(upbeat music)
- Hey, it's Thomas Here.
And today we're gonna be checking out
Auto Aqua's Smart Stir.
If you're looking for an easier way to perform your tests,
especially titration based kits that gives you accurate,
more consistent results, faster and easier,
making it much less likely
that you'll skip past your end point color,
whether it's from pushing the plunger accidentally
while shaking or just not shaking enough
to get it mixed well or for shaking too hard
and losing some of your sample,
then check out Auto Aqua's Smart Stir
super cool little gadget plus it's rechargeable
which means you don't have to worry
about replacing batteries.
And I don't like replacing batteries,
so that makes me pretty happy.
When it comes to titration based tests
for things like alkalinity, calcium and magnesium,
that titrating process is where human error
is most likely to affect the results of the test.
If you're juggling, both pressing the plunger on the syringe
and shaking of the vial it's pretty easy
to accidentally add too many drops at once
or not shake enough between each drop or shake too much
and flick some of your sample out of the vial.
All of which can make it pretty tough
to get an accurate result.
Auto Aqua is aiming to make those testing troubles a thing
of the past with their Smart Stir.
It is a compact rechargeable magnetic stir optimized for use
with our test kits,
so we can get hands-free vigorous and consistent stirring
to help get the most accurate results possible
by providing a rapid and thorough mixing of reagents
and quick and obvious color changes
during the titration process.
And ultimately just making testing a whole lot easier
on us reefers so that we actually wanna get
our tests done, because if we don't do the test
then it's not benefiting anyone.
And if we do them wrong
that's also not really benefiting anyone.
So, make it easy and make it accurate, I get it.
In the box you'll find the Smart Stir, a Stirring Pill
inside of a package, along with what looks like a twist tie
with an iron core for extracting the pill
and a USB Charging Cable.
When you first get it out of the box
you'll want to charge it.
You can use just about any five volt USB charger out there
or you can just use your computer's USB port like I did.
Just plug it in using the included micro USB charging cable
and it will fully charge it in two hours or less.
There are led indicator lights inside the base
and you'll see a red glow while it's charging
and a blue glow, once it has fully charged.
Charging it up will be relatively infrequent,
and you weren't going to get plenty of tests
in between those charges.
It also has an automatic power off function.
So for some reason, you forget it on,
it'll shut itself off to conserve battery life.
Personally, I'm a huge fan of rechargeable gear.
I hate swapping batteries or having to buy batteries
and having to dispose of batteries.
So that's a big win for me
and I'm really glad Auto Aqua went that route.
The Smart Stir is compatible with just about any test kit
and will fit vials up to 27 millimeters in diameter
which is a perfect fit for the Red Sea Test Kits.
But even those smaller (indistinct) vials work
thanks to its very small magnetic mixing pill.
First, get your vial of sample water
place it on top of the Smart Stir
and then drop in the magnetic pill, press the power button,
and the Smart Stir is going to begin mixing.
You can then follow your test kits instructions
and complete the test.
When you see them side by side, it is pretty obvious
how much faster and more precise you can be.
The mixing is instantaneous and you can add drop after drop
and get a near immediate change.
When you only have to focus on putting in
one drop at a time, and you're not getting fatigued
from shaking a bottle separately,
rushing and getting accidental squirts
or double drops is much easier to avoid,
and with that rapid mixing that end point color is stark
and immediate making it way easier
to be much more consistent with your testing.
And if you have consistent testing practices
you're going to have much more precise test results.
And with those precise results, you can dose more accurately
which is going to add to the stability of your reef tank
and lead to happier corals.
Once the test is complete,
you can use the included straight white twist tie
to retrieve the magnetic pill from the vial
and give it a quick rinse in some RODI water
before drying it off and storing it for the next test.
I think the cherry on top with the Smart Stir
is actually its price because magnetic stirs
are traditionally pretty spendy but Auto Aqua managed
to bring this great little device to reefers for 30 bucks,
which is super affordable.
And for anyone looking at getting a test kit
like Red Sea's Reef Foundation
or Salifert or Aqua Forest or any similar test,
this is a great add on that really compliments those kits
and just makes them a cakewalk to perform
and get the best results with.
Now, personally I would be very, very curious to see
how the Smart Stir would have affected the results
of this investigates video on test kit accuracy
and performance.
Oh, I've used a lot of those test kits
and I personally have used the ones that did perform
the best in that video, probably because of ease of use.
I want to see not how this would have affected
those easier test kits,
'cause I'm sure it would have elevated them somewhat,
but could it have taken those test kits that performed
less consistency because of human error
and made them more accurate or more precise
than the ones that performed the best in that video.
I wanna give it a try, have a watch.
(upbeat music)