davinaster Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 A lot of us have backgrounds in biology and/or chemistry, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one who is frustrated by the primitiveness of water quality test kits: What the hell is "Ammonia Reagent 2"? It smells like phenol, to the best of my recollection, but I can't find any info online about what these reagents are. Similarly, "6 drops"?! OK, I'm American, and I never learned decimal that well. Is "drop" one of those weird units of measurement like "peck"? Precision. Do any of you have access to an auto-pipette so that you can measure exactly 5 ml of water? Then again, if your reagents are measured in drops, I guess this issue is moot. Precision again. I remember the good old days when I stuffed everything into a spectrophotometer and got a reading with 3 significant digits to the right of the decimal point. None of this squinting at a piece of paper going, "Well, I think the pH is between 7.5 and 8.0. Maybe 7.8? What do you think?" I mean, what kind of s*** is that? Contamination! I used to wear gloves, wash all my equipment with HCl and rinse with distilled water, and all the major stuff got autoclaved, because even breathing on a sample could contaminate it! Now I reach in and pull out a piece of dog fur? - oh, well... Precision again, huh? Hmmm... A lot of emotion about this - anal much? :nerd: Link to comment
angryfly Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Buy a spectrophotometer then. Link to comment
davinaster Posted January 12, 2005 Author Share Posted January 12, 2005 Ultrospec 3300 pro UV/Visible Spectrophotometer: $12,145.00 25+ polyp Acanthastrea Lord.: $1299 Inducing someone on nano-reef.com to be a wise-ass: priceless Link to comment
angryfly Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Geez, I guess I will be sticking to test kits! Why is that coral so expensive? Link to comment
davinaster Posted January 12, 2005 Author Share Posted January 12, 2005 No kidding... As for the coral, I have no idea. I was just looking for the most expensive one I could find, point being I'd rather spend my money on corals! Tigahboy might know why it cost so much; he's got a couple of this species in his tank. Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 If you want to be a professional chemist about it, buy the "Ultrospec 3300 pro UV/Visible Spectrophotometer: $12,145.00" to give you some graphed read outs to .XXX. If not, stick to your $30 test kit and get the general idea. The test kits are made not to count the PMTs but to give you a general idea of what is in your tank. And for the 5mL of water, that is why they put that one and only line on the tube which says fill to here ( just as in your graduated cylinder.) And if you feel most deepest desire to get 5mL perfectly, go buy a µL pipet or stop b¡tching. Thanx, Your honest BioChem Major, Bravo PS: Benzene is my friend, how about you? Link to comment
Seldon Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 or just run over to the chem lab and use theirs. Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Besides, to truly get exaly 5ml of water, you would need to be @ 4°C so that water is properly alined to yeild the density of 1.00000 g/cm³. GOTTA LOVE HOW WATER'S BOND ANGLE 104.5° BECAUSE THOSE 2 SETS OF UNPAIRED ELECTRONS. Link to comment
Seldon Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 wow, i think you just took being a wise-ass to a whole new level. ha ha Link to comment
dhenning25 Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Ok, sorry to bring this back on topic, but does anyone have methods for running lab tests on Reef water if lab instruments are available. My tank is in a lab so instrument access is available. Or you could just flame me Dave Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 I was only flaming b/c davinaster jumped the n00b about begin introduced. As far as running the water sample through anything like a GCMS, i never have and it would contain so many different amount of substances I imagen the graph be look like a 1st graders pencil sketch. But if you knew what retention times your chemicals had that you were wondering about, then you could look at those time and see if anything came out. Link to comment
dhenning25 Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 I was thinking more wet chemistry/spectrophotometer methods. I agree that a GCMS / HPLC spectra would be difficult at best to decipher. Is there a good book on this? The only reef book I have don't cover testing in a lab setting. Also, does anyone have info on the concentrations of suppliments such as iodine. It kills me to think of spending $20 on Iodine from the LFS when we use it in the lab all the time. Dave Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Maybe try contacting GARF or ORA, somewhere large scale professional, that would maybe use something such as expensive chemistry lab equipiment to test water. I have wondered the exact same thing since my dorm is next to the science building and since I have clearance to access them anytime I would like. Ummm... Link to comment
aaronfmd Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 One idea i had was photographing with a digital camera both the reference card and my colored water and putting them into photoshop. I think there is some way in photoshop to numerically quantify a color like the amount of RGB in a number 1-100. Anyway, I thought if i could compare it to the sampled colors from the number card I might be able to better quantify it. Any suggestions? I'm a physician, and it's been a while since I was in organic lab. I know my third reagent for NH4 has sodium nitropursside in it. I'll remember that when i'm having my hypertension stroke from all of my livestock dying. Link to comment
NCNBilly Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 "...I got all the ingredients. All I need is a place to cook." -Dr. Timothy Leary in Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas. Let me at the lab. Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 But who to say that the camera captured the color correctly from the card and tube? That just has a lot a varibles. A good idea never the less if someone really wanted to get down and dirty with numbers and had the time. I think I'll just look at the two and get a ~#. :nerd: Link to comment
davinaster Posted January 12, 2005 Author Share Posted January 12, 2005 HAH, bravoreefer! You may give me a hard time, but you certainly got involved in the discussion, did you not? Now, your first post telling me to stop *****ing was simply mean and made me cry :*( The second one (which you presumably only wish you had been clever enough to think of before your first post ) about the freezing point of seawater and the alignment of H20 was darned funny And run over to the lab and test it? Did you not hear me lamenting about "the good old days"? Them days have come and went. Got my marine biology degree in 1990. I think my nano-reef may be an early-onset midlife crisis. aaronfmd -- I think that's a great idea - to let the computer do the comparing. Unfortunately, bravoreefer's probably right. But why not try? See how close the computer gets to your eyeball? I'd love to hear how that experiment goes. If it works, you could extrapolate values between the ones given on the cards. Hmmm... Link to comment
dhenning25 Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 BTW being partially color-blind does not help when trying to compare stupid colors on a little card. Link to comment
Seldon Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 But, wouldnt the camera/computer see all the colors the same way. Granted they would be off from reality, but to the same degree for each sample and the color card. so take a pic of the color card and a pic of the sample. Determine the "number" that each color corresponds to then the same for the sample and wala. Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 Colorblind may need to use this computer comparing method. Seldon: what camera do you use? O, that's right; you use my digital camera... =) Good idea roommate. davinaster: Since when did I stop tell you to stop *STARING*? Link to comment
Seldon Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 stfu bravo, im talking cameras in general. not yours specifically. Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 13, 2005 Share Posted January 13, 2005 Sure thing roommate :ninja2: Link to comment
MrAnderson Posted January 15, 2005 Share Posted January 15, 2005 6 drops of water/most aqueous solutions = 300uL; I'm sure you can figure out the conversion. 5mL can be accurately measured with a 5mL syringe. If your kit doesn't have one try Salifert. Yes, this is accurate enough given the readout resolution. As for sterility... well I really don't know what to say. The tank water is far from sterile. Acid washed glassware is not necessary for this stuff. But then again, I set up kb-sized PCR reactions on parafilm, so obviously I'm not too concerned about the random speck Also, the accuracy of a spec is way overkill... I have access and don't bother plotting titrations because it's crazy; my eyes are accurate enough. Yes, these tests are primitive, but most tests are chemically very simple and the reactions specific. Link to comment
bravoreefer Posted January 15, 2005 Share Posted January 15, 2005 Close enough for me~ Link to comment
davinaster Posted January 16, 2005 Author Share Posted January 16, 2005 Originally posted by bravoreefer davinaster: Since when did I stop tell you to stop *STARING*? I don't know what's up with that. I typed the same word you did, but I got edited. Well, bleep that bleep! Link to comment
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