Parameter Reduction Calculator

[james1x0]

Hello Everyone!

I'm a web developer for a living and I enjoy the Reef Central community, although I tend to be quiet.


Weeks ago I decided I would commit some of my free time to an app dedicated to keeping track of your tanks along with their parameters, notes, events, livestock, equipment and more. The app is going to be in development for a while, but I figured I would post a preview of one of the built-in calculators in the app, to advertise and showcase, but also to provide a handy-a** calculator for those trying to reduce certain water parameters.

Check it out and give me some feedback! http://jsbin.com/cejapaquze/1/

I would also love to hear your thoughts and wishes for an app of this caliber.

Thanks,
-James

[rwb500]

no offense but I don't know how many of us need help with math like that. I used to have an excel calculator where I would measure the salinity of my mixing tank, add 2 cups of salt, measure salinity again, and then it would tell me exactly how much salt to add to make it perfect. that's the kind of math that I like help with.

[james1x0]

Originally Posted by rwb500

no offense but I don't know how many of us need help with math like that. I used to have an excel calculator where I would measure the salinity of my mixing tank, add 2 cups of salt, measure salinity again, and then it would tell me exactly how much salt to add to make it perfect. that's the kind of math that I like help with.

That's a great idea. I would need to encompass all of the salt brands out there, but I could see that being useful.

[disc1]

The way rwb500 describes doing it the brand of salt wouldn't matter.

[james1x0]

Originally Posted by disc1

The way rwb500 describes doing it the brand of salt wouldn't matter.

Different compound ratios exist in different brands it seems, but I would say if most reefers find it's negligible, maybe it wouldn't be a factor.

[rwb500]

Originally Posted by james1x0

Different compound ratios exist in different brands it seems, but I would say if most reefers find it's negligible, maybe it wouldn't be a factor.

any variation that would affect the salinity increase per cup of salt could only be caused by huge amounts of the wrong ions. also, the method I have described would still work.

[james1x0]

Originally Posted by rwb500

any variation that would affect the salinity increase per cup of salt could only be caused by huge amounts of the wrong ions. also, the method I have described would still work.

It would definitely.

[ReefsandGeeks]

Theoreticaly If the partical size of the salt were different from brand to brand than one could be more dense, therefore having more salt per cup than another brand. In reality, I doubt very much that there is enough variation from brand to brand to make a distinguishable differance from a cup to cup comparason. You can look up formulas for that if you look up "Linear interpolation". It's retty easy, and valid for most things we dose in an aquarium. The only things that it wouldn't be valid for would be things that aren't linear, like GFO usage to phosphate removal, or GAC...etc. For example tripling the amount of GFO doesn't mean it will move 3 times ad much phosphate. However any liquid or powder additives we put directly into the water would be linear, assuming you don't add so much of something as to cause precipitation.

[ReefsandGeeks]

I don't know if there is a calculator for things like GAC or GFO, but if there is to remove X amount of phosphate from Y amount of water use Z amount of GFO that would be nice. Being that it's not linear you'd have to dig for how much is sugested for different cases, and come up with a formula for it. Not hard if you have alot of data points, can just plug into excel graph and plot a graph and fit a trendline to it. There could be too many veriables to make it consistant though. if that were the case you could make the calculator spit out conservative numbers, or if too inconsistant just ignor all together and scrap the idea.

[james1x0]

Originally Posted by devastator007

Theoreticaly If the partical size of the salt were different from brand to brand than one could be more dense, therefore having more salt per cup than another brand. In reality, I doubt very much that there is enough variation from brand to brand to make a distinguishable differance from a cup to cup comparason. You can look up formulas for that if you look up "Linear interpolation". It's retty easy, and valid for most things we dose in an aquarium. The only things that it wouldn't be valid for would be things that aren't linear, like GFO usage to phosphate removal, or GAC...etc. For example tripling the amount of GFO doesn't mean it will move 3 times ad much phosphate. However any liquid or powder additives we put directly into the water would be linear, assuming you don't add so much of something as to cause precipitation.

The only way I could get particularly accurate results would be to collect the temperature before adding the first dose of salt, and then the amount of salt added, specific gravity afterwards. If you combine the brand to brand and temperature inconsistencies, you could possibly end up with inaccuracies.

[james1x0]

Originally Posted by devastator007

I don't know if there is a calculator for things like GAC or GFO, but if there is to remove X amount of phosphate from Y amount of water use Z amount of GFO that would be nice. Being that it's not linear you'd have to dig for how much is sugested for different cases, and come up with a formula for it. Not hard if you have alot of data points, can just plug into excel graph and plot a graph and fit a trendline to it. There could be too many veriables to make it consistant though. if that were the case you could make the calculator spit out conservative numbers, or if too inconsistant just ignor all together and scrap the idea.

Yeah I will definitely dig in to the math when I get there. It's a good idea. Keep them coming!