Any alternatives to trident worth it?

[Nathan Bertsch]

Curious if anyone knows of an alternative to the trident that can control an outlet for a co2 regulator used commonly on calcium reactors? The other issue is finding a co troller where the reagents and dosing pump tubes are readily available. I’m having zero luck and my 4th trident just took a dump last week. I get about 2 years per machine but don’t care about anything other than alkalinity testing and I’d like to be able to test 12+ times a day.

 

[LiLinka]

Wait and Save up for the new hydros maven coming out soon. Will blow the trident out do the water.

 

[n2585722]

Curious if anyone knows of an alternative to the trident that can control an outlet for a co2 regulator used commonly on calcium reactors? The other issue is finding a co troller where the reagents and dosing pump tubes are readily available. I’m having zero luck and my 4th trident just took a dump last week. I get about 2 years per machine but don’t care about anything other than alkalinity testing and I’d like to be able to test 12+ times a day.

If you are just interested in alkalinity test then a Hydros X10 with a iV may be what you need. It uses the same 4-1 mix for reagent that the Alkatronic uses. I have one but I only test 4 times a day but you can test more often but if you are dumping the beaker back to the tank you may want to limit the number of times. I do dump mine back to the tank after the test. The testing requires 3 dosing pumps. One needs to have a flow rate around 2-3 ml a minute. The X10 has 4 pumps and can be used for all three pump. When I had it setup stand alone to begin with I used a simple doser on a drive port for the drain pump and that freed up 2 dosing pumps on the X10 for dosing All For Reef and a KH buffer. So it did the test and also dynamically dosed the KH buffer dependent on the test results. I have the drain pump going back into the tank so after the test it drains back into the tank and refills the beaker again from the tank.

 

[spsick]

GHL KH Director has been wonderful for me for past 2 years. I got a used SA unit and have done zero maintenance. Use DIY reagent so it has been very low cost to operate. Always within .5dkh of Salifert when I spot check.

 

[thedon986]

Wait and Save up for the new hydros maven coming out soon. Will blow the trident out do the water.

Allegedly, if it ever releases. Love my Trident I bought second hand. Has been running almost two years with no service other than cleaning the cuvette periodically. Always accurate when I check periodically with my Hanna Alk checker.

 

[reely989]

Wait and Save up for the new hydros maven coming out soon. Will blow the trident out do the water.

No one knows release or how well it will work. After having a Trident and seeing reviews of all the other units on the market, I'm not very convinced that auto testing is gonna be something that is reliably tackled in the next year or two. I think there are some methods for Alkalinity that make sense and I'm just gonna stick to that. I don't think calcium and magnesium are that vital to test daily anyway.

 

[Oldreefer44]

Need a definition for "worth it" I have had several of the controllers/testers including, Trident, KH guardian, KH Carer, Alkatronic, which I feel was the best of the bunch, and Mastertronic. And still ended up testing myself, using mostly Hanna, because sooner or later all of them became somewhat unreliable.

 

[BryanM]

Here's my .02c...

If you subscribe to Randy's don't test mag method, I pretty much also believe you likely don't need to test for calc either assuming you're doing regular water changes or dosing....

Then ALK is the test to do...

Water changes or dosing ALK + trace elements, and keeping alk stable is key.

While I'd love an automated tester for phos and nitrates, its my feeling they don't change THAT quick. After you get a good cadence for your system you can probably test these every other week or maybe even less, unless you're wanting to maintain an ultra tight ship and keep nitrates 3-5 and phos .01-.03.

For me, lifes too short for that much stress.

assuming the maven gets released and works well, that's going to be one heck of a unit though... And I suspect it will both be released and it will work well.