Ammonia slowly climbing?

[taricha]

I can't see a need to ever monitor ammonia in a reef. even if you have a fish die wedged in, its not going to spike that tank as a cascade thats a bunch of water rocks n sand.

Monitor for dangerous ammonia, I agree. pretty hard to make a case that it's an actual danger. But ammonia might be worth tracking for its potential as a nuisance growth nutrient. Maybe.

 

[brandon429]

I’m itching to know measures from seneye + heavy stock fish only system
Reef systems are easy surface area spots, it won’t fail.

But what about a system where water runs clean, no clouding and no smell day to day, no gill-burning free ammonia behavior, tons of fish and surface area is not apparent??

one that *pushes* its surface area boundaries-what is the conversion rate for free ammonia

is it as fast as overdone surface area reef tank? you know the youtube flame gold I speak of...the ten pomacanthus videos lol no live rock and some external pond filter.

are they running hundredths ppm conversion in the water column and thats still under ld50?

working seneye reports from all those variances will triangulate quickly how surface area works for us, can’t wait to see data unfold

i bet some ammonia probe data exists for marine food production aquaculture. Ld50 free ammonia tolerances are the number one required parameter to know to run a wastewater plant or an aquaculture facility, we could get conversion rate input from those sources till actual tanks get enough time to post and overcome the api based measures.

 

[PRock]

Well, I think I'm done with Seneye. New unit showed up earlier this month and I set it up on June 8th. Out of the gate the readings were odd but I just attributed it to a new slide. Well just about the same time the PH reading stabilized, I started throwing ammonia alarms again, Over the last 48 hour's it's peaked at 0.096 ppm and is now telling me my NH3 reading is stable at 0.075 ppm. I'm going check with my Red Sea kit again and then run through the troubleshooting steps discussed previously and contact them about it, but this pretty much kills my confidence in their product.

 

[brandon429]

It's amazing the degree of accuracy they get though? Are there any other seneyes that gave readings different than the other thousandths reporting groups, so curious to know



Why not email them to see if they think this system isn't controlling ammonia to the degree the other systems show or how the chances for two misreading meters can be at play

Wish we could get closure on either the system non performing or the meter

 

[Dan_P]

It's amazing the degree of accuracy they get though? Are there any other seneyes that gave readings different than the other thousandths reporting groups, so curious to know



Why not email them to see if they think this system isn't controlling ammonia to the degree the other systems show or how the chances for two misreading meters can be at play

Wish we could get closure on either the system non performing or the meter

I am still trying to verify exactly what the Seneye can actually do, but I am now wondering after seeing a note from the vendor whether their device is reliably detecting NH3 down to 0.001 ppm. The instrument can read in units of 0.001 ppm but It seems from a confusing statement that it may not be detecting NH3 below 0.01 ppm.

Then there is the question of how do you know if the system is working. Determining whether the system is dead, deviating from reality or working properly is not readily determined. The Seneye is a great idea though, just not a validated analytical device yet.

 

[brandon429]

If we search seneye owners, only this post has reporting variance out of the thousandths I can find

that’s a lot of stat significance imo at least towards some sort of consistency

 

[Dan_P]

If we search seneye owners, only this post has reporting variance out of the thousandths I can find

that’s a lot of stat significance imo at least towards some sort of consistency

Consistency against no standard could mean anything. Right now the world is trusting Seneye ammonia measurement is correct. No analytical equipment can be trusted unless tested against a standard. It is the same situation as trusting ICP vendors who do not tell you the standard deviation for their test results.

On the bright side, neither owning a Seneye nor using ICP measurements may be strong determining factors for a healthy saltwater aquarium. No harm, no foul

 

[brandon429]

and even if the measure is off, what catches my eye is the nonvariance tank to tank regarding tenths (none) and hundredths (only one ive seen) but within the thousandths all tanks vary, indicating dynamic action which really seems fitting.

even without exacting measures we've been able to pull off quite insane things in the sand rinse thread/complete disregard for every rule in reefing in fact (those rules quote for ammonia control variance)

we built about half a million bucks of examples of pure tight ammonia control in our sand rinse thread (not one ammonia event / whole thread/ if ammonia events are deemed to be lethal vs all animals acting fine) having never measured at all for it or using bottle bac. Though its not a thousandths-level digi measure, our work in sandbed instant removals, total tap water cleanings etc provides strong strong hints about surface area dynamics and naturally tight controls, I think. How tight? can't wait to see in 2023 lol / mark this thread for follow up!!


They're not all reporting .003/that minor shift seems amazing detail to me as well. Three years ago I had no idea what the conversion rate was/we knew there was one however. No telling what it'll be measured in 2023 either/expecting changes. Something tells me though that seneye is onto something with tight controls that at least tend to read in the thousandths but allow for minor variations in that scheme

 

[Dan_P]

and even if the measure is off, what catches my eye is the nonvariance tank to tank regarding tenths (none) and hundredths (only one ive seen) but within the thousandths all tanks vary, indicating dynamic action which really seems fitting.


They're not all reporting .003/that minor shift seems amazing detail to me as well. Three years ago I had no idea what the conversion rate was/we knew there was one however. No telling what it'll be measured in 2023 either/expecting changes. Something tells me though that seneye is onto something with tight controls that at least tend to read in the thousandths but allow for minor variations in that scheme

But, but, but...we can’t conclude from this that the Seneye Is reading correctly.

i am hoping @Rick Mathew puts the Seneye through the analytical science wringer.

 

[brandon429]

agreed. I have nothing to base them to for compares. seneye is making their own patterns without another comparative, but we did have mindstream shortly!! they too had tight controls in place

ppb reading is what Daniel said when we chatted about his

Someone told me Hach has a very costly lab grade ammonia probe, Id love to see a hach v seneye octagon round. skeptical science keeps everything in check, love it.

 

[PRock]

So I pulled the seneye apart and cleaned it with a tooth brush (which is silly, cuz it was fresh from them... but whatever) and then reassembled it with the slide under water. Poof. NH3 has been 0.001ppm since. PH hasn't changed - steady right around 8.2 plus or minus a few hundredths of a point, so whatever the heck was causing the problem was only impacting the ammonia sensor.

 

[brandon429]

What’s it reading today

if still .001 I’m suspect of it, wanting to see dynamic action in the thousandths vs a hold of anything. The clues in decades of web patterning for free ammonia are anything holding in the tenths is patently false, and thanks to the few hundred (thousand yet?) seneyes on line we expect to see ever-changing ammonia in the low thousandths and nothing outside that range is accepted as legit till seneye gets a competing company to counter measure.

any surface area that cannot keep a given bioload converting like other reefs (As of 2020 thousandths is best measure) is compounding ammonia (it will not hold or stick, constant ammonia production from all respirers requires that dynamic) and destined to crash, in about two days max

how long do organisms endure total kidney shutdown? That’s probably someone in the realm of how fast a reef tank that can’t convert ammonia can stay alive.
post updated full tank shot pics too if possible


*whatever the real conversion rate is, that won’t vary display tank to display tank (high surface area systems) —this is the key hidden detail I think will be revealed one day and that mechanism is already apparent in surface manipulation threads such as the sand rinse thread or our testless reef tank cycling thread.

 

[PRock]

What’s it reading today

if still .001 I’m suspect of it, wanting to see dynamic action in the thousandths vs a hold of anything. The clues in decades of web patterning for free ammonia are anything holding in the tenths is patently false, and thanks to the few hundred (thousand yet?) seneyes on line we expect to see ever-changing ammonia in the low thousandths and nothing outside that range is accepted as legit till seneye gets a competing company to counter measure.

any surface area that cannot keep a given bioload converting like other reefs (As of 2020 thousandths is best measure) is compounding ammonia (it will not hold or stick, constant ammonia production from all respirers requires that dynamic) and destined to crash, in about two days max

how long do organisms endure total kidney shutdown? That’s probably someone in the realm of how fast a reef tank that can’t convert ammonia can stay alive.
post updated full tank shot pics too if possible


*whatever the real conversion rate is, that won’t vary display tank to display tank (high surface area systems) —this is the key hidden detail I think will be revealed one day and that mechanism is already apparent in surface manipulation threads such as the sand rinse thread or our testless reef tank cycling thread.

It's been flat at 0.001 ppm, no wiggles or anything. The NH4 graph has variance - from a high of 16.85 ppb to a low of 11.52 ppb. If I were to guess, I think the seneye might be measuring in ppb (if that's possible with a slide based test?), and just rendering ppm for the NH3 graph, so the reading is actually < 0.001 ppm, but that's as low as they go because it's not zero. I'll post some more shots tomorrow, as most of my fish are asleep and the moonlights don't really show much of anything.

 

[PRock]

Here's the promised FTS and a short video (if it works...)

 

[brandon429]

It worked wonderfully so vibrant

This reef is clearly working as well as we could ever want, active turnover etc all healthy animals, aging nicely too with pigments and coloration in place

we're lucky there's not a thing wrong with that system or we'd be doubting its ammonia processing for sure. Im amazed to see two seneye issues apparent on one reef, wish they'd chime in here + start letting us know the dynamics at play based on these pages

 

[PRock]

So this is awesome. I moved the Seneye last night from my display tank to my sump. It was out of the water for oh, about 30 seconds as I re-routed the cables. I have ammonia again! By the next reading it was showing ammonia, and it went over the alarm value of 0.05 ppm within an hour and a half and has staid there pretty much ever since. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that according to the Seneye, Air = Ammonia. I'm going to re-seat the slide under water again, but at this point I pretty much have lost faith in this thing, because instead if thinking there's something wrong with my tank, my first thought is that there's something wrong with the sensor, and that means I don't trust it anymore.

Data from last night - want to guess when I moved the device?

Timestamp	NH3 ppm
18/6/2020 10:36 PM	0.056
18/6/2020 10:27 PM	0.051
18/6/2020 10:07 PM	0.044
18/6/2020 9:37 PM	0.024
18/6/2020 9:07 PM	0.009
18/6/2020 8:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 8:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 7:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 7:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 6:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 6:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 5:39 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 5:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 5:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 4:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 4:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 3:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 3:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 2:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 2:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 1:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 1:07 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 12:37 PM	0.001
18/6/2020 12:07 PM	0.001

 

[brandon429]

your data logs are pure gold. a new wave of what we think about free ammonia control, consistency, and by extension bacterial ability is unfolding in our hobby live time and your data contributes some of the newest stock in the matter.

 

[brandon429]

Im going to look up seneye right now at the corp level, and email them this thread. I want to hear their take on dynamics that range here

and even more important, I want to know their take on the thousands of logs they already see


do reef tanks vary, or not, that is the q

above, it says in one hour in the evening it went from lowest detected range to total lethal range, wow. and now its holding at lethal range

yet tank, sharp and awesome.

 

[PRock]

Im going to look up seneye right now at the corp level, and email them this thread. I want to hear their take on dynamics that range here

and even more important, I want to know their take on the thousands of logs they already see


do reef tanks vary, or not, that is the q

above, it says in one hour in the evening it went from lowest detected range to total lethal range, wow. and now its holding at lethal range

yet tank, sharp and awesome.

Re seated the slide under water - guess when!

Timestamp	NH3 ppm
19/6/2020 3:07 PM	0.001
19/6/2020 2:37 PM	0.001
19/6/2020 2:07 PM	0.001
19/6/2020 1:37 PM	0.001
19/6/2020 1:23 PM	0.001
19/6/2020 1:22 PM	0.099
19/6/2020 1:22 PM	0.499
19/6/2020 1:22 PM	0.499
19/6/2020 1:22 PM	0.499
19/6/2020 1:07 PM	0.069
19/6/2020 12:57 PM	0.06

 

[brandon429]

I cannot wait to see if this large lamarkian leap of a claim might become true one day:

just as animals evolved tight controls over free ammonia in their systems, reef tanks have too lol.

among ten cheetahs we'd sample, blood plasma levels of free ammonia or whatever form it would be in the mid pH range would be tight among them barring pathology

and I bet it is for a rhino too

a reeftank that is running similar surface area behaves the same (upper end free ammonia allowances) regardless of volume or location regarding an inherent tune for the conversion of free ammonia, a very tight average tolerance, barring dead fish wedged in the rocks or a mass of dead margarita snails

I bet a paypal dollar there's a link between nephrology data and reef tank ammonia control specs (consistent performance, not varying, excluding pathology) all things working normal and given a reef tank with surface area in the display, not a sump with bricks and glass uptop. the drain becomes a bottleneck; surface area in contact with waste in a display is where it levels out into totally predictable readings, Ill bet.