Reefkinetics Reefbot

[KingJason]

Did you make those labels? Those are cool.

 

[BIGGUN]

Man, I am currently looking into an Alk monitor. Was considering KH Guardian and Alkatronics. The ReefBot seemed like a GREAT solution as I could test for Phosphate which I am currently battling with Lanthanum Chloride in a 15 year old reef. But it seems as if the 2 things I am MOST concerned about testing are giving people issues.

I hope this gets sorted out.

Kevin

 

[Rick Strauss]

Man, I am currently looking into an Alk monitor. Was considering KH Guardian and Alkatronics. The ReefBot seemed like a GREAT solution as I could test for Phosphate which I am currently battling with Lanthanum Chloride in a 15 year old reef. But it seems as if the 2 things I am MOST concerned about testing are giving people issues.

I hope this gets sorted out.

KH Guardian is junk IMO. I have replaced many parts to keep it running and it just packed it in again last week

 

[BIGGUN]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Rick Strauss]

How many reagents does TM NO3 test kit use?

 

[KingJason]

How many reagents does TM NO3 test kit use?

Looks like 3 :(

 

[Rick Strauss]

Darn

 

[MyReefRobbedMe]

Tech team is pretty quick and i have completed all the cals.
Currently running a po4 test.
Heres my setup for know

Nice style to the labels . How did the Po4 Test go

 

[MyReefRobbedMe]

My Giesemann phosphates keep reading 0 ppm even though the reagent vial is full and Hanna ULR is giving me 0.1 ppm.

I'm starting to get a little frustrated. Not sure it's reefbot or just all the different test kits.

My RedSea alk has gone haywire. Before it was consistently 0.3 dkh lower than Salifert and Hanna (manual). Then it gave me a 5.3 dkh reading. Thought it was low reagent so I refilled the reagent. Still was getting low numbers so I went to recalibrate. The calibration was off and I needed to redo the calibration like 3 times. Now the Redsea alk is giving me 1.0 dkh higher than salifert. Salifert is giving me up to 0.5 dkh higher than Hanna manual. What caused it to lose calibration out of the blue?

My Redsea mag is giving me crazy numbers too. It's now reporting 1560 ppm vs salifert (manual) 1320 ppm.

As mentioned above, Giesemann phosphate only reports 0 ppm for me. I gave up on that. Waste of >$50 reagent there.

API Nitrate reports only 0 ppm for me (salifert 1-2.5 ppm manual), so I don't really bother with that anymore either.

The only consistent reading for me now is API Ca, which exactly matches my salifert Ca manual testing.

I’m in same situation just opposite. My Red Sea mag is testing Good but the API calcium came back at 20 ppm . Po4 not registering at all still 0 and Nitrate 0 . I hope they bring out some type of Checkers Like Hanna has for there colormeters so we know how spot on this colormeter is

 

[Acro maniac]

Nice style to the labels . How did the Po4 Test go

Labels were on the bottles of the test kits. I just peeled them of trimmed them and put them on the reefbot bottles.
Po4 readings came back at 0 mg/l
My hanna reading was 0.25 ppm
Fwiw mg/l and ppm are the same from what I can gather.
I would hope there will be better option or a fix soon. Po4 testing was what drew me into buying a bot.

 

[Acro maniac]

Just reading over the instructions and the quick reference card for giesemann Po4 test. It seems to me that the directions dont match.
In the picture they use po4-1 twice once for 10 drops mix then add 2 more drops.
They also have a wait time of 4 minutes and the instructions say 10 minutes.

 

[Acro maniac]

Now reefbot api No3 test is also giving a result of 0
I just tested and I have a result of 24 with red sea. Which is consistant with a previous test.
Also reefbot salifert alk is giving a result of 10.9 and my hanna says 9.3.
I cant say Im happy with that much variance.

 

[Pife]

Now reefbot api No3 test is also giving a result of 0
I just tested and I have a result of 24 with red sea. Which is consistant with a previous test.
Also reefbot salifert alk is giving a result of 10.9 and my hanna says 9.3.
I cant say Im happy with that much variance.

I don't have mine yet but I've been playing with my friends and when we were getting ratings that were off it was all due to a poor calibration. We calibrate of it until we got consistent results it took three or four times.

 

[BIGGUN]

Just reading over the instructions and the quick reference card for giesemann Po4 test. It seems to me that the directions dont match.
In the picture they use po4-1 twice once for 10 drops mix then add 2 more drops.
They also have a wait time of 4 minutes and the instructions say 10 minutes.

It says ten drops of po4-1 and 2 drops of po4-2 on the full instructions. lol
That builds faith in Geisemann.

I wonder if Reef Kinetics is better off sourcing their own reagents?

 

[Dj City]

Tech team is pretty quick and i have completed all the cals.
Currently running a po4 test.
Heres my setup for know

Where did you get your lables?

Edit

Nevermind.
I kept reading and found the answer.

 

[BIGGUN]

Labels were on the bottles of the test kits. I just peeled them of trimmed them and put them on the reefbot bottles.
Po4 readings came back at 0 mg/l
My hanna reading was 0.25 ppm
Fwiw mg/l and ppm are the same from what I can gather.
I would hope there will be better option or a fix soon. Po4 testing was what drew me into buying a bot.

 

[Dj City]

My ReefBot is working fine.
I am not super interested in super exact numbers and I realize that ALL our tests are hobby grade.

Red Sea (hobby grade)
Giesmann (hobby grade)
API (hobby grade)
Tropic Marin (hobby grade)
Salifert (hobby grade)
Hanna (hobby grade)

I need to be in the correct ballpark. I need to keep within a certain range.

I think some people get too caught up in exact numbers and forget that all our tests are hobby grade tests.

The ReefBot lets me know if something is out of whack or out of my acceptable range.
Im happy with that because I realize that any test I get from any brand is still just hobby grade.

 

[BIGGUN]

I agree to some point, but what is acceptable?

If the readings can't be accurate to a level that is smaller than could potentially harm corals what is the purpose of testing? Being off by .3 alk is no big deal if it is always off the same amount in the same direction, but if it can swing .3 either way that's .6 total and in my opinion too much. If Phosphate is reading 0 when there is .25 ppm present that isn't just off.....That's dangerous. The Mg doesn't seem to have big enough swings to be harmful but for as often as I check it I don't need it to be monitored. Ca also swings into damaging ranges slower than Alk or phosphates so I don't need to test daily.

The two or three things that I'd like to keep track of daily seem to be the most inaccurate, those being Alk, PO4, NO3.

I hope they get it figured out soon, but for now I think I'll just get an Alk monitor and wait for stability. I was already (and still am) part of the Cerebra Beta nightmare and don't want to get my hopes up for this.

Kevin

 

[Hemmdog]

I agree to some point, but what is acceptable?

If the readings can't be accurate to a level that is smaller than could potentially harm corals what is the purpose of testing? Being off by .3 alk is no big deal if it is always off the same amount in the same direction, but if it can swing .3 either way that's .6 total and in my opinion too much. If Phosphate is reading 0 when there is .25 ppm present that isn't just off.....That's dangerous. The Mg doesn't seem to have big enough swings to be harmful but for as often as I check it I don't need it to be monitored. Ca also swings into damaging ranges slower than Alk or phosphates so I don't need to test daily.

The two or three things that I'd like to keep track of daily seem to be the most inaccurate, those being Alk, PO4, NO3.

I hope they get it figured out soon, but for now I think I'll just get an Alk monitor and wait for stability. I was already (and still am) part of the Cerebra Beta nightmare and don't want to get my hopes up for this.

Kevin

I agree, this seems really dangerous. I was so excited about this product as well. It’s a shame this beta test has been requiring so much out of pocket for you all. It seems like after 3 packs of the same reagent, cost of the product alone, manual testing to confirm the reefbot works, bending and broken needles; it seems much less stressful and more affordable to just keep manual testing with salifert... I really wish this was plug and play, I hate testing.

 

[Dj City]

Once upon a time in reef keeping, there were basically no test kites but somehow people managed to keep beautiful healthy thriving reef tanks.

Once upon a time API tests were pretty much the only tests out there and people kept beautiful healthy thriving reef tanks.

Corals are remarkably adaptive.
Keep things relatively stable and they will be just fine.
Stable on the high side of your desired numbers or stable on the low side of your desired numbers.
It really does not matter as long as it's stable.

The ReefBot helps you know that things are stable.
Nothing more.
Use it as the tool is meant to be.
It does robotically hat we do by hand with the same tests kits we normally use.
Make sure the ReefBot is calibrated and full of reagent and you are good to go.