KH Guardian: Automatic Alkalinity Controller- My Experiences

[Jonty]

I have mine up a running for 12 hrs test every 60 min just for fun, appears to be spot on with my hanna tester. Happy camper right now!

 

[deaclauderdale]

I have mine up a running for 12 hrs test every 60 min just for fun, appears to be spot on with my hanna tester. Happy camper right now!

You have a thread regarding yours? Any video or pics?

 

[Rick.45cal]

I have mine up a running for 12 hrs test every 60 min just for fun, appears to be spot on with my hanna tester. Happy camper right now!

Cool, glad to hear the new one is working! Are you letting it make corrections on your tank yet? Or are you babysitting it still?

 

[Jonty]

Cool, glad to hear the new one is working! Are you letting it make corrections on your tank yet? Or are you babysitting it still?

I am letting adjust the Alk but with a 500gal system and limiting dosing to 80 ML I dont think to much harm can come ..... we will see. I have set it to raise the DKH .5 more to come.

 

[Rick.45cal]

So mine just tested 6.9 dKH (setpoint at 7.0dKH) and it just dispensed what I expected it too to make the corection (~28.2 ml) I decided since my alkalinity is already so low, that I would add the KHG's addition so I dumped it in the area of the sump where it will be dosing into, so now in 4 hours we will see where the alkalinity is at when it runs the next test.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Here's what the control panel for the KHG looks like

Here's what the "System Setup" screen looks like...

And this is what the "Display Record" looks like...

 

[Rick.45cal]

That also made me realize I needed to update it's time and date... it's in the future! :eek:

 

[itwired]

Ok I haven't really given anyone parameters of my tank
So here we go...
Salinity: 35ppt
Temp: 76.9-78.0F
NO3: 2.5ppm
PO4: .03 ppm
Ca: 440 ppm
Mg: 1530 ppm
160 gallons (600L) actual water volume

Nutrient management is a combination of protein skimming (Orphek helix 5000) and a zeovit zeolite reactor run with 1.6L of zeolites. This is agitated 2x daily. I dose NOPOx (6.4ml spread throughout the day via a DOS). Prodibio BioDigest is added (1 vial) every 15 days. Alk/Ca/trace elements are dosed via Tropic Marin Original Balling solutions in equal parts all via DOS dosers. (Balling solutions really do make a HUGE difference, this tank has taken off since I started dosing the balling solutions). I have a third DOS that does AWC on all day long every day. New saltwater is Instant Ocean with adjustments made in alk/Ca/and Mg to match the tank. Currently this is ALL that I dose. I haven't been adding additional elements or nutrients. I have in the past made NO3 and PO4 additions as required to maintain detectable nutrients. I will likely start adding iron occasionally again now that green algae is not present in the tank, (I use Randy's recipe of 1 Fergon tablet dissolved in 25 ml of DI water allow to dissolve overnight then decant the liquid above the precipitate, then dose 1 ml of the clear green liquid per 100 gallons per week).

(My tank is exceptionally high light). Center tank at the sandbed measures 375-385 PAR :eek:. Lighting is provided by a 60" ATI powermodule with 8x80Watt T5's and 4 75watt LED's. It's a beast and I love it. My corals have wonderful colors, and they all seem to be growing.

if your going to add iron you should do it everyday it is consumed in a couple hours. I would do 2 little fishies that was you don't have to mix or do any of that stuff. Just my 2cents :)

 

[samparker]

Ok I bit the bullet and connected dosing line. The KHG is connected to is my frag tank, which is three out of four in to my auto water change daisy chain setup. I am amazed to say that he DKH was 1.5 lower in this tank than in my main tank (I never test frag tank, assume same as main tank). Guess those Acro frags are growing!!!

@Rick.45cal - thanks to your earlier post about the plastic joiners, this was a quick and painless exercise. I can see how it could have absorbed hours if I hadn't read about the issues you had with them though.... Why oh why are they using them????

 

[Sharvey103]

Following along. I am definately a reef addict when it comes to gadgets to make life easier.

 

[Rick.45cal]

if your going to add iron you should do it everyday it is consumed in a couple hours. I would do 2 little fishies that was you don't have to mix or do any of that stuff. Just my 2cents :)

Yeah I know Fe reacts very rapidly, especially in saltwater. I haven't dosed it in probably 4 months because I had bryopsis. Since then I have switched to balling solutions, and auto water changes. Because of that I haven't needed to dose any iron supplements. I will keep my eyes out for the 2littlefishes. But I will say, out of all the iron supplements, that Fergon one seems to make the biggest difference I have seen. (It's worth making it, in my experience). You should try it ;)

@Rick.45cal - thanks to your earlier post about the plastic joiners, this was a quick and painless exercise. I can see how it could have absorbed hours if I hadn't read about the issues you had with them though.... Why oh why are they using them????

That's exactly why I owned up to my stupid mistake, I figured I could probably spare someone else the frustration and embarassment of making that mistake.

I agree, they shouldn't ship them with those in the hoses. That's likely to generate lots of support tickets and phone calls to CoralVue for help. I informed Carlos@CoralVue of my stupidity on the phone so he could add that to his list of what to tell people to do to get the unit operating. (Carlos is great about calling back quick to help with problems, so far their customer service has been very good in my experience).

I'm glad it worked and saved you some time! :D

 

[saltyhog]

How often are you guys going to test and have the unit make corrections? If only 4 times a day will that produce more stability than a dozer via Apex that doses every hour (24 small doses a day)?

 

[Rick.45cal]

Mine is set up to test 6 times a day right now (every 4 hours). I am still dosing Balling solutions via a DOS on my Apex. (I will continue to do so). I can use what the KHG tells me to fine tune what my dosing scheme is. (I noticed my KH drifts up a 0.1 dKH at night because of my dosing, and loses somewhere aroung 0.2 dKH during the day). So I will adjust some of my nightime dose of alk to the daytime schedule on my APEX. Then I will wait and see what and if the KHG decides to dose. (It tells me how much it doses and when).

The KHG will fine tune my alkalinity levels. It's already revealed I need to adjust my schedule to help maintain stabilility. Pretty cool analytical/control tool.

 

[samparker]

How often are you guys going to test and have the unit make corrections? If only 4 times a day will that produce more stability than a dozer via Apex that doses every hour (24 small doses a day)?

At the moment, this is the only unit that tests and then doses accordingly. Everything else is static

 

[prsnlty]

I'm following along Rick... This is so cool! Quite costly for your average reefers pocket atm however :( Hopefully that will come down soon enough.

 

[dragon99]

Mine is set up to test 6 times a day right now (every 4 hours). I am still dosing Balling solutions via a DOS on my Apex. (I will continue to do so). I can use what the KHG tells me to fine tune what my dosing scheme is. (I noticed my KH drifts up a 0.1 dKH at night because of my dosing, and loses somewhere aroung 0.2 dKH during the day). So I will adjust some of my nightime dose of alk to the daytime schedule on my APEX. Then I will wait and see what and if the KHG decides to dose. (It tells me how much it doses and when).

The KHG will fine tune my alkalinity levels. It's already revealed I need to adjust my schedule to help maintain stabilility. Pretty cool analytical/control tool.

I predict a trend in daytime dosing. Seems several folks monitoring ALK have a higher demand when lights are on. Spreading out ALK over 24hrs leads to dips during the day and bumps at night.

 

[Rick.45cal]

I predict a trend in daytime dosing. Seems several folks monitoring ALK have a higher demand when lights are on. Spreading out ALK over 24hrs leads to dips during the day and bumps at night.

Yep that's exactly what I've discovered

 

[Rick.45cal]

So an interesting phenomenon happens when theory becomes practice, it like an organism evolves, it must in order to adapt to unforseen occurances.

Many of us experience this phenomenon when we operate a truly unique, complex piece of machinery (like a reef aquarium and it's associated peripherals and infrastructure combined). The trick is to adapt rapidly enough to not have a catastrophe (like a tank crash). I am not having one at this moment, but many people experiences catastrophic accidents exposing weaknesses in the design of their creation. (We all have have experienced this in some form or another).

So it is important that I share with you how my thoughts/theorys of methodology for incorporating the KHG to it's full potential in my set up as they evolve during this process.

Let me recap what some of the things that I have learned from viewing the results of the KHG over the last few days.

1. My Hanna alkalinity (ppm and dKH) meters are unreliable, inaccurate and because of their inaccuracy I have been running very low alkalinity in my tank for quite some time. (Thanks Hanna Instruments). They are now where they belong, in the trash by the curb.

2. I needed to adjust my alkalinity dosing schedule to remove the KH "bump" I was getting during the night. I have shifted my dosing schedule to attempt to correct this. Time will tell.

3. A graph while visually appealing would actually be much less helpful (it would be nice to have in addition to the chart). The chart really shines in that it is very easy (once you know how to read it) to understand the trends of how it is dosing along side of the KH values. (Think about the reason why P&L sheets are arranged the way they are, it is very easy to pick up trends and spot mistakes). I can really glance at the chart that the KHG provides and be able to tell how often/when/how much it is dosing all with a single chart, and all very quickly. It will make maintaing Ca and my 3rd part dosing very easy to figure out if I need to increase or not (without pulling out the test kits).

If the KHG is dosing often to maintain alkalinity then I need to up my Balling dosing scheme for all 3 parts. If it isn't dosing then I must be close to spot on, if it isn't dosing any corrections and my KH is climbing I need to back off of my Balling dosing. (I hope this makes sense). I will of course test Ca and Mg regularly, but I should still be able to base them all off of KH readings and activity of the KHG.

4. I personally think there is brillance in their use of a low concentration sodium bicarbonate solution and would argue against changing that. There are some very strong advantages to using it this way. It's cheap and easy! Being a low concentration means the larger volume means any error in volume is marginalized. It's easy to mix, they didn't make us buy a standardized solution, and I'm very pleased with that. (Not often does that happen in this industry).

I'm slowly using the KHG to increase my KH by using it's additions and changing the set point once a day. We are at 7.3 dKH as of the last test. (Going to 7.5 dKH and stopping there to start my "alkalinity sweet spot" search. :)

 

[samparker]

1. My Hanna alkalinity (ppm and dKH) meters are unreliable, inaccurate and because of their inaccuracy I have been running very low alkalinity in my tank for quite some time. (Thanks Hanna Instruments). They are now where they belong, in the trash by the curb.

Yeah, checkers are just that - checkers. Still - probably more accurate than most other available test kits in our price range. Unfair to compare a $60 tester to a $2k new bit of tech :p

2. I needed to adjust my alkalinity dosing schedule to remove the KH "bump" I was getting during the night. I have shifted my dosing schedule to attempt to correct this. Time will tell.

I was hoping by having the KHG take care of say 10% of alk requirements, that it will handle this "bump" at night. Time will tell though!

3. A graph while visually appealing would actually be much less helpful (it would be nice to have in addition to the chart). The chart really shines in that it is very easy (once you know how to read it) to understand the trends of how it is dosing along side of the KH values. (Think about the reason why P&L sheets are arranged the way they are, it is very easy to pick up trends and spot mistakes). I can really glance at the chart that the KHG provides and be able to tell how often/when/how much it is dosing all with a single chart, and all very quickly. It will make maintaing Ca and my 3rd part dosing very easy to figure out if I need to increase or not (without pulling out the test kits).

I think a graph will be more beneficial for long term analysis and comparisons. Raw figures are easier when we are talking about a sample of say 10-30 test samples, but up that to around 600-1000 and a graph to show the trend would be nice. Also be nice to overlay say last months consumption to this months consumption, or plot the changes from when you made a variation to your light schedule or when you replace bulbs etc. Lots of potential here, just starting to scratch the surface!

If the KHG is dosing often to maintain alkalinity then I need to up my Balling dosing scheme for all 3 parts. If it isn't dosing then I must be close to spot on, if it isn't dosing any corrections and my KH is climbing I need to back off of my Balling dosing. (I hope this makes sense). I will of course test Ca and Mg regularly, but I should still be able to base them all off of KH readings and activity of the KHG.

4. I personally think there is brillance in their use of a low concentration sodium bicarbonate solution and would argue against changing that. There are some very strong advantages to using it this way. It's cheap and easy! Being a low concentration means the larger volume means any error in volume is marginalized. It's easy to mix, they didn't make us buy a standardized solution, and I'm very pleased with that. (Not often does that happen in this industry).

Couldn't agree more with this. I just wish we could buy the reagent in cheaper non-branded varieties...


Quality feedback, this is fun :D

 

[Rick.45cal]

@samparker Good point on the graph, it would be very nice to have both!

Anyone with access to ICP wanna test the reagent? I'd like to know what's in it. (I have some guesses).