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Alk Monitors / KH Guardian / Alkatronics / Trident


TheClark

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If you already have an Apex 2016 or Apex-EL, it will be of no surprise that I recommend the Trident.   I've had mine for over two months now and I absolutely love it.  I have completely forgotten how much time I used to spend testing alkalinity and calcium every day, and I rarely tested magnesium but never knew how much it changes daily.  I have my Trident integrated with my DOS pumps to automatically fine-tune my 2-part dosing and it keeps parameters very constant.  I increased the testing interval to every 3 hours, so my tank no longer has daily swings as it's dosing more during the day and less at night.  The biggest challenge if you go with a Trident will probably be the process of finding one in stock.  They're still in short supply.

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37 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said:

If you already have an Apex 2016 or Apex-EL, it will be of no surprise that I recommend the Trident.   I've had mine for over two months now and I absolutely love it.  I have completely forgotten how much time I used to spend testing alkalinity and calcium every day, and I rarely tested magnesium but never knew how much it changes daily.  I have my Trident integrated with my DOS pumps to automatically fine-tune my 2-part dosing and it keeps parameters very constant.  I increased the testing interval to every 3 hours, so my tank no longer has daily swings as it's dosing more during the day and less at night.  The biggest challenge if you go with a Trident will probably be the process of finding one in stock.  They're still in short supply.

Right!  I was totally locked and loaded on Trident.  Still leaning that way but...

My current top runner though is reefbot.  I like the ability to use off the shelf test kits and the ability to use it on multiple systems.  Oh, and also the amount of tests it can do.  It cannot control my CR or dose, but I don't really want that anyways at this point.  Alerting to problems is good, I am glad to tweak my reactor PH or add mag, replace gfo etc...

Still have allot of reading to do, but it sure looks good!

What concerns do you see with it?

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, TheClark said:

Right!  I was totally locked and loaded on Trident.  Still leaning that way but...

My current top runner though is reefbot.  I like the ability to use off the shelf test kits and the ability to use it on multiple systems.  Oh, and also the amount of tests it can do.  It cannot control my CR or dose, but I don't really want that anyways at this point.  Alerting to problems is good, I am glad to tweak my reactor PH or add mag, replace gfo etc...

Still have allot of reading to do, but it sure looks good!

What concerns do you see with it?

Thanks!

Yes, the Trident will not work for multiple tanks (unless they shared a common sump).  If you're not planning to automate changes to dosing, then the Trident's value is reduced to just test results of alk, cal, and mag.

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1 hour ago, SuncrestReef said:

Yes, the Trident will not work for multiple tanks (unless they shared a common sump).  If you're not planning to automate changes to dosing, then the Trident's value is reduced to just test results of alk, cal, and mag.

Yeah, good point.  Just having fun evaluating the options, and Trident is certainly a top runner. 

It's nice to know there are multiple good choices at this point.  We went from zero to many in a very short time!

 

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1 hour ago, Lexinverts said:

I have heard that reefbot is very loud.

Yeah, that makes sense.  I saw they are using A4998 stepper drivers, it could be so much quieter with TMC2130s.  They are pin compatible and dead quiet.  A few more bucks but not much...

I think that is the subtle appeal of the reefbot for me, its the high leverage of 3d printer components in the design.  Good stuff!

Crazy that mindstream is doing their thing finally, definitely gonna check it out.

 

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I have heard a lot of negative reviews of the KH guardian.  Take it with a grain of salt, but people have found they are riddled with problems and some say cheaply constructed.  

 

The thing about the reefbot that concerns me is that there are only 8 testing viles.   So if you want to use a nitrate test other than API.. you are going to use 4 viles just for nitrate.  Phosphate, that is another two.  So you are leveraging the ability to test things others can't now you have two viles left.  So you get Alkalinity now you have one vile left.  API calcium maybe?  

All I really want to test is alk, nitrate, and phospate so it is a good option but I feel the operating cost is going to be high as well.  Just my thoughts, for now its drip drip drip testing. 

 

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1 hour ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

I have heard a lot of negative reviews of the KH guardian.  Take it with a grain of salt, but people have found they are riddled with problems and some say cheaply constructed.  

 

The thing about the reefbot that concerns me is that there are only 8 testing viles.   So if you want to use a nitrate test other than API.. you are going to use 4 viles just for nitrate.  Phosphate, that is another two.  So you are leveraging the ability to test things others can't now you have two viles left.  So you get Alkalinity now you have one vile left.  API calcium maybe?  

All I really want to test is alk, nitrate, and phospate so it is a good option but I feel the operating cost is going to be high as well.  Just my thoughts, for now its drip drip drip testing. 

 

Interesting.  Are you tied to a particular minimum number of tests per day like on the Trident?  While I know some find four tests a day useful and have even gone up from there, i would prefer to be able to have more latitude to adjust the testing schedule down when I'm not trying to dial something in or am not actively dosing but just monitoring.  Seems wasteful of reagents.

Sorry for the hijack Jeremy - at least it's on topic this time 🤗

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5 minutes ago, albertareef said:

Interesting.  Are you tied to a particular minimum number of tests per day like on the Trident?  While I know some find four tests a day useful and have even gone up from there, i would prefer to be able to have more latitude to adjust the testing schedule down when I'm not trying to dial something in or am not actively dosing but just monitoring.  Seems wasteful of reagents.

Sorry for the hijack Jeremy - at least it's on topic this time 🤗

I know a lot of people don’t like the Trident forcing you to run at least 4 tests per day and can understand the cost of reagents is an issue for some people.  One thing I like to point out is that things can change even when you’re not dosing anything or trying to dial something in.  To me the beauty of having automated testing is that you’ll never get caught off guard and realize a parameter is off after it’s too late.  

After having the Trident for only the first few days I learned how much alkalinity and calcium can fluctuate over a 24 hour period.  Without frequent testing, you’ll never realize the swings you’re subjecting your corals to.

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I can understand that it fluctuates throughout the day, but that fluctuation should almost be a constant shouldn't it?  Or you seeing that you have to add reagents at only certain times of day to keep it constant?  I mean, how much fluctuation are we talking about? 

 

Sorry about the derail.  But in regards to the original post, I would like my automated tester to test alk daily and all the others maybe once or twice a week. 

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4 minutes ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

I can understand that it fluctuates throughout the day, but that fluctuation should almost be a constant shouldn't it?  Or you seeing that you have to add reagents at only certain times of day to keep it constant?  I mean, how much fluctuation are we talking about? 

 

Sorry about the derail.  But in regards to the original post, I would like my automated tester to test alk daily and all the others maybe once or twice a week. 

In my tank the swing wasn't huge, but with frequent testing and then adjusting the dosing schedule to account for the peak and low demand periods, I was able to really smooth it out.  Here are some graphs I posted a while back in my Trident Hands On thread:

176807531_ScreenShot2019-06-06at9_43_08PM.thumb.png.29b4ad7148def162bc725a8fab802272.png

If you only test once per day (the red line below), you may think your parameters are very stable.  This shows what's actually happening:

1876409635_ScreenShot2019-06-02at9_53_10AM.thumb.png.be2db9761c386d56806ecd3a03ca87e6.png

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1 hour ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

Suncrest... nice graphs, but I can't help to think that that the swing recorded is related to tank PH.  Have you ever looked at PH and Alk on the same graph?   How does the trident deal with PH differences?  

Here's that same graph including pH.  The daily pH swing didn't really change after adjusting the dosing schedule to smooth out alkalinity.

Screen Shot 2019-07-16 at 4.02.23 PM.png

 

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2 hours ago, SuncrestReef said:

After having the Trident for only the first few days I learned how much alkalinity and calcium can fluctuate over a 24 hour period.  Without frequent testing, you’ll never realize the swings you’re subjecting your corals to.

This is an interesting point but I do think there is still a valid question regarding how material these fluctuations actually are.  Obviously, in theory, the more stability the better but plenty of people have been super successful growing difficult corals without ever being aware of such short term fluctuations - which, I'm guessing were likely also occurring in their systems and could be  related to normal photosynthetic cycles/pH etc. (as your graphs above suggest is possible).  Also, while the ocean has a near infinite buffering capacity compared to our tanks, do we actually know that such cyclic fluctuations aren't also occurring in the natural reef environment?  While this is (another) bit of an aside, I do think it raises some interesting questions about what is reasonable or even desirable to strive for in terms of control once we have the ability to measure these parameters much more often.

Regardless of that diatribe, I would prefer the ability to set my own testing schedule and not be forced into 4 times a day for any given parameter - regardless of the cost I just find it needlessly limiting (I'm weird that way). 🤗  Just to be fair, I criticized this specific aspect of the Trident in my "like/dislike" post in the preview thread so not something new.

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2 hours ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

Sorry about the derail.  But in regards to the original post, I would like my automated tester to test alk daily and all the others maybe once or twice a week. 

This is where I am at (in my perhaps naïveté).  

Edit: should it worry me that I'm actually agreeing with pdxmonkeyboy on something?

 

3 hours ago, SuncrestReef said:

One thing I like to point out is that things can change even when you’re not dosing anything or trying to dial something in.  To me the beauty of having automated testing is that you’ll never get caught off guard and realize a parameter is off after it’s too late.  

This I think is a good point but would hope that most other failures that could directly/indirectly impact these parameters significantly could/would be covered by other pieces of control logic (flow indicators, power draw, etc.).  That said - never hurts to have extra layers of protection for sure.  As we all know, nothing in this hobby is failsafe!

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8 minutes ago, albertareef said:

This is an interesting point but I do think there is still a valid question regarding how material these fluctuations actually are.  Obviously, in theory, the more stability the better but plenty of people have been super successful growing difficult corals without ever being aware of such short term fluctuations - which, I'm guessing were likely also occurring in their systems and could be  related to normal photosynthetic cycles/pH etc. (as your graphs above suggest is possible).  Also, while the ocean has a near infinite buffering capacity compared to our tanks, do we actually know that such cyclic fluctuations aren't also occurring in the natural reef environment?  While this is (another) bit of an aside, I do think it raises some interesting questions about what is reasonable or even desirable to strive for in terms of control once we have the ability to measure these parameters much more often.

Regardless of that diatribe, I would prefer the ability to set my own testing schedule and not be forced into 4 times a day for any given parameter - regardless of the cost I just find it needlessly limiting (I'm weird that way). 🤗  Just to be fair, I criticized this specific aspect of the Trident in my "like/dislike" post in the preview thread so not something new.

There's definitely no right or wrong way to run a reef tank (well, there probably are a lot of wrong ways to do it..) and all of us have different methodologies.  I'll confess I'm a data junkie and can't get enough input to satisfy me.  All of these automated testing systems have pros & cons.  I'm just glad to see the industry moving this direction.

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It looks like reefbot has no minimum required tests, you can set it to test as little or as often as you want.  That's a plus for sure.

I am so surprised they limited the number of vials though.  I suppose it is shipping / packaging / cost related, dunno.  There was nothing stopping them from making that box allot longer though and holding more vials.

Lots of good discussion here I sure appreciate folks weighing in.

 

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1 minute ago, TheClark said:

I am so surprised they limited the number of vials though.  I suppose it is shipping / packaging / cost related, dunno.  There was nothing stopping them from making that box allot longer though and holding more vials.

Any chance that is something you could mod to increase capacity?  Haven't checked it out but sounds intriguing!

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15 minutes ago, albertareef said:

Any chance that is something you could mod to increase capacity?  Haven't checked it out but sounds intriguing!

It seems unlikely.  You'd need to expand the cabinet, the vial holder, the stepper motor track, the program logic to know how far to move, and the system to know it has extra vials:

ReefBot.jpg

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Just now, SuncrestReef said:

It seems unlikely.  You'd need to expand the cabinet, the vial holder, the stepper motor track, the program logic to know how far to move, and the system to know it has extra vials:

Well Jeremy is pretty handy 😃 I will have to get a look at that sometime... seems like the vial handling might be similar to our old scintillation counters.

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scintillation counters, interesting!

Voiding the warranty would be my concern!  Next challenge would be the firmware, its probably not open source.  If I could get past all that, the case could be modded for sure!  I am guessing though they have good reasons for their design decisions, hard to know...  

I love the idea of this kit, would not be surprised if reefpi or someone tries to do an open source version.  It would be epic!!  Reading the test results seems particularly challenging though without the right knowledge and equipment...

 

 

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On 7/15/2019 at 7:09 PM, Lexinverts said:

Don’t forget Mindstream. It is now on sale. They are shipping in about a month.

10 parameters: Alk, ca, mg, k, salinity, ph, O2, CO2, temp, ammonia.

It’s pricey, but not that different from the other options.

Wow, mindstream looks very good as well. I might need to wait a month for the competition to settle out.  What a difference, from no options to so many overnight...

 

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8 minutes ago, TheClark said:

Wow, mindstream looks very good as well. I might need to wait a month for the competition to settle out.  What a difference, from no options to so many overnight...

 

Continuous salinity monitoring is huge.  How many tanks over the years have crashed due to RODI overrun or skimmer overflow? 

The o2 monitoring has never been available to us realistically (700 probe on apex, rumored to not be reliable, test kits are a pain and hard to read).

The one thing I wish it had was nitrate, but maybe ammonia is enough to tell the tank nutrient levels?

Fascinating shoot out going on...

 

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