Seneye - new slide times?

[Sarcazian]

Hi folks,

I was curious what the thresholds are for the new seneye slides?
Does it really need to stay 48 hours and if you pull it sooner what have you seen?

My slide is at 48 hours at 4pm today, but I really wanted to get some data before doing a WC and adding new media (inTank1 and 2 + Chemi-Pure elite) to my Evo 13.5. I don't want to push it, but considered regular Chemi-pure or Purigen that I have as well.

Right now everything is running stock filtration (6 weeks) and I just added some fish. So, I want to keep the parameters in check. btw, API kit registered ~20 nitrates before the fish.

Thanks in advance.

 

[lelandmarine]

Any seneye users out there?

 

[MBruun]

From my experience the slide need at least 48 hours soaking to show correct results.
I'll soak it for 3 days before using it - and I have tried it with just aroung 36 hours soaking getting large change in the output the first day

 

[LiamPM]

Doesnt the Seneye only test for Temp, PH and Ammonia?

Id leave it to soak. If thats the only data its giving you i wouldnt worry much about a water change altering that especially the media you are changing, i dont think it measures anything those effect does it?

With 20 Nitrates your cycle is obviously doing its job. Temp should be matched form the water change so shouldnt change much anyway and PH is highly unlikely to change much from a standard water change.

Id leave it to soak and go ahead and water change if it was me.

 

[Sarcazian]

Thank you for everyone responding. I ended up leaving it about 49 hours and it sounds like I should potentially leave it longer next time to be certain. I opted to soak it in a shotglass in my office, so it was definitely not temp controlled. I always have 5-10 gallons of water running on a heater, so it seems like the best option is to drop it in the bin in the future. I wore a new pair of gloves to work with the tab to minimize contamination.

I was not sure if the tab released some minor chemicals and I wanted to keep it isolated.

I still question how reliable the pH is since the reading went down after a 50% WC (7.81 to 7.45) using IO Reef Crystals (sat for about 48 hours with a heater and 500GPH powerheader in a 5G bucket. I will pull out the API kit today and compare the two values and dosing with Kent's purple (1-1.5ml a day x2) did bump it from the original.

The shot below is with the lights off still, but the reading was 7.73-7.76 all day yesterday. I even left a window open for 4 hours (cold here) to consider CO2 related pH. It did not seem to impact the results.

I will continue monitoring things, and I think I saw a thread on here about seneye and tracking results. So, just in case I lose track and forgot to post there I wanted to document for the data driven folks.

 

[brandon429]

It’s important to know about trimming the unit for accuracy, any system with fish that shows .001 nh3 is misreading, it cannot be .001 steady that’s an impossible read, nh3 is wrong currently above

the seneye Corp office is good about working with folks for replacements or help, don’t settle for stuck nh3 on a device that costly, make them make it work. Contact em by email if you can’t get the nh3 in acceptable range


needs to be .002-.009 range, then it’s all set.

 

[Sarcazian]

It’s important to know about trimming the unit for accuracy, any system with fish that shows .001 nh3 is misreading, it cannot be .001 steady that’s an impossible read, nh3 is wrong currently above

the seneye Corp office is good about working with folks for replacements or help, don’t settle for stuck nh3 on a device that costly, make them make it work. Contact em by email if you can’t get the nh3 in acceptable range


needs to be .002-.009 range, then it’s all set.

Thank you Brandon and I had not realized that and I will reach out today.

I also found it strange that NH4 is supposedly calculated by the Seneye based on the NH3 and it has gone down to 17.xx and as high as 68.xx. Those were just values seen in the app in random refreshes.

 

[MBruun]

Hi Brandon

My Seneye reading for NH3 is always 0.001 even the NH4 reading change.
The system is 9 months old, and I'll be on slide number 8 or 9 having same NH3 reading ever since the nitrogen cycle finished.

Do you suggest I contact Seneye ? or how to get a more accurate reading ?

 

[brandon429]

For sure contact them by email and ask for replacement if needed and also let us know how they do regarding follow up service. There could be trims needed maybe nothing is broke but we want to make sure they’re holding up to good machines, nh3 is in *constant* motion above .001 in all systems with animals causing waste production, here’s our thread we track seneye doing a good job to keep working meters out there:

A thread tracking the incidence of seneye nh3 misreads

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/using-seneye-reef-readings-to-cycle-tank.773299/ there are two more, I want to log these in one thread so we can begin patterning. I’ll go find the others in no way does that reef above have tenths ppm nh3 but thats not been proven, yet.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[MBruun]

Thanks, I'll contact Seneye and update this thread with the result

 

[MBruun]

Hereby the last from the mail correspondance with Seneye support.
I have left out the pictures from my Seneye readings
-----------
tor. 11. feb. 18.19
Hi Morten,
Many thanks for sending over those pictures.
I cannot see any evidence of NH3 from the looks of the slide, if there was NH3 present, this would show up as a purple hue on the clear side of the slide.
Kind regards,
Seneye Support Team

tor. 11. feb. 20.34
Hi
My impression is that a stable reading of 0.001 for many months is almost impossible in an aquarium less than a year old.
Br
Morten


12. feb. 2021 18.42
Hi Morten,
Thanks for your reply.
It is not impossible for this to happen. As we have checked the slide for NH3 and found nothing present, this is a visual backup to the device if it was experiencing issues.
The slide will change colour if it encounters any NH3, and while it is less usual for a tank to become very low very quickly, that can ultimately depend on how the tank is treated and what occupies the space.
If issues are cleared quickly and the environment is monitored carefully and the equilibrium carefully maintained, there is nothing to say that the NH3 cannot become low quickly.
If you would like to test the capabilities of the Seneye NH3 reader, I would recommend trying the device in some water which has a higher NH3 content, if you have a small bucket and add either some ammonia treatment, or a dead plant, you should see the NH3 reading rise. Do be careful with adding too much ammonia however, as if the slide is exposed for too long to high levels, this can compromise the slide.
Kind regards,
Seneye Support Team
-------

I then made a test (using liquid ammonia from Dr. Tim) and the Seneye seems to react just fine on NH3, and now it is back to 0.001
Don't think anything wrong with this Seneye.
What do think Brandon ?