Dose Alk with Trident. Help me get this straight.

[chicago]

Pulling hair out.. I have tried and tried to get the Dose to work with the Trident... and yet I am getting what I think are to big of swings... goes from 7.25 to 7.95 in a 24 hour period some times.. so then I turn it off and goes down and I turn it back to auto ect.
I did have it set to do like 300 ML a day.. that was not working so now I have and am using control dosing and like trident decide.. but is a mess. help me out and let me know what you use for your settings to control dose alk and calcium . my alk I am dosing on three intervals.. like one at night and one morning and one afternoon. for a total of 450 .... my setting is 7.5 with a deviation of .20 so how is it going past 7.70... shouldnt the trident stop dosing...

some screen shots..

 

[Troylee]

It’s hard to dail that in… I’ve noticed just over the holidays having family stay with me my co2 levels go up and my ph drops which drops my alk usage in my tank! I have it dialed where it stays 9.6 to 9.8 then comes the visitors and now I’ve crept up 10.3 as my corals consume less with a low ph.. I don’t have mine to dose off the trident readings I just use all for reef at 80ml a day and it’s stayed solid! I’ll back off my all for reef for a couple days then get back to Maintence dosage.

 

[areefer01]

Pulling hair out.. I have tried and tried to get the Dose to work with the Trident... and yet I am getting what I think are to big of swings... goes from 7.25 to 7.95 in a 24 hour period some times.. so then I turn it off and goes down and I turn it back to auto ect.
I did have it set to do like 300 ML a day.. that was not working so now I have and am using control dosing and like trident decide.. but is a mess. help me out and let me know what you use for your settings to control dose alk and calcium . my alk I am dosing on three intervals.. like one at night and one morning and one afternoon. for a total of 450 .... my setting is 7.5 with a deviation of .20 so how is it going past 7.70... shouldnt the trident stop dosing...

some screen shots..

Don't take this the wrong way but your post is a bit hard to understand. It sounds like you are trying to dose ALK but ran into a issue then tried to use Trident controlled dosing. I would make it easy on yourself and just use the task for DOS Additive Dosing. It will guide you through in 6 or so steps. That is, after you calibrate it first.

The task actually has solid documentation to guide you through it. After calibration select units, volume, start time, end time. That is more or less it. I dose 80 ml of all for reef between 0900 and 2000 (lights on).

I do not like dosing large amounts of anything in small bursts like that but rather let the Apex does it over time. The only product I dose in a single burst is 5 to 10 ml/day ESV transition element. That is ok since it is a small amount.

Example of my schedule for reference:

 

[chicago]

on another note... thoughts on these swings.... Having issue with my sps and not sure if these swings are large enought to cause what looks like alk burn on tips of my acros.

 

[Troylee]

on another note... thoughts on these swings.... Having issue with my sps and not sure if these swings are large enought to cause what looks like alk burn on tips of my acros.

I’d say no, as that’s a borderline low alk reading all the way around.. alk burn is typically 12-13 ish alk “which people run” and low nutrients.. any pics of your sps with problems?

 

[chicago]

yep.. just looked at my post.. a bit confusing..
I use to do the dose.... without trident monitoring... for example as you said..
dose 200 ML of alk a day over 24 hours.
dose 200 ML of Calcium a day over 24 hours..
Had the trident so thought try it out to see if it helps.. same issues... I cant get anything dialed in..
I used the 24 hours a day... nope.
I used the trident set it and let it run it .. nope.. and I guess my frustration is this... shouldnt the trident limit or increase the dosing based on my set goal of 7.5 with an up or down of .20 ?

 

[chicago]

I guess my second question was... what is the drop or increase and in what time period do sps seem to have issues with.... my alk is usually around 7.4 or 7.6.. but on occasion has jumped over a period of day to lets say... 8.2 from 7.6....... I never thought of that being too much.. over 24 hours.. but perhaps I am wrong... i have been at this for 40 years... and funny thing is.. when i did not monitor or dose like I do know.. tank looked way better.. too many toys in the tank to play with....let me find a pic or two and post

 

[Troylee]

I guess my second question was... what is the drop or increase and in what time period do sps seem to have issues with.... my alk is usually around 7.4 or 7.6.. but on occasion has jumped over a period of day to lets say... 8.2 from 7.6....... I never thought of that being too much.. over 24 hours.. but perhaps I am wrong... i have been at this for 40 years... and funny thing is.. when i did not monitor or dose like I do know.. tank looked way better.. too many toys in the tank to play with....let me find a pic or two and post

I’ve never had issues with that kinda jump personally… like i showed above mine went up a decent amount just from having a few extra people in my house and my ph tanking.. so many variables play Into this it’s crazy! Like you said the newer toys get us chasing stuff and causing more harm than good like the old days haha! I mean in a perfect world the trident dose should keep it super close but testing every 6 hours causes it to adjust over and over I don’t see it being perfect but close I’d guess..

 

[areefer01]

yep.. just looked at my post.. a bit confusing..

Hopefully I said it above but I was not judging nor meant disrespect. I was just trying to understand so thank you for clarity.

I used the trident set it and let it run it .. nope.. and I guess my frustration is this... shouldnt the trident limit or increase the dosing based on my set goal of 7.5 with an up or down of .20 ?

Trident controlled, or assisted, dosing task is run after 7 to 10 days of normal use if I remember correctly. In the case of alk you specify the level that should be maintained by both Trident and DOS. Then you set the volume of additive that you normally dose per day to maintain that level. From there the Trident will have a bit of control between two numbers to the target. If the test result is bad or it has an error it suspends controlled dosing and falls back to your normal amount. You can trigger an alert or alarm but it has been a while since I've used it.

In theory yes, you should be able to get your goal. However if there are large swings be it consumption or test error than the Trident falls back to the normal amount you set to prevent something catastrophic happening. Which is nice.

As to why you are having the swings or issues I'm not sure to be honest. @Troylee gave a few good tips. Maybe lighting also. You may have already said but ignoring the results for a moment have there been any changes?

New lights?
New corals?
New fish?
Salt change?
Other additives or changes?

 

[chicago]

thank you for the input guys.... too many variables recently... two months ago dosed lathium.. killed and stressed a bunch of sps. then the clean up. then lots of water changes ect.... I match new water alk to the tank...
in the end.. this thread got a bit side tracked due to my inclusion of current sps dying off..
No offense taken by anyone responding to my question.. was in a hurry to post..
I think the trident is nice to have and test.. but I cant help but go back to 10 years ago and more to my tank and how great it looked... Metal Halide bulbs, bit heavy on phosphate, some algae growing but sps with so much color. deep sand bed in my sump in the basement ect..... everything keeps changing... funny how I go back to my old equipment... just restarted my kalk reactor..

Be well all and thanks for the input...

 

[Troylee]

thank you for the input guys.... too many variables recently... two months ago dosed lathium.. killed and stressed a bunch of sps. then the clean up. then lots of water changes ect.... I match new water alk to the tank...
in the end.. this thread got a bit side tracked due to my inclusion of current sps dying off..
No offense taken by anyone responding to my question.. was in a hurry to post..
I think the trident is nice to have and test.. but I cant help but go back to 10 years ago and more to my tank and how great it looked... Metal Halide bulbs, bit heavy on phosphate, some algae growing but sps with so much color. deep sand bed in my sump in the basement ect..... everything keeps changing... funny how I go back to my old equipment... just restarted my kalk reactor..

Be well all and thanks for the input...

My tank is ran old skool besides a trident lol.. still got metal halides, a skimmer for filtration and that’s it! Top off with kalk and use all for reef on a doser and nothing else but flow and lots of it!