Mag dosing with BRS pump and emulating some Trident control parameters

ConsummatePro

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I’m using Trident controlled dosing for alk and calcium but am planning to use the BRS doser for magnesium.

Just to get some idea I used the task wizard to see how Trident controlled dosing would do this assuming a target Mag of 1280, and using 40 ml of magnesium solution (BRS recipe) to get a 165 gallon and from Mg 1277 to 1280 (my Trident shows about 3 ppm drop per day).

The Trident plan was:

Trident control range 1230 - 1330 (+/- 50)
Alarm if Mg <1230 or >1330

If I try to emulate this using Apex traditional programming and just have it turn on dosing once my mag < 1270 and shut off if Mag is > 1310. These are arbitrary variances from Trident parameters since Trident will keep running the same volume when the Mg is at target but shuts off if high or if too low for safety.

Does this programming make any sense?

I used the reeftronic site to calculate 40 cc at 1.1ml per min over 24h.


Fallback OFF
Set OFF
OSC 000:00/001:31/058:29 Then ON
If Mgx9 > 1310 Then OFF
If Mgx9 < 1270 Then ON

I’ve not started dosing any mag yet so I could just start with half of the calculated amount and see how it goes. Open to suggestions.
 

MnFish1

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You can certainly do that - You shouldn't need to be quite so careful with Mg - but rather - set an alarm/notification when the Mg is below a certain number - use one of the calculators to merely dose it up to whatever amount you need. It takes out one more possibility for 'failure'.

As to your programming, I'm not sure the function of the OSC command. It seems to me that you want the Mg to be dosing until the level is > 1310.
 
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ConsummatePro

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You can certainly do that - You shouldn't need to be quite so careful with Mg - but rather - set an alarm/notification when the Mg is below a certain number - use one of the calculators to merely dose it up to whatever amount you need. It takes out one more possibility for 'failure'.

As to your programming, I'm not sure the function of the OSC command. It seems to me that you want the Mg to be dosing until the level is > 1310.
Thanks for the advice.
Actually my code’s last line is dangerous: that line would leave the pump running on continuously rather than cycling.
I’ll rethink the need to do this. I had bought these BRS pumps years ago and only just started dosing but have the DOS for alkalinity and calcium so I figured I could use them now.
 

MnFish1

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Thanks for the advice.
Actually my code’s last line is dangerous: that line would leave the pump running on continuously rather than cycling.
I’ll rethink the need to do this. I had bought these BRS pumps years ago and only just started dosing but have the DOS for alkalinity and calcium so I figured I could use them now.
This is one thing that has never been clear to me - i.e. lets say you are programming a heater - and you have (I know this is not the correct 'language' - just an example
set off
if TMP <78 then on
if TMP >80 then off. How often does the brain evaluate these lines
It was my impression that they are evaluated periodically - such that if for example the code would eventually turn on the heater - but eventually turn it off (i.e. the code would have to be evaluated again) - its been a long time since I did programming on the apex - and perhaps there are other commands, etc. But - Its not clear to me that your Mg programming would be a problem
 

BroccoliFarmer

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This is one thing that has never been clear to me - i.e. lets say you are programming a heater - and you have (I know this is not the correct 'language' - just an example
set off
if TMP <78 then on
if TMP >80 then off. How often does the brain evaluate these lines
It was my impression that they are evaluated periodically - such that if for example the code would eventually turn on the heater - but eventually turn it off (i.e. the code would have to be evaluated again) - its been a long time since I did programming on the apex - and perhaps there are other commands, etc. But - Its not clear to me that your Mg programming would be a problem
If I am not mistaken, apex re-evaluates the entire code base either once per second or once per minute..I forget which one. I do believe it is once per second.
 

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