosphate binders?

 

[Electrobes]

Randy, I knew you would ask that, and believe it or not, I have never used an phosphate binders on this aquarium since it's inception.

The hardest thing to pinpoint is which salt did what. I used ESV for about a month's worth of water changes, and then switched to RC. My original tank (Which consisted about 1/3rd of the tanks initial total water) used IO.

I am most disappointed in Ca.. it means my Salifert test is way off.

As for the aluminum.. this kinda frightens me as it's just so unexpected.