KH Guardian: Automatic Alkalinity Controller- My Experiences

[coralbeauties]

Are you wanting the KHG to dictate the dosing or why cant you just use the OSC code to dose and then adjust as needed using the KHG to monitor.

I was having issues with my ca reactor keeping up with my alk demand and thought that I would just have my apex turn a doser for a small amount pending how low my alk tested at. I increased the pressure of my regulator on the reactor and it has helped. I have the kh monitor now but wish that it was the controller model. Cant justify another $500 or so for the controller model.

Hey so I have an odd one. For the past few weeks my KHG would not draw SW into reaction chamber. I tried to de-gas, purge chamber and everything but I would keep getting a PW<Err even when nothing would be in the reaction chamber. When I would go to degas the SW line, it would not even kick the SW pump on and would give me a error. SW line was clear and not blocked and didn’t even have air bubbles in the line.

So I noticed a burning smell in the house today and after some work investigating everything, realized it was coming from the controller. I opened up the back panel after unplugging the unit and saw a couple of black pools on the chip card. When I plugged in the power, I saw that one of the black tower things on the chip card (sorry, I have no idea how to make sense of a chip card and what part is what) was smoking and melting. I immediately unplugged it. I purchased early 2018 and submitted a ticket with Coral Vue. I’m lucky I was home or it would definitely started a fire.

Curious though, has anyone experienced anything similar?

I accidentally fried the power regulator inside mine and was able to send the board back to kh guardian in Taiwan and they fixed it reasonably. If yours wont be covered under any warranty contact them direct and they will take care of you. Super great company for support.
Jeff

 

[jnvd3b]

I was having issues with my ca reactor keeping up with my alk demand and thought that I would just have my apex turn a doser for a small amount pending how low my alk tested at. I increased the pressure of my regulator on the reactor and it has helped. I have the kh monitor now but wish that it was the controller model. Cant justify another $500 or so for the controller model.

I see. What you are asking could be done assuming you have the AIM module and Kh values are already showing in Apex.

Personally I would stay away from that approach, but that’s just my opinion. Adding another item to the equation is just adding another potential point of failure. If the Alk levels are low I would manually tweak the CaRx to get them in line, using KHG as a monitor (which sounds like you are doing)

But thats just my .02 as someone who has had Apex/brs doser combo dump 1500ml of carbocalcium into my 40g breeder overnight, with little to no Ph effect to act as a cutoff.

A CaRx that is ‘offline’, paired with a monitor like the KHG, paired potentially with some redundancy/backups like Apex cutting off the feed pump in emergency IMO is the sweet spot. Unfortunately don’t have a CaRx currently but when I get a bigger tank...

 

[yellojello]

@jjoos99 unless your CaRX is undersized and running at max capacity, I don't see why KHG and Apex combo couldn't fully control the Alk level. What pH are you running inside the reactor and media? What flow rate or drip rate? Typically I just use Apex to automatically turn off the co2 solenoid (leave carx recirc pump and peristaltic pump or feed pump constantly on) when alk is too high. I just added OSC virtual outlets like Melev did here https://www.melevsreef.com/blog/trident-controlled-calcium-reactor . What this does it not a hard turn off of co2, it turns co2 off for 5 minutes and on for 15 minutes and repeats the cycle, which gently lowers the concentration of the effluent, which ends up being a smoother alk drop than a hard shut off.

 

[mitch91175]

Found this thread and maybe someone here can give me some assistance. I have a used unit that I am attempting to get setup. It didn't have a power supply but I did find a 12V one that powers on the unit.

But every time I try to degas the unit, it restarts. Any suggestions?

 

[reefwiser]

So you bought this used. Did you do a reset to the default setting for the unit. It may still be set up for the previous owners system.

 

[mitch91175]

So you bought this used. Did you do a reset to the default setting for the unit. It may still be set up for the previous owners system.

Yes I did a reset from the web ui. That doesn't solve the re-starting of the unit though. I am wondering is my power supply may not be the correct one. I just used a 12V I had laying around.