Neptune Systems Trident Marine Aquarium Water Analyzer

A key ingredient to a great reef aquarium is maintaining proper levels of Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium.

 

The Trident is an automated testing system that regularly tests alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium in your saltwater aquarium — and then communicates this information to your Apex so you can get alerts, and change your dosing. When combined with the DOS (available separately) it creates a fully automated system for the proper dosing of supplements, maintaining them at consistent levels.

 

Using an automated titration method, with colormetric identification, the Trident automatically tests your aquarium water up to 24 times a day for Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium.

 

The Trident tests consistently with a precision of +/- 0.05 dKh for Alkalinity and 15ppm for Calcium and Magnesium. Using any hobby-grade test kit on the market, even humans cannot perform the tests that consistently.

 

From the box to testing in under 10 minutes! Unlike other testing systems, there are no reagents to mix, tubes to cut, or pumps or probes to calibrate. Simply plug in one cable, two tubes, and run the setup task on the Apex Fusion mobile app — it holds your hand through the installation with helpful videos along the way.

 

The peace of mind of having your recent tank parameters, right there in your pocket, from anywhere in the world.

 

Your Apex will alert you on your mobile device when test results fall out of the range you specify.

 

When the Trident is combined with the DOS system (sold separately), the two work in concert. Your Apex will use the data generated from Trident tests to automatically and safely adjust up or down your dosing amounts to keep your tank levels as stable as possible.

 

Convenient and clean, the Trident is self contained and when running the basic testing regimen only requires a reagent change once a month.

 

Some testing systems use as much as 100ml of your tank water for every test. This can cause fluctuations in tank salinity. With the minimal sample taken by the Trident, there will be almost no effect on your salinity. Unlike other solutions, potentially contaminated test water is never sent back into the aquarium. Instead, it is sent it to a waste container or drain.

 

The Trident is so quiet that our customers have said they rarely hear it – and when they do hear the quiet little chirps they are pleased to know that new test numbers are coming soon and they never had to pull out a test kit!

 

Syringes, vials, colors, endpoints, expiration dates — now a thing of the past for Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium. Now, with zero effort, you get up to date values for Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium — anywhere in the world!

 

The Trident is a self contained automatic titration colorimeter. That’s quite a mouthful, for sure, so let’s state it as simply as we can. The Trident is basically automating what you (and top scientists) do already when you test your water, that is, perform a color changing titration and interpret the results.

 

On a scheduled basis the Trident carefully mixes its reagents with a small amount of sample water from your aquarium. While doing this, it is measuring (titrating with a precision peristaltic pump) the amounts of each that are necessary to reach an expected color change (determined by the electronic colorimeter). When it finishes the titration, it sends this sample/reagent fluid to your waste container. It then interprets the results of that test and logs the value into your Apex.

 

From the box to testing in under 15 minutes! Unlike other testing systems, there are no reagents to mix, tubes to cut, or pumps or probes to calibrate. Simply plug in one cable, two tubes, and run the setup task on the Apex Fusion mobile app — it holds your hand through the installation with helpful videos along the way.

 

The Trident tests with a precision of +/- 0.05 dKh for Alkalinity and 15ppm for Calcium and Magnesium. This is better than humans can do consistently with every hobby-grade test kit on the market.

 

When you start getting the regular data coming in from the Trident you will be amazed at the things you can see happening. The daily light cycle swing on calcium carbonate uptake. A salinity drop by watching magnesium. An out of sync dosing of calcium. This increased understanding ultimately helps you maintain a better, more successful reef.

 

You can set up your Apex to alert you, or take immediate action(s) when a parameter falls outside of the safe zone you specify. As just one example, you might be dosing an Alkalinity solution and a misconfiguration could lead to overdosing of your tank. The Trident will catch that, alert you, and give you more time to make that correction before its too late and to save your aquarium. The data from the Trident can also be used to turn on and off other devices (like dosers or solenoids) to protect your tank even more.

 

The more stable you maintain proper levels of Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium, the better your corals will grow and thrive. But coral uptake of these supplements often changes and requires us not only to perform more testing, but also seems to put us in a never-ending state of adjusting our dosing levels.

 

The Trident, when paired up with one or more of our DŌS systems solves this problem with Automatic Dosing Control (ADC)

 

When configured on the Apex, ADC will take the results it receives from the Trident and use them to gradually turn up or down the amount of additive your DŌS delivers. But, don’t worry, we have built this feature with safety in mind. With ADC you set your target value and your starting dosing amount and ADC will only tune that dosing level +/-35%. If it takes more than that amount of dosing to keep your aquarium at your target value, then the Apex will stop ADC, revert to your starting dosing amount, and alert you that you need to manually adjust your dosing level. Then, ADC can be reenabled and it will continue to guide your DŌS so that it keeps you as close to your target value as possible.

 

It is possible to use ADC for all three tests – Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium. You can also use one test value to adjust up or down more than one additive delivered by the DOS (i.e. Triton system).

 

When using the default testing schedule of four (4) alkalinity, two (2) calcium, and two (2) magnesium tests a day, the reagent stored inside the Apex will last a full month. And adding new reagent is super simple — just slide out the drawer, remove the old bottle(s), and replace them with new ones. If you desire, you can also run a calibration with the included calibration standard.

 

ABOUT 9 CENTS PER TEST!

The cost of reagents and recurring cost is a valid concern for a hobbyist considering the test kit or automated system – and we designed the Trident with that in mind – keeping those costs as low as possible. Reagent comes in 2-month kits (based on the default testing schedule of 4-Alk/2-Ca/2-Mg per day). These kits include two bottles of Reagent A (changed every month), one each of Reagent B and C (changed every two months), and one bottle of our calibration seawater sample. The reagent kit has at least 240 alkalinity tests and 120 tests each of Calcium and Magnesium. 

 

You will hear the Trident operate from time to time if you listen closely or you have a super-quiet room.  And, as compared to other automated testing systems, it is several dB quieter. While inside your cabinet along with your other equipment, you will likely never even hear it.

 

Automatically tests seawater for Alkalinity, Calcium, and Magnesium

Up to 24 Alkalinity tests per day with +/-.05 dKh precision

Up to 12 Calcium tests per day with +/-15 ppm precision

Up to 12 Magnesium tests per day with +/-15 ppm precision

~7.9ml sample water used per parameter tested

~7 minutes testing time per parameter tested

 

Up to one month of testing before reagents need changing based on base level testing of 4-Alk, 2-Ca, 2-Mg per day.

 

When combined with DŌS system (available seperately), the data from Trident can be used to automatically raise or lower the amount of additives dosed as necessary to maintain stability at user set point.

 

Trident

1Link cable (US/CAN only)

5′ of black sample line tubing

5′ of clear waste line tubing

1-month reagent supply

Calibration Fluid

Get Started Card

 

Apex or ApexEL (not Apex Classic, Lite, or Jr.)

Available 1Link port OR 24v power supply and Aquabus Cable (available separately)

External waste container or drain

Must be located within 4’ of water source to be tested

 

10″H x 4.25″W x 12”D