Alkalinity controller.

[galantra]

I’m looking for some ideas as well as help in the direction in getting an alkalinity controller. I really like the idea of something that can regulate it for me a little bit easier compared to me doing it manually often. I wanted to know if people can chime in and give me their experiences as well as brands that they’re using

I have done it all from kalkwasser, dosing, and even having a calcium reactor, which is now just sitting collecting dust with all the new changes. I want to give this a try and see if this works better for me and for my needs.

Any information will be greatly appreciated

 

[TheSheff]

I’m looking for some ideas as well as help in the direction in getting an alkalinity controller. I really like the idea of something that can regulate it for me a little bit easier compared to me doing it manually often. I wanted to know if people can chime in and give me their experiences as well as brands that they’re using

I have done it all from kalkwasser, dosing, and even having a calcium reactor, which is now just sitting collecting dust with all the new changes. I want to give this a try and see if this works better for me and for my needs.

Any information will be greatly appreciated

I think GHL makes one that has a doser on it already. Stuff like that is always too expensive, so I just use a normal doser. Once you get the dosage right you shouldn't really have to worry unless you're making a ton of changes.

 

[BryanM]

KH Guardian makes one that works well, but its more of a chemistry instrument/tool, it is a bit finicky to set up, but it does work quite well.

 

[Project1004]

I been using 2nd hand Alkatronic + dosetronic for about a year now. And if I must, I won’t recommend it. Simply due to it being loud when testing (dosetronic is fine and I use them separately and not together) and also needing to buy reagents (diy recommended) and calibration is required quite often after. And you will use ph 4 &7. I have like 10pack each… -.- The tubes are hard to come by, (I had to contact OEM in china). But once you got it dired in, it’s good for few month and time for recalibration. If you worked around the inlet of the tester, time to calibrate. It must be set and forget. Until the chart starts to look funny.

I have a small tanks with small frags, so my dkh is pretty stable on daily bases. I personally like having Alkatronic since I travel and don’t have to test for dkh. I still do once a week using Hanna.

If it had option to test once a day, I think that’s enough. It’s minimum of 2 test per day. I like to prolong the life of the machine, since I don’t think I can sell it… and have to deal with new buyer to take them thru…. No thanks… lol…

Here is an example of having to recalibrate like 4 times -.-
And I really would like to have it tested at 6am and 6pm and not at 7…

 

[galantra]

Yeah that’s my biggest fear having to constantly tinker around with it to get it right. I have a larger tank with lot of frags. So I get random swings so I wanted something that can adjust to keep me more stable.

 

[Mebbid]

If im not mistaken, a Hydros system with an iV can automate dosing of alkalinity.

 

[n2585722]

If im not mistaken, a Hydros system with an iV can automate dosing of alkalinity.

With the X10 and iV you can do stand alone testing and dosing. The X10 has 2 drive ports and one will be used to power the stirrer in the iV. What I did was add a simple doser to the second drive port for the drain dosing pump and used two of the X10 dosing pumps for the fill and reagent pumps. That left the other two dosing pumps for dosing my KH buffer and All For Reef. I use dynamic dosing on the KH buffer. I also have 4 different schedules for it since it amount will depend on the time of day as to how much to dose. I also test for alkalinity before the dosing 4 times a day. I did add it to my collective so it is now part of the collective. The X10 has a pH port but that will be needed for the iV but you can schedule separate pH testing between the alkalinity test, It will do a pH test before starting the alkalinity test. It also has a salinity port so you can get a salinity probe and add that to the iV. It will test the salinity with the pH if you do that. There are also 4 sense ports you can hook up things like temp sensor, water level sensors and leak detectors.