Seneye & ammonia reading

[Titleist]

So I threw a seneye in the DT while I'm cycling it with Tims to check ammonia, and after using his newer version AC at 4 drops per gallon my 200 gallons is showing .072 or so.

Wetted the chip for little over 48 so that shouldn't be the reason. I'd rather error on TIm's side with the AC added to the tank rather than on the device and overdose.

Anyone else have issues with their seneye reading way low on ammonia?

ph 8.32 or so.

I sent Seneye an email, figured I wouldn't bother with Tim's as I'm using a seneye to measure I'd likely hear to try another testing device. But the deal is, the current reading is about 4 times lower than expected which is weird because tim's kicked down the ammonia level by 4 times, and put the label on the bottle to add 4 per gallon rather than 1. It's like the AC is 4 times lower than the 4 drops per gallon is already 4 times lower than the original.

Either way, if I'm under feeding I can always increase if I need to although I'm likely losing some bacteria in the process. Not sure if this is a bad slide or what.

 

[Ranjib]

Can you do some cross testing with API or some other kits?

 

[Titleist]

I don't have another kit at the moment, really was hoping this device was enough considering using tims calculation per gallon I should have a known value. I can't believe the bacteria ate up that much before I could test, because it's not dropping fast below the .07.

 

[ingchr1]

Per your calculations what value were you expecting the Seneye to read?

 

[Titleist]

I'm expecting 2.0 ppm, not 0.07 ppm which is what this meter shows. I guess what I expect is if this meter shows PPM, then I expect to see 2.0 ppm, 0.07 is far under 2.0

Unless the value of "2" is being used incorrectly everywhere when what they really mean is "0.02". If that's the case then I've wasted a lot of time and over dosed the tank and now have to waste more money and time. Which is what I feel is coming on right about now.

 

[ingchr1]

It's not entirely clear to me, but I think it's related to what the Seneye measures and how it performs the measurement compared to test kits. It was discussed a little bit in this thread around this post: Bacteria in bottle, busting myth, Seneye style.

Here's a couple of topics in the Seneye FAQ:

http://answers.seneye.com/en/water_chemistry/what_is_ammonia_NH3_NH4

http://answers.seneye.com/en/water_..._NH3_NH4/Photometer_and_reagent_ammonia_tests

This page has some good calculators:

https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/

When I cycled my tank I saw similar readings to yours. The Seneye read 0.05 to 0.06 PPM NH3. API test kit (NH3 + NH4) a couple of PPM. Converting the Seneye NH3 to NH3 + NH4 with the calculator gave ~1PPM. Without measuring the exact amount of ammonium chloride and know the exact volume of water in the tank I'm not sure how accurate adding drops is.

Interested in the response from Seneye.

 

[lakai]

It only measures nh3. nh4 is calculated based on temp and ph. Seneye does not calculate total ammonia like test kits. Just know that anything NH3 0.3 or above is not good. I've had it show 0.7 nh3 once e and all my fish were nearly dead. NH3 0.03 is normal and sometimes you need to offset it to show nh3 0 if it doesn't go lower. I dose ammonia till it shows 0.2 nh3 when cycling, wait for it to come back down to 0.1nh3 then dose up to 0.4nh3 and wait for it to go to 0.1 or lower then once more. By now it should be able to take any amount of ammonia to near zero within a few hours.

 

[Titleist]

So "free ammonia" on the widget is not total ammonia. Well I'll try upping it to .2 but the drops per gallon is gonna be more than 4. I just ordered a rest kit anyway.

 

[Titleist]

Thanks for that website.... oddly I found it earlier today then came back here to post and saw you already posted it! Thanks!

Based on that calculator, with my temp, salinity and pH I should be seeing about .189 ~ .190 or so in order to achieve 2 ppm "ammonia" combined.

Needless to say, there wasn't enough tims AC to get me up to that number so I'm going to go the clear ammonia route to get it near that number when I dose.

Same thing goes for the QT as well. Thanks for the clarity on what that free ammonia number actually means.

I contacted seneye with a different email so they couldn't see my readings. Sent them the right email, now I wait until tomorrow when they take a look. Going with the device as being accurate in terms of NH3 and working off those numbers. Let's see what seneye says.

 

[brandon429]

Variation in ammonia will not stall a cycle or kill bac, these systems cycle if we add no ammonia because it still gets in

Any ammonia you input-same cycle completion date, depending on what you consider a closed cycle

Interested to see motion indicated by seneye

Not as much the baseline but it's ability to indicate change based on known cycling completion dates already on file... Testers vary, accuracy varies, how long bacteria take to do an underwater function, known sixty years or better already

It's why all Google cycle charts have the same ammonia + nitrite compliance dates, dates ammonia drops and never rebounds etc

Google doesn't ask us what test kit we're using before rendering the cycling chart because the times are already known

 

[Titleist]

For statistical purposes if it has any value, I have a total volume of water very close to that 200 gallons */- 5 or so. This includes the 200lb or so of caribsea base rock and 3 bags unrinsed reef flakes along with the sump volume brings it to the 200 or so. 14 oz tims purchased straight from tims along with a bottle of AC. Using the 4 drops per gallon as indicated it brought me to .073 NH3, the highest it ever made it. Over the next 3 days it very slowly went down to .062 at the lowest. I'm saving the last 2 oz for a 29 gallon QT tank to cycle it.

Initially I was running the ecotechs on the tank but decided the UV in the lights, as little as it may be compared to a sterilizer, may have some effect on bacteria so they've been off the last 2 days. For the amount of tims I put in, being straight from tims so it should be freshest available and in ideal weather for transport, using his calculations for AC I should have at least gotten somewhat close to the 2 ppm. If I overdid the bacteria to the point of where it had an immediate effect on NH3 to account for not getting to 2 ppm immediately I believe I should have also seen it continue to drop much more quickly than it did rather than stall at .073 and never get below .062.

So at this point, assuming the new values for NH3 and the seneye are accurate, I'm thinking it wasn't worth 80 bucks to arrive at this point. I know it may cycle sooner than a shrimp cycle but for 80 plus bucks I'm not so sure. Depends on when the cycle actually finishes but if it takes a month then I feel it was money wasted.

I'll post seneye's response but after the info from above I think I'll be hearing the same thing posted by others in this thread.

 

[brandon429]

Hey check your work/doses against this volume and % calc
see if it agrees w your math

http://www.fishforums.net/aquarium-calculator.htm

I love ammonia tracing/accuracy/hunting for accuracy more than any param in reefing because its such a predicable param

seneye gives us a chance to see into the thousandths movement where avail, usually we're just wrestling with whether or not .25 means zero, talk about an upgrade for today's ammonia tracing

if seneye is diff than that % and vol calc, and your solution smells bad still out of the bottle, something is up w the tester

id like to be able to verify the % claimed in your bottle is right as well
I am 1000% interested in knowing anything about what a seneye says, how the calibrate or drift/state wrong readings if ever etc

 

[Titleist]

There's an unknown here, at least to me, that's what strength is tims ammonia? The bottle supplied is 60ml. Using that calc I needed 16.34 of 9.5% ammonia solution to achieve 2ppm. I recall the original bottle for 4 bucks was a drop per gallon, now it apparently has been cut by 75% for the same 4 bucks so you have to add 4 times as much for the same result. I'd think that's because people were overdosing their tanks maybe? Not sure why but the concentration definitely went down and the cost stayed the same.

I had roughly 10ml left tonite with my tank at 0.062 when I dumped the last 10 ml in. NH3 went up to 0.092 and it's stable there for the moment. I'll see what happens over night.

Tomorrow it's blue ribbon ammonia to bring it up near the .19 mark to see if I've got any colony growing at all.

And a note on smell, I detected no ammonia smell at all from the tims bottle. Although it did raise the NH3 a smidge.

 

[brandon429]

the no smell violates our sniffer protocol lol

we measured 3 ppm ~ shrimp-rotting setups and related it back to smell detection, high rate of detection as in all girlfriends and wives revolt at 3 ppm

to be smell-less at the doser? wha

well maybe there's additional compounds in the meat that stink to high heaven but I sure thought it was the ammonia this whole time.

Lets put out an all points- olfaction bulletin where owners of dr tims ammonia sniff the bottle and see if it smells and let us know.

hey when is the last time your nose has been calibrated lol for smell, get second opinion ha!


You're on totally new ground. We have no in-field works stacked up using seneye with which we can search out patterns. API has provided us thirty years of patterns, with seneye you're on day 1 of a loooong evolution coming up. pretty neat

 

[Titleist]

When I crack that bottle of blue ribbon I'll take some sample notes :)

Is there a difference in smell between ammonium chloride and ammonium hydroxide? That may have something to do with it. Just smelled it again, absolutely no smell whatsoever, but it did raise the NH3 somewhat.

 

[brandon429]

truly I don't know if they smell/difference between em pretty neat to be able to match the hard numbers up with smell/testers though, Im willing to update the sniffer protocol if the challenge pans out lol

 

[Titleist]

Good morning,


Thank you for confirming your email address.


Could you please send us a picture of the slide that is currently in your sensor so that both of the sensor pads are visible (not the white side) against a white background and in natural lighting? It is alright to take your slide out of the water so long as it doesn’t dry out.


While your slide is not in your sensor, could you please also check the two small lenses on your device, underneath where the slide fits, to ensure that they are not obscured by dirt or algae? And could you then please try refitting your slide underwater to ensure that no air bubbles are trapped between the slide and the sensor?


Kind regards,


Seneye Support Team

+44 (0)1223 911075
++++++++++++++++++++

Currently 4:16 a.m. here so pics of the slide will have to wait until I get home this afternoon. This is a brand new unit and brand new card though, straight from the vendor and used so I'm not sure what they hope to see. Their interest seems as though there may be inaccurate readings from the device though, otherwise you'd expect them to say it looks normal.

We'll see tomorrow

 

[Titleist]

The slide I sent. Taking it out and putting it back in didn't change the NH3 but the pH is lower now, I expect it to return to where it was after the unit is in water for another 48 hours or so.

One note, the back plate doesn't seem to snap on to the body of the sensor. Feels like there's something in the middle that prevents it from snapping in and the base plate can be very slightly rocked front to back over a tiny hump in the middle of the sensor. This may be how it's supposed to fit although it make it feel like the base plate could one day fall off if bumped.

Email sent with pic and base plate issue.

 

[Titleist]

Good morning,


Thank you for your email and for sending that picture.


From this picture we can see that the chemistry on the sensor pad for NH3 readings (the one on the left of the photo, with the clear backing) has been damaged, which may well be causing inaccurate readings. The sensor pad looks damaged because it is mottled and the colour is not consistent. Please see the link below for more information about damaged slides:

http://answers.seneye.com/en/Seneye...trange_pH_reading/Is_my_seneye__slide_damaged


Do you add any chemicals, medicines or additives to the water that the Seneye is monitoring?


Kind regards,


Seneye Support Team

+44 (0)1223 911075


Nothing added other than tims ammonia before soaking and adding the seneye. From the pics they have in their link I see the presence of NH3 because the patch has turned grey as theirs has but their patch is inconsistent whereas mine is uniform in grey color, although they're telling me it's mottled and not consistent.

This is going nowhere and it's turning towards go buy more slides apparently. If the device reads NH3 only it probably shouldn't be showing 2ppm readings anyway.

Oh well, test kit will be here today. I'm not buying more slides, mine isn't blotchy like the one in the picture and it seems as though the final answer will be go buy more slides. Since others have mentioned this reading when cycling I figure this is normal and I won't be buying any more slides. No one else has mentioned their dashboard showed them 2ppm when cycling so this is probably what it's supposed to show. If the device is showing the correct numbers of NH3 only they should be saying so but they aren't. They haven't actually said what the dashboard reading is supposed to show at 2 ppm so I think a calculator is necessary to use this device to determine the magic 2 ppm reading for tims cycle.

I've asked them to clarify exactly what the main dashboard is supposed to show in the "free ammonia" widget, NH3 or the 2 ppm "total ammonia".

 

[ingchr1]

Free ammonia is NH3. The consensus seams to be that when Dr Tims states add 2PPM NH3-N, that you are using a test kit that reads total ammonia.

You need to use the calculator to determine the total ammonia from the Seneye NH3 reading.

I'm not sure I'd get too hung up on getting right at 2PPM calculated total ammonia from the Seneye reading. With differences in the measuring techniques between the Seneye and test kits you may be adding more than the 2PPM a total ammonia test kit would read. I'd just see how what you've added processes first. Others with more knowledge may have more insight than I do.