A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Yes they need to help you trim and balance it into spec thats considered a misread because reefs are on constantly-changing tiny increments of free ammonia above that, we see in patterns from the bulk of these machines.

if your reef is post cycle and with animals in tow being fed then its above .001 more often than not
 

Sharkattackmack

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 2, 2020
Messages
325
Reaction score
221
Location
Mississauga
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Yes they need to help you trim and balance it into spec thats considered a misread because reefs are on constantly-changing tiny increments of free ammonia above that, we see in patterns from the bulk of these machines.

if your reef is post cycle and with animals in tow being fed then its above .001 more often than not
Yes I've had the tank cycled and have a fair amount of coral and 4 fish. I've fed small amounts, and I've fed large amounts. I don't think that number has ever changed.

I thought the seneye was a super cool device but lately I have my doubts. I'll paint you a picture of my seneye story.

I picked up the device probably 31-32 days ago(just installed my second slide). First issue was someone put the pond or home model into a reef box. So I didn't have the par meter right out of the gate. Had to email seneye and a few other distributors and it was resolved in a day or two. I soaked the chip in my tank water for 24 hours and plug it in.

Here's where my problems start;
The pH drives me nuts. I know they it will fluctuate during the day as the photosynthesis takes place but having a slide to set is a pain. It means I have to buy another testing kit just to set it at. Another issue with the pH. I had just switched out my slide, ph jumped from always being under to being over the desired margin. It boggles me as to why one slide will be reading lower or higher than the other. I'm just about to leave for work but I'll post some photos tonight.
 

ingchr1

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 9, 2018
Messages
1,485
Reaction score
1,105
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Data update on the current slide.

This slide seams a lot more responsive to changes in ammonia. In the graph you can see past slides show the minimum readings as pretty much a flat line. This slide is showing a much different behavior. All slides are from the same 2018 batch. I did wipe off the sensor eye this slide change, so not sure if that is the difference or not. Visually the sensor eye did not look "dirty", but I wiped it down anyways. The up ticks are my Dr. Tims NH4Cl adds.

Past Three Months

1613833780817.png


Zoom in of Current Slide

Where the flat line ends is where I did the slide change.

1613833905766.png
 
Last edited:

Sharkattackmack

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 2, 2020
Messages
325
Reaction score
221
Location
Mississauga
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Once you adjust the trim and select Ok is should stay and be reflected on subsequent readings. If it's not then I would contact Seneye to see what they say. I found the temperature trim to be finicky. I had to make a few adjustments back and forth until it read the value I wanted. Which was to closely match the reading on my GHL controller.

1610286518647.png


Once trimmed my pH has been consistent with my GHL controller, through two different slides. However, it does drift up when the slide is a few days out from expiration. I have observed this on multiple slides. The slides I am currently using are from 2018, so not sure if that is a factor. Have one more slide to go through before I start using newer ones just bought.

You can see the trend on this slide which expires in three days.

1610286716978.png
I had this issue and wasnt sure why. Threw the seneye my ph always reads low. i did a red sea test and it said it was at 8-8.2. so i set the seneye to this. then it dropped and kept dropping for the next few weeks. i installed a new slide and it shot up to 8.5. tested again with the red sea and it was sitting at 8.1. so i reset it and it dropped again. not sure what else to do. currently i have the monitor unplugged and dont plan to plug it back in until i set up my new tank and need to set the lights. pretty disappointing as i have a years worth of slides.
 
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
An example of a properly working seneye




@ingchr1

would you fact check that for us above. That may be one of the best bacteria/seneye threads for a while for these reasons-

shows bottle bac emerged strong not weak and dormant. Didn’t need ramp up time, handles bioload out of the gate.


the seneye had been dynamically challenged and met every marker we use in this thread for accuracy: runs in the thousandths and never above on a big reef, even with nh3 directly dosed in the big reef it’s eaten up in five minutes...we know oxidation is that fast in high flow high surface area activated systems. It matches your measured ability above closely in timing and reaction speed.


***the seneye runs hundredths ppm on a restricted surface area qt setup which directly supports the laws of active surface area for once in reefing, that’s exactly how things work when tested against high and low surface area setups.


in my opinion that’s a shining example for surface area dynamics using the best meter we can get in 2021.
 

ingchr1

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 9, 2018
Messages
1,485
Reaction score
1,105
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Quoting my post from the other thread, for this thread.
This has been my experience with dosing Dr. Tims NH4Cl as well. I dose four drops twice a day to my tank. It processes in about an hour, give or take.

This mornings dose, some time around 9AM.

1614447270485.png


Trend of current slide. Each bump up are the doses. The essentially flat line was the previous slide, which for whatever reason was not as reactive as the current slide. Each slide is from the same 2018 batch. I did wipe down the sensor eye when I put this slide in, not sure if that made the difference or not. The last couple of slides I also had to trim to 0.005 to get a reading of the doses. This slide does look like its dropping off a bit as well. Steady state was 0.005 - 0.007 when the slide was new, now it's 0.003.

1614447665755.png
 

NeonRabbit221B

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 21, 2019
Messages
3,037
Reaction score
5,607
Location
Richmond, Va
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I dosed .5 ppm into 1 gallon of SW and the monitor only picked up 0.011 ppm. For the heck of it I dosed another .5 ppm into my bucket and it only got up to .066... Any tips? This seems like a big jump for a trim setting.. pH is similarly not reading correctly. I have reset the slide before but it never shows variation. Whats the best way to move a meter from one vessel to another (tank to bucket). I assume an air pocket is to blame...

Capture.JPG
 
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
A bump for Neon

Question
Was your seneye calibrated to be in range in your known cycled reef....002-.009? Curious if this reading above is during the tuning step or after

For sure reefs that are new can be .001/ newly cycled dry rock 100 gal + a tang, but yours is matured and actively fed + fish it'll be over .001
 
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
team this thread is still very very helpful. Given this last year of hindsight my resolve and trust in benchmarked/calibrated/tuned seneyes has grown, not shrunk.

we still need a battle between seneye tuned + hach nh3 assessment on a running reef, then a quarantine reef, then a brand new fish+ bottle bac no wait cycle reef. A tuned seneye has the amazing ability to move between thousandths ppm nh3 and hundredths based on surface area in the setup, that's exactly how ammonia control works in wastewater processing as well.


I am seeing patterned results from seneye owners after tuning that matches up with how the tanks actually look (whereas api always causes alarm, free ammonia fear, in a tank looking and running just fine)

to this day Ive never seen a tuned and calibrated show tenths ppm nh3 attained in any reef, during cycle or after. not one, yet that's the most tossed-around ammonia number in all of reefing still to this day. viva seneye

on a side note, I think folks are not liking seneye pH and par meter. but your ammonia control tracking is the most game changing, cycle rule-rewriting machine I've ever come across indirectly lol. meaning I dont own any ammonia test kit nor have ever ran one for reefing, this is all reported post pattern feedback from obsessive monitoring.

@TheWalkingCoral

hey would you summarize our recent seneye interaction for this thread...what preparation issues affected the reading etc and how that was fixed back into spec?
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This is what I look out for in seneye pattern posts:
if someone is reporting .001 continual, that needs to be in a dry start system with low metabolic activity. I believe a single fish in 100 gallons sparsely fed and still cycled might indeed produce untraceable levels of nh3/ten-thousandths level perhaps.

but not in any full blown matured reef with corals, fish, some gunk in the corners and aged out organics we all have in matured setups. those can not accurately stick at .001, they're above that and always below .009

I have never seen a tuned seneye show hundredths ppm nh3 in a running normal reef, thousandths is where they run we see in massive pattern.


when someone can take a tuned and trimmed seneye running .002-009 with dynamic action changes throughout the day on a matured reef, and then move that whole unit + slide setup onto a quarantine tank and it ups the nh3 to hundredths ppm, that's highly accurate for the reflection of surface area in use. Ive seen Jon M then take that same seneye setup and move it into a dry start reef with one fish, bottle bac, and hover at .001

in every way we'd expect the nh3 control to change, it did, its why I have grown fonder of tuned seneye units.

we have seen that not trimming them and spec'ing them out on matured tanks can lead to accuracy issues.

I am seeing an amazingly consistent rate of nh3 control for all reefs, vs the highly varied nh3 control we thought occurred just a few short years ago.
 

Garf

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 23, 2020
Messages
4,955
Reaction score
5,803
Location
BEEFINGHAM
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This is what I look out for in seneye pattern posts:
if someone is reporting .001 continual, that needs to be in a dry start system with low metabolic activity. I believe a single fish in 100 gallons sparsely fed and still cycled might indeed produce untraceable levels of nh3/ten-thousandths level perhaps.

but not in any full blown matured reef with corals, fish, some gunk in the corners and aged out organics we all have in matured setups. those can not accurately stick at .001, they're above that and always below .009

I have never seen a tuned seneye show hundredths ppm nh3 in a running normal reef, thousandths is where they run we see in massive pattern.


when someone can take a tuned and trimmed seneye running .002-009 with dynamic action changes throughout the day on a matured reef, and then move that whole unit + slide setup onto a quarantine tank and it ups the nh3 to hundredths ppm, that's highly accurate for the reflection of surface area in use. Ive seen Jon M then take that same seneye setup and move it into a dry start reef with one fish, bottle bac, and hover at .001

in every way we'd expect the nh3 control to change, it did, its why I have grown fonder of tuned seneye units.

we have seen that not trimming them and spec'ing them out on matured tanks can lead to accuracy issues.

I am seeing an amazingly consistent rate of nh3 control for all reefs, vs the highly varied nh3 control we thought occurred just a few short years ago.
This seems odd to me. Randy Holmes Farley has posted evidence that total ammonia readings in the ocean can go up to 0.7ppm TAN, and I suppose that would be around 0.05ppm free ammonia at regular pH. I see that it would be totally possible to get higher readings than the seneye suggests in a reef tank.
 
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
agreed part of the mystery. We have no posts from seneye showing that trending, but, consider how we arrange captive reefs: orders of surface area beyond requirements and very tight controls over inputs

just shy of a total or half fish-kill, nothing really stresses our tanks to ever go that high

pH impacting is fascinating I have no idea how that affects the accuracy of the seneye meter, and I agree that ranges among tanks for sure. I wish we could get seneye and hach tested together along with a calibrated pH reading for each sample

when seneye says ".003" for example in a matured reef, who knows if its that level-agreed

but its that changing, tight trending between matured display, qt, brand new display that tells me the meter isn't useless either. for just once in human history, an ammonia assessment test wielded by the masses gives reports that actually match how the tank looks. we never, ever had that before for sure. we had only 1865 wild west cycling madness before seneye.
 

LRT

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 20, 2020
Messages
10,196
Reaction score
42,133
Location
mesa arizona
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Glad I ran across this thread.
I am curious and will have to read through to see if someone ever did test seneye against a proven tool of measurement.
I've had seneye in my system for 3-4 months now. Never seen a movement in my 1.5 yr old reef. From day 1 stuck at .001 through 3 slides.
Recently did full system swap/upgrade and did see a spike of .006 on 2 occasions.
Not sure how accurate ammonia is considering PH can read all over the board from .3 to a full point ive found in research.
Seeing 1 degree fluctuation in temp throughout the day as well. Even directly following trim it doesn't trim accurately.
 
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0

@ingchr1 I wanted you to see this recent misread we caught but still used seneye to make an awesome awesome point about reef tank cycle timing.

takeaways in my opinion from above:

1. without trimming seneyes out of the box aren’t spot on, that’s why the trim option exists apparently. No displays run in the hundredths (.025 there) they run in the thousandths, or the machine isn’t trimmed, it’s a solid pattern now.


***I seriously think seneye users here making chemistry proofs need to benchmark and tune it it for the known range, .002-.009, on a running display with corals and fish or they’re running ten times too high on reads (yet still keenly able to measure small changes as the inherent nature of the device)

2. look at the incredible precision still though, that bottle bac in 48 hours brought his free ammonia down to within two one hundredths of a fully cycled tank and api was so green, so green lol, that one million people will furiously re dose bottle bac if they run only api thinking clearly: the first dose died lol.


that’s a profound x 4 cycling thread along the lines of new cycling science and finding side by side clear comparisons of api and seneye on a cycling tank is post gold, for new cycling science.


I have not seen anyone post thousandths ppm in a display reef (not cycling, running months or years) without trimming first, is that your finding too?

3. I’m 100% resolved that reef tank displays from pico reefs to the 17K gallon home display run in the thousandths ppm, there are no hundredths ppm outliers due to the degree of surface area and current we all employ, regardless of tank size. Nobody runs so low surface area in a reef tank as to allow for continual nh3 in the hundredths ppm. Conversely, we expect hundredths ppm in quarantines and myriad tests on trimmed seneyes show this now, clearly. Those systems are typically low surface area (no live rock)


we are learning something that’s a big deal about the inherent link, an inherent filtration similarity, that connects all display tanks via ratio scaling and was not known eight years ago because we had no way to see the dynamic in testing. everybody got 3ppm as above, and ran for the hills. They would never never never agree that a cycle has a predictable end date before tank assembly, nor would samplers from decades past agree that display tanks of various sizes and fish loads all trend tightly to the same nh3 conversion rates.

what filters do similarly tank to tank, and how quick they attain it, is 1000% amazing science revealing to us slowly day by day
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I’m interested to see that too.
 

LRT

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 20, 2020
Messages
10,196
Reaction score
42,133
Location
mesa arizona
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Same. Would be helpful if seneye made it. Pretty sure I seen Dan touching on seneye ammonia calibration in different thread but not sure if he's made one.
 

Dan_P

5000 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 21, 2018
Messages
6,540
Reaction score
6,994
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Anyone actually get to make a calibration standard for the seneye? If so, how did the slide do? considering the slide may deteriorate. Cheers
The way that I checked the Seneye was with Hach Multi-Parameter which contained 25 ppm ammonia nitrogen or about 30 ppm total NH3.

I dosed a known amount of total ammonia to Instant Ocean (35 ppt) and calculated the free ammonia based on temperature and pH. I slightly raised or lowered the pH to change the amount of free ammonia. The Seneye value agreed with the calculated value between 0.005 - 0.020 ppm free ammonia. Above ~0.020, the calibration curve changed. Ditto fo below 0.004ppm. Make sense?

I am repeating this work with three different ammonia sensing films, including the Seneye film.
 

britnicole1724

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 12, 2021
Messages
306
Reaction score
124
Location
Ohio
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
So, I’ve found that my seneye is incredibly inaccurate. pH readings are always 7.0-7.4 on my seneye. Hanna checkers are consistently reading 8.4.
Ammonia is permanently .001 and never changes. I did contact seneye about this problem and they expect it’s my equipment malfunctioning so they sent me a new one that was delivered yesterday. To be set up tonight - hopefully there is a change.

editing to add -

how does one know for certain they trimmed their seneye to be 100% accurate? Being a new reefer this is something that is kind of important so I can make sure I’m understanding what my parameters actually mean.
Test kits like Red Sea I have found to be completely inaccurate. For example - this morning I tested nitrates with two different test kits. One Red Sea, one Hanna checker. Hanna checker was reading 7 as shown, Red Sea was looking like 20-50 looking top down.
similarly I found Hanna reagents expire a lot quicker than they say on the bottle. I had two different alkalinity bottles; one expires 10/2022 - bought 9/2021 the other bought 1/2022 expires 11/2022. I took water out at the same time for both tests. Bottle expiring 10/2022 was reading 6 for alkalinity and the new one freshly opened this morning as I was taking the test read 10.6.
So many inaccuracies in this hobby

63CAEE01-0C93-4A1E-AC57-961366B00479.jpeg
 
Last edited:
OP
OP
brandon429

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
View Badges
Joined
Dec 9, 2014
Messages
29,438
Reaction score
23,542
Location
tejas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
and you can trim it too/covered here since you have a fully running display. the nh3 will be between .002-.006 is the highest Ive seen in the last year of tracking patterns in posted seneye reads on displays. its hard to calibrate only when the tank is new, when they're fully stocked and running like yours is the proofing is very simple given that nh3 range above where display reefs run in posted pattern. if they send you one that doesnt read that range, and you still don't want to trim adjust it, send that one back too.

slide soaking and prep variances, slide expiry and slide handling issues also present in meters that otherwise run correctly.

hardly anyone agrees the ph and photometer portion are accurate, we're pretty much only concerned with the ammonia portion here. also critical: nobody really cares if the bottom end read/ .002-.006 is dead on accurate either, until someone gets a different digital brand kit to bench alongside a seneye on a running reef we don't exactly know the running bottom consistent end of nh3, but we know of the precision changes that occur with feeding, or a fish dying etc. seneyes are very very good/best we have in the hobby of indicating small precision changes in stasis, and they're also the best meter on the market for reporting nh3 matching the tank pics of the reef at hand

vs cheap kits that indicate a stall, and impending doom, in reef tanks running just fine for years.

once you get a meter showing a relatively decent close range of nh3 in your known display, it'll do well in reporting minor changes even if the pH portion is imperfect. Seneye is still in this new year the overall best ammonia monitor for the hobby, it has effectively ended the notion of a stalled reef tank cycle.

100% ended that issue. api and red sea are keeping the issue alive as a good cop/bad cop scenario.


the ammonia drop dates shown on seneye cycles has allowed us to assign very specific start dates/cycle end dates without any sort of testing whatsoever in the new cycling forum, pages are approaching 100 now of working examples.



seneye has contributed more to reef cycling honing than any invention in the last decade. it deserves an award for streamlining a portion of the hobby where people used to get ripped off, constantly, over and over.

nobody needs to monitor ammonia in a running reef tank, if you were wanting accurate pH and photometer seneye would have been the last recommend I'd have made for your investment. we use it for bacterial proof posts because of the way they indicate change, not necessarily just the running averages daily. we use them to chart the rate of uptake any running reef can handle when raw ammonia is added/lab type proofs.
 
Last edited:

Aquatic acrobat in your aquarium: Have you ever kept an eel?

  • I currently keep an eel in my tank.

    Votes: 29 14.8%
  • I have kept an eel in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 33 16.8%
  • I have not kept an eel in my tank, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 35 17.9%
  • I have no plans to keep an eel.

    Votes: 96 49.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 3 1.5%
Back
Top