Trident Regents - Uneven usage?

[dwright]

So I've been using the trident for around 6 months now and I've enjoyed it mostly albeit some learning curves along the way

Something I've noticed is that the 2 months supply of regent tends to last a less than its supposed to. Mainly because Regent A seems to last longer than regent B and C.

B and C tend to get used mostly evenly but A I always seems to throw away 20-35% of the bottle each time B and C need replacing - is this normal amongst other reefers?

Also on a separate note - I've completely stopped using the calibration fluid supplied... I've found that conducting my own tests with Hanna testers and then calibrating using my own tank water using the Hanna results is better than the calibration fluids.... anyone else prefer that method? I found that calibration fluid changed too drastically between calibrations.

 

[MnFish1]

I'm not sure why the calibration solution would make a difference in the use of bottle A. However see below re: calibration solution. It is my impression that its not 'odd' to have solution left over in bottle A.

Trident Reagents B & C Empty; Reagent A at 42%. What now?

My trident is scheduled for the 4 test minimum that Apex allows, and somehow, I'm out of B & C when my (second) Reagent A is still at 42%. Is there a way to only replace B & C, or must I discard the nearly half bottle of A as well?

www.reef2reef.com

From @JimWelsh on another thread - Re home-made calibration solution:

"Having done exactly what you describe for many, many, many combinations of the big three in the course of developing the Trident, let me tell you that's it's really not as easy as you might think at first glance.

You need a minimum of six different salts of sufficient purity to make a crude seawater analogue, and each of them has some of the others in them as contaminants at various levels. Even when using reagent grade salts, there is still the matter of the uncertainty of the water in the Ca and Mg salts. For accurate results, you need to standardize the Ca and Mg solutions by either a Mohr titration of the chloride or an EDTA titration of the metals. The reagents used for those titrations need to be standardized themselves.

So, in order to be able to make the solutions up, you not only need to be able to test for all the analytes of interest, but also source the salts and work hard to carefully make up the desired mix.

It is vastly easier to get good at (meaning both precision and accuracy) testing for Alk, Ca, and Mg, and then use your freshly mixed ASW or tank water as the reference standard, after your careful testing of it."

 

[Reefer Matt]

The Trident will play it safe and say the reagents are empty when they aren’t. I reset the levels when it says empty, then manually check them a week or so later. I also made a video on calibrating the Trident using the calibration solutions manually instead of using the task function. I also only test alk twice a day, and ca/mg once a day. This doubles the time before the reagents are empty. This has worked well for me.

 

[MnFish1]

The Trident will play it safe and say the reagents are empty when they aren’t. I reset the levels when it says empty, then manually check them a week or so later. I also made a video on calibrating the Trident using the calibration solutions manually instead of using the task function. I also only test alk twice a day, and ca/mg once a day. This doubles the time before the reagents are empty. This has worked well for me.

I would always say - just follow the directions.