DIY Trident Calibration Solution
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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Just verify your results against another test kit. Mine doesn’t drift much over the course of a reagent set.
Having done exactly what you describe for many, many, many combinations of the big three in the course of developing the Trident, let me tell you that's it's really not as easy as you might think at first glance.
You need a minimum of six different salts of sufficient purity to make a crude seawater analogue, and each of them has some of the others in them as contaminants at various levels. Even when using reagent grade salts, there is still the matter of the uncertainty of the water in the Ca and Mg salts. For accurate results, you need to standardize the Ca and Mg solutions by either a Mohr titration of the chloride or an EDTA titration of the metals. The reagents used for those titrations need to be standardized themselves.
So, in order to be able to make the solutions up, you not only need to be able to test for all the analytes of interest, but also source the salts and work hard to carefully make up the desired mix.
It is vastly easier to get good at (meaning both precision and accuracy) testing for Alk, Ca, and Mg, and then use your freshly mixed ASW or tank water as the reference standard, after your careful testing of it.
You need a minimum of six different salts of sufficient purity to make a crude seawater analogue, and each of them has some of the others in them as contaminants at various levels. Even when using reagent grade salts, there is still the matter of the uncertainty of the water in the Ca and Mg salts. For accurate results, you need to standardize the Ca and Mg solutions by either a Mohr titration of the chloride or an EDTA titration of the metals. The reagents used for those titrations need to be standardized themselves.
So, in order to be able to make the solutions up, you not only need to be able to test for all the analytes of interest, but also source the salts and work hard to carefully make up the desired mix.
It is vastly easier to get good at (meaning both precision and accuracy) testing for Alk, Ca, and Mg, and then use your freshly mixed ASW or tank water as the reference standard, after your careful testing of it.
archgetty
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Saltwater Multi Reference Solution
The only reference solution based on a saltwater matrix that includes 8 of the most popular parameters for saltwater aquariums in a single solution. Fauna Marin’s Multi-Reference Solution is used to check your home water test kits for accuracy. Using your water test kits at home, you can measure...
www.bulkreefsupply.com
Biglew11
Valuable Member
+1 was going to post the same thingSaltwater Multi Reference Solution
The only reference solution based on a saltwater matrix that includes 8 of the most popular parameters for saltwater aquariums in a single solution. Fauna Marin’s Multi-Reference Solution is used to check your home water test kits for accuracy. Using your water test kits at home, you can measure...
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/fauna-marin-multi-reference-solution.html
xionggotstyle
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Has anyone tried the fauna marin as a calibration solution?
JCrowe86
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I just calibrated using it however it's still off. Bottle has calc at 422, mag at 1315 and dKH at 6.6. After calibration when comparing results, for calc trident reads 516, salifert gives me 460, mag trident gives 1306, salifert gives me 1450, and dKH trident gives me 8.06 while both salifert and hanna give me 8.4. I just don't know what to trust any more. Especially when I'd like to start dosing and maybe using the trident to automate it.
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