Automated Testing With Reefbot

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Thanks to @reefdiver for getting this in for me.
https://www.reefkinetics.com/

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Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Its here :D packaged really well.
Picked up an API master reef kit from big als. API seems to work well with reefbot according to reviews and also came up as the cheapest/test. Will be testing nitrate/phosphate/calcium/alk. From the master api kit i should get roughly the following amount of tests out of a single test kit (~$60 with tax).
Calcium : 18
Alkalinity : 34
Nitrate : 72
Phosphate : 92
Looks like its about $0.26/test
 
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Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Bit confused by whats all going on here, I think its showing me the color after it adds titrate. Im going to do a manual calcium test later and see what i get out of curiosity but 440 seems fairly bang on. test took 30min despite it saying it would take 1h25
calciumresults.png
 

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
What would you like to know :)

I have it actively testing my results. They get sent to my phone. I am going to switch the kits up a bit. API kits have terrible range. The tester is only as good as the kit, if it measures phosphate in 0.25 increments than so will the bot. It seems the best kits are red sea alk/phos api calcium and tropic marin nitrate.

I had 1 small issue on startup (which took about 10 mins to setup). Support responded within a few hours however i fixed the problem myself, think it was possibly a loose connector. Either way was happy with their customer service.
 

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
They are working on that, its already an option in the app. Not sure timing however.
 

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Pros are that you can virtually test whatever you want, as of right now it tests i think it tests 7 different parameters, your big 3 ca/alk/mg both your nutrient paremets no3/po4 and also has a chlorine and an ammonia test. Last i heard they were working on copper as well as other kits, in the time ive had it they have released 3 new kits including most of the NYOS brand. Cost per tests is much lower than the trident and can be scheduled virtually whenever you want. Setup was SUPER easy, took me about 10 mins and i was good to go. Being able to remotely test my water parameters is so nice, i got a low ph alarm the other night while i was in toronto and i opened my phone and had it test a few things just to be safe, it was really nice having that piece of mind that my system wasnt crashing. \

Cons : I have very little complaint about the reefbot, the only issue is picking test kits. If youve ever heard the term "garbage in = garbage out" basically you are bound by the accuracy and resolution of the actual test kit. I started off with API kits because they are cheap. I quickly found that phosphate isnt the most accurate. It has 0.25 steps. Alot of the time my tests come out as 0 or 0.25. At first it was kind of annoying but the nice part of how the reefbot works is it shows you the actual color of the test. For example I added GFO 3 days ago to lower said phosphates and the number didnt budge because API isnt accurate. What i did notice was a slight change in color of the test. That gave me enough peace of mind to know the GFO is doing its thing. As more kits come out they will get better. There seems to be a good kit for almost every parameter that is accurate and has good resolution. From the forums ive gathered that the best kits are API-CA. Tropic Marin-NO3. Red sea - ALK. Red sea - PO4

I havent set up the red sea phosphate kit yet to test it out of mostly laziness. I cant seem to find tropic marin tho Ian@SMC said he was becoming a dealer so that should fix that problem.

I have had it disconnect from the wifi once or twice. Both times a simple power on and off works which is why i have it powered through my apex in case im off site.

If this thing holds out in terms of quality and longevity than i would 10/10 recommend to anyone, but with any new product you do not really know how it will last until they've been out for a while. I know its far away for you but i told Ian i would bring it to the store one weekend to show anyone who wanted to see how it works.

1 aspect of it that i love but isnt a HUGE deal is the fact i can go scoop a bottle of water from my other tanks and just stick the tube in and do whatever tests i want without unhooking anything. Its so simple to manually test my other tanks this way.
 

EricTMah

Aquariums by Design
Joined
Mar 2, 2014
Location
Kitchener, Ontario
Website
www.aquariumsbydesign.ca
Thanks for the feedback.

I'm about 1-3 months away from pulling the trigger.

So you have the test line running directly to your sump now? Then when you want to test a different tank you just move the input hose out of your sump into a sample bottle? Did I get that correct?


S8
 

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Looks like integrated dosing is expected to be released in Q4 this year. Hopefully they stay on track for timing, theyve been pretty good so far about that.
 

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
So last night I spot fed my frag tank. 90g total volume roughly. 1 tbsp of reefroids raised my phosphate 0.2 over night. I always knew they added phosphate but holy crap lol. Its nice to be able to do a before and after easily like this.

Another happy day being a reefbot owner.
 

Josh

Active Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2017
Location
London
Looks like reefbot is done their apex integration, I got invited to beta test the apex update. Haven't done it yet but its nice they got this done. Going to tinker with it this weekend.
 
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