Whenever a company says their ‘Product X’ is the “best in the world”, we usually will discount their claim and move on to something less outlandish. But in the case of Triton Reef which doesn’t explicitly make that claim, having spent a whole day at their facility wrapping our heads around the inner workings of Inductively Coupled Plasma analysis of seawater, we can say with conviction that there really is no other chemist in the world who has spent a fanatical amount of time getting critical about their aquarium water chemistry, the results of which is evident in their jaw-dropping reef aquarium display.
Triton Reef founder Ehsan Dashti is a veritable mad man at his ICP which is also known as Atomic Emission Spectroscopy, a machine which literally rips molecules apart with plasma that is heated to 10,000 degrees Kelvin, we’re talking an actual temperature of 17,500F/9,700C, not a lamp color. The ICP-AES machine is designed to test freshwater but with his background in chemistry, Ehsan has adapted this beast of a water analyzer to test seawater with methods and protocols that are completely unique, and which have never been applied to testing marine aquarium water.
The ICP-AES machine, and the quarter million dollar lab that supports it, allows Ehsan and Triton Reef to get super-critical about the chemistry of marine aquarium water. Triton Reef goes way beyond testing Calcium, alkalinity, pH and Phosphate and instead, more focus can be paid to much lesser known elements that are either essential and missing, or detrimental and building up to high levels.
For example, Triton Reef can measure the lack of Manganese which he has seen to have a beneficial effect on Goniopora as first theorized by Julian Sprung over ten years ago, Vanadium which really promotes the growth of various filter feeders like sponges and tunicates, and Zinc & Molybdenum which are both co-factors for various biological processes. On the other of the spectrum, Barium, Bromide, Aluminum and flippin’ copper are incredibly common industrial contaminants that seem to occur in even the best of marine aquarium additives, all of which can build up to dangerous levels that noticeably and negatively impact coral growth.
So what can the average aquarist do without access to this super critical level of water quality testing and monitoring? In addition to using ultra-pure Triton Reef additives like the three-part Reef Elementz, the analytical arm of Triton Reef called Triton Lab offers a very novel aquarium water testing service wherein you can send your water sample to be tested at the atomic level. The results of Triton Reef’s testing arre reported back to users online with an incredible breakdown of the many lesser-understood elements of reef aquarium water, with recommendations on how to raise the beneficial elements that are lacking, and alerts to dangerous elements that are building up.
It took us the better part of 10 hours at Triton Reef/Triton Lab to wrap our head around what founder Ehsan Dashti is doing, not to mention the LaniLED that we’ve covered before, a spankin’ new version of which is set to be revealed at InterZoo later this week. If you want to learn more about Triton Reef Elementz, Triton Lab, or the new LaniLED, be sure to visit their InterZoo booth 427 in Hall 3, and you may also find us there at times, riding their wifi to liveblog during the show.
