Mastertronic Accuracy and Calibration (comparison against other test results)

[MikeTheNewbie]

How is the Mastertronic working for the lucky ones that have been able to buy it?
I feel comfortable with most of my results but I think that the discrepancy in the Magnesium tests is too big for my taste. Specially as it gets close to the upper limit and you lose track of the trend.
Below you can see charts of the results of the last 50 days. They include the Mastertronic automatic tests and the other test kits I have tried along with 2 ICP tests (yellow line on Calcium and Magnesium).

• Nitrate results are frequently around 5ppm lower than Hanna and the time I compared it with Nyos and Redsea (September 18) it fell in between. Descaling the test chamber on September 12 didn't show much change . The discrepancy is high (4.5ppm) but I think it is consistent and doesn't worry me too much.
• Calcium was initially around 60ppm higher than ICP and 34ppm higher than Hanna but got really close to the ICP result (14ppm) and the Hanna result (25ppm) after I descaled the test chamber. Now I'm very comfortable with the accuracy.
• Phosphate has shown a difference of less than 0.01ppm every time I have compared it against Hanna so I'm pretty confident with it too.
• Magnesium is the one that makes me uncomfortable, for some reason up until I descaled the test chamber with probe cleaning solution, Magnesium was always shown between 1578 and 1579 ppm. The consistency seemed amusing until I realized that it was the upper limit :S
  Before descaling the test chamber, the difference between Mastertronic and ICP was 207 ppm. On the second ICP after the descaling, the difference decreased to 147 ppm, better but its too big for my taste. I have also tested using Red Sea (manually) and with Aquaforest. Interestingly, the results of the last two seem consistent but being manual titration I would not discard human bias in perceiving the color change (although I don't see the measurement until the test is finished).

I hope the info makes sense and is useful to others. It would be wonderful if other Mastertronic users can share their results and comparisons if they have tried them.

Note: On September 11 I ran a descaling program using Hanna's probe cleaning solution. You can see a dip in the charts (improvement) for Calcium and Magnesium and more correlation with other test kits.

 

[GoVols]

Good Stuff....;Bookworm, thanks for sharing.

If Jonas makes some good updates please repost...

Which nitrate and mag kits come in the closest to your ICP test?

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

Happy to help!
Magnesium
For Magnesium I get similar results from Aquaforest and RedSea Pro.
I like the one handed titration contraption that the RedSea Pro uses but I think it is a bit more difficult to see the color change with RedSea than Aquaforest.
Regarding the Aquaforest kit, I find it easier to see the color change for Magnesium but I don't like the plastic vial it comes with. If I had to chose one over the other. I'd go with the Red Sea. If someone already has the one handed titration holder from RedSea and a spare RedSea vial, I'd go with the Aquaforest and use the RedSea hardware.

Nitrate
I don't think ICP can directly test for Nitrate. I understand ICP can only test for elements, not compounds.
My reports come from ICP-Analysis and don't include Nitrate. I went to doublecheck but their page is down at the moment.
Maybe other brands include Nitrate but I'd assume it is a derived result or they test it using different methods.
Last time I compared different Nitrate results, Nyos gave me 5ppm, Mastertronic 7.13, RedSea 10, and Hanna 11.4.
I try to be careful when testing to get as much precision as possible. I use adjustable pipettes, distilled water, vortex mixer (the one that doesn't use a magnetic pill) and Alexa helps me with the timer instead of counting Mississippi-es in my head

To be honest I don't know which Nitrate test kit is more accurate. If you see, the purple line (mastertronic) and green line (Hanna) are somewhat parallel so I just follow the trends.
If I had to chose, I'd go with the Hanna High Range, just for the convenience. Not to be confused with the low range. I got that one to and it is a pain to use.

 

[GoVols]

Sorry,
It's ATI that tests for nitrates.

lol
Your testing mini-lab is cool.

 

[BZOFIQ]

Awesome lab-like setup. Where do the graphs come from?

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

Im running Influxdb and grafana on my NAS. I have been thinking about writing down a tutorial or a video to show how to do it with more affordable hardware but I've been tied up with work and a cool diy reefing project. Hope to get a chance to do it by the Christmas break

 

[BZOFIQ]

Im running Influxdb and grafana on my NAS. I have been thinking about writing down a tutorial or a video to show how to do it with more affordable hardware but I've been tied up with work and a cool diy reefing project. Hope to get a chance to do it by the Christmas break

QNAP, Synology or something else?

Hope to see a tutorial soon!

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

Running it inside a docker container on a synology. Guess it can be done on QNAP too but I'm planning to do the tutorial on a raspberry pi with a small ssd.

 

[Lasse]

My reports come from ICP-Analysis and don't include Nitrate.

I have not test ICP Analysis but seen some questions about them. If you want to have seperate analysis of both nitrite and nitrate - Oceamo in Austria is the only Lab that do these analysis in their test - No ICP for these but another type of very high accuracy labb method. AquaBiomics is their co partner in the US.

@ReefJonas Have you seen this thread?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[BZOFIQ]

Running it inside a docker container on a synology. Guess it can be done on QNAP too but I'm planning to do the tutorial on a raspberry pi with a small ssd.

I have both systems so I'm hoping to see your step-by-step soon.

 

[ReefJonas]

How is the Mastertronic working for the lucky ones that have been able to buy it?
I feel comfortable with most of my results but I think that the discrepancy in the Magnesium tests is too big for my taste. Specially as it gets close to the upper limit and you lose track of the trend.
Below you can see charts of the results of the last 50 days. They include the Mastertronic automatic tests and the other test kits I have tried along with 2 ICP tests (yellow line on Calcium and Magnesium).

• Nitrate results are frequently around 5ppm lower than Hanna and the time I compared it with Nyos and Redsea (September 18) it fell in between. Descaling the test chamber on September 12 didn't show much change . The discrepancy is high (4.5ppm) but I think it is consistent and doesn't worry me too much.
• Calcium was initially around 60ppm higher than ICP and 34ppm higher than Hanna but got really close to the ICP result (14ppm) and the Hanna result (25ppm) after I descaled the test chamber. Now I'm very comfortable with the accuracy.
• Phosphate has shown a difference of less than 0.01ppm every time I have compared it against Hanna so I'm pretty confident with it too.
• Magnesium is the one that makes me uncomfortable, for some reason up until I descaled the test chamber with probe cleaning solution, Magnesium was always shown between 1578 and 1579 ppm. The consistency seemed amusing until I realized that it was the upper limit :S
  Before descaling the test chamber, the difference between Mastertronic and ICP was 207 ppm. On the second ICP after the descaling, the difference decreased to 147 ppm, better but its too big for my taste. I have also tested using Red Sea (manually) and with Aquaforest. Interestingly, the results of the last two seem consistent but being manual titration I would not discard human bias in perceiving the color change (although I don't see the measurement until the test is finished).

I hope the info makes sense and is useful to others. It would be wonderful if other Mastertronic users can share their results and comparisons if they have tried them.

Note: On September 11 I ran a descaling program using Hanna's probe cleaning solution. You can see a dip in the charts (improvement) for Calcium and Magnesium and more correlation with other test kits.

Hi. Many thanks for using the masterTronic and happy that all your tests seems they’re accurate and with a good precision. that is normal. for the nitrate I think you can trust masterTronic very much because it’s calibrated against highend reference fluids and the photometer is very sensitive so when you compare with a manual test I would say masterTronic is normally much close to the truth, accuracy is round 0.5 ppm for nitrate. Now to magnesium and here is my explanation : if you use red Sea pro reagent we have found that sometimes that reagent from red Sea will change when in contact with a glass vial , that means that it can get some false high val. the good thing is this change is quite immediate and will not change further so just use baseline once time for all and then magnesium will always be very accurate with an accuracy of around 10 ppm. so do a manual test with the same reagent and one with masterTronic and then use the baseline and then you don’t have to change the baseline ever as long as you have the same reagent. of some reason this doesn’t happen when you use the Columbo reagent but I can’t guarantee that same can happen with Colombo so always be observant when you change reagent and just use baseline.
this doesn’t happen for the calcium , it’s only the magnesium and again the good thing is it will not change further , its a change once for all and then with baseline you’ll always get good results also for the magnesium.
appreciate that you ask this question

 

[jrill]

Sorry,
It's ATI that tests for nitrates.

lol
Your testing mini-lab is cool.

ATI tests for Nitrates but they don't use an ICP machine to do it.

 

[GoVols]

ATI tests for Nitrates but they don't use an ICP machine to do it.

Already know that, but thanks for the heads up.

 

[Lasse]

Also Oceamo test for nitrite and nitrate with a professional method

Sincerely Lasse

 

[ReefCheef]

Happy to help!
Magnesium
For Magnesium I get similar results from Aquaforest and RedSea Pro.
I like the one handed titration contraption that the RedSea Pro uses but I think it is a bit more difficult to see the color change with RedSea than Aquaforest.
Regarding the Aquaforest kit, I find it easier to see the color change for Magnesium but I don't like the plastic vial it comes with. If I had to chose one over the other. I'd go with the Red Sea. If someone already has the one handed titration holder from RedSea and a spare RedSea vial, I'd go with the Aquaforest and use the RedSea hardware.

Nitrate
I don't think ICP can directly test for Nitrate. I understand ICP can only test for elements, not compounds.
My reports come from ICP-Analysis and don't include Nitrate. I went to doublecheck but their page is down at the moment.
Maybe other brands include Nitrate but I'd assume it is a derived result or they test it using different methods.
Last time I compared different Nitrate results, Nyos gave me 5ppm, Mastertronic 7.13, RedSea 10, and Hanna 11.4.
I try to be careful when testing to get as much precision as possible. I use adjustable pipettes, distilled water, vortex mixer (the one that doesn't use a magnetic pill) and Alexa helps me with the timer instead of counting Mississippi-es in my head

To be honest I don't know which Nitrate test kit is more accurate. If you see, the purple line (mastertronic) and green line (Hanna) are somewhat parallel so I just follow the trends.
If I had to chose, I'd go with the Hanna High Range, just for the convenience. Not to be confused with the low range. I got that one to and it is a pain to use.

Dude! Where did you get those vial holders? Those look dope!

 

[ReefCheef]

Happy to help!
Magnesium
For Magnesium I get similar results from Aquaforest and RedSea Pro.
I like the one handed titration contraption that the RedSea Pro uses but I think it is a bit more difficult to see the color change with RedSea than Aquaforest.
Regarding the Aquaforest kit, I find it easier to see the color change for Magnesium but I don't like the plastic vial it comes with. If I had to chose one over the other. I'd go with the Red Sea. If someone already has the one handed titration holder from RedSea and a spare RedSea vial, I'd go with the Aquaforest and use the RedSea hardware.

Nitrate
I don't think ICP can directly test for Nitrate. I understand ICP can only test for elements, not compounds.
My reports come from ICP-Analysis and don't include Nitrate. I went to doublecheck but their page is down at the moment.
Maybe other brands include Nitrate but I'd assume it is a derived result or they test it using different methods.
Last time I compared different Nitrate results, Nyos gave me 5ppm, Mastertronic 7.13, RedSea 10, and Hanna 11.4.
I try to be careful when testing to get as much precision as possible. I use adjustable pipettes, distilled water, vortex mixer (the one that doesn't use a magnetic pill) and Alexa helps me with the timer instead of counting Mississippi-es in my head

To be honest I don't know which Nitrate test kit is more accurate. If you see, the purple line (mastertronic) and green line (Hanna) are somewhat parallel so I just follow the trends.
If I had to chose, I'd go with the Hanna High Range, just for the convenience. Not to be confused with the low range. I got that one to and it is a pain to use.

Whered you get those test tube holders? So dope!

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

Hi, thanks, I designed them and printed them

 

[gbroadbridge]

How is the Mastertronic working for the lucky ones that have been able to buy it?
I feel comfortable with most of my results but I think that the discrepancy in the Magnesium tests is too big for my taste. Specially as it gets close to the upper limit and you lose track of the trend.
Below you can see charts of the results of the last 50 days. They include the Mastertronic automatic tests and the other test kits I have tried along with 2 ICP tests (yellow line on Calcium and Magnesium).

• Nitrate results are frequently around 5ppm lower than Hanna and the time I compared it with Nyos and Redsea (September 18) it fell in between. Descaling the test chamber on September 12 didn't show much change . The discrepancy is high (4.5ppm) but I think it is consistent and doesn't worry me too much.
• Calcium was initially around 60ppm higher than ICP and 34ppm higher than Hanna but got really close to the ICP result (14ppm) and the Hanna result (25ppm) after I descaled the test chamber. Now I'm very comfortable with the accuracy.
• Phosphate has shown a difference of less than 0.01ppm every time I have compared it against Hanna so I'm pretty confident with it too.
• Magnesium is the one that makes me uncomfortable, for some reason up until I descaled the test chamber with probe cleaning solution, Magnesium was always shown between 1578 and 1579 ppm. The consistency seemed amusing until I realized that it was the upper limit :S
  Before descaling the test chamber, the difference between Mastertronic and ICP was 207 ppm. On the second ICP after the descaling, the difference decreased to 147 ppm, better but its too big for my taste. I have also tested using Red Sea (manually) and with Aquaforest. Interestingly, the results of the last two seem consistent but being manual titration I would not discard human bias in perceiving the color change (although I don't see the measurement until the test is finished).

I hope the info makes sense and is useful to others. It would be wonderful if other Mastertronic users can share their results and comparisons if they have tried them.

Note: On September 11 I ran a descaling program using Hanna's probe cleaning solution. You can see a dip in the charts (improvement) for Calcium and Magnesium and more correlation with other test kits.

Why are you so concerned about insignificant variations in test results?

If you use a decent salt mix, it will be okay out of the bag. Use Balling or a decent two part to keep Alk in range and everything else will be okay too.

When I say within range I mean 1dkH or so.

Micro management gets you nothing other than frustration, and the fish and coral really don't care.

Keep salinity as close to 35psu as you can with a decent ATO, nothing really cares unless you go off the scale.

I can see the hate mail flying my way already

The only really important ones are Nitrate and Phosphate, and salifert are all you ever need.


Regards
Graham.

 

[MikeTheNewbie]

Hey Graham, no hate mail at all. I'm always open to everyone's point of view. I really enjoy looking at data, trends, and charts. You're right that it is frustrating to see our hobby tools are so imprecise but over time I have learned which tools I can trust and which I need to take with a grain of salt. I don't perform sudden changes based on a single point of data but use the trends in the charts to understand what is going on.
I do see a lot of value in keeping measurements and logging changes as precisely as possible. It has helped me multiple times. I have tons of examples but here are the latest ones that come to mind.

• I learned how much reefroids or phytho I need to dose to bring my phosphate to a reasonable level in my frag tank.
• I was able to rescue several frags of teal candy cane that were dying while their green counterparts were doing OK.
• I learned how to fix my salt mix which comes low in Alk.

 

[Harold999]

Got my Mastertronic for a few days now and all testresults look okay, except for Calcium which is way off (100ppm) compared with a Salifert testkit i trust.
What can i try to fix this?