My Honest Opinion About The Alkatronic

[danoo]

Super detailed response and great that you see what we have been talking about pertaining to the unit overall. It can use some polishing (specially the software - but even then it isn't like it's not usable either. Just little nits here and there, but I'd rather have nits with software than equipment any day .)

I am more of a consistency in readings guys and the rest I know can be taken care of with more development of software, etc. It has been consistent for me and that is great. I am not trying to have 0.00dkh difference either. I am even comfortable with 0.1 difference (that's not gonna make or break my tank or coral). If something that minor would, then I'd say I have more issues that worrying about what the Alkatronic is doing/not doing. Plus if I was that anal about it, I have other issues besides my aquarium too .

Cannot wait to see what they do with the Dosetronic.

Yes for me personally 0.1 or 0.2 isn't a big deal. If I test the same water twice on my Hanna or Salifert kit I get those kind of differences anyways. What matters is that the error is random and the underlying results are consistent, and at least after day 1 that appears to be the case.

I use a calcium reactor/masterflex pump/aquariumplants co2 doser setup, so once I get everything dialed in, my alkalinity stays rock steady (in the short term... in the long term it changes depending on how corals are growing). So I'm just going to be looking at my alkalinity trends over days or weeks to see if I need to make slight adjustments. An error of 0.1 or 0.2 makes no difference to me as those will all cancel out.

But if the machine does have some sort of bias where over time it will read too low or read too high, that is a problem. I'm optimistic that wont be the case but I'll still test every week or so against my Hanna kit to make sure they stay in line. Still very useful to only have to do an alkalinity test once every week rather than once a day, not to mention that the Alkatronic always is performing the tests at consistent times so that eliminates another potential source of error.

 

[mitch91175]

Yes for me personally 0.1 or 0.2 isn't a big deal. If I test the same water twice on my Hanna or Salifert kit I get those kind of differences anyways. What matters is that the error is random and the underlying results are consistent, and at least after day 1 that appears to be the case.

I use a calcium reactor/masterflex pump/aquariumplants co2 doser setup, so once I get everything dialed in, my alkalinity stays rock steady (in the short term... in the long term it changes depending on how corals are growing). So I'm just going to be looking at my alkalinity trends over days or weeks to see if I need to make slight adjustments. An error of 0.1 or 0.2 makes no difference to me as those will all cancel out.

But if the machine does have some sort of bias where over time it will read too low or read too high, that is a problem. I'm optimistic that wont be the case but I'll still test every week or so against my Hanna kit to make sure they stay in line. Still very useful to only have to do an alkalinity test once every week rather than once a day, not to mention that the Alkatronic always is performing the tests at consistent times so that eliminates another potential source of error.

That is the exact way I use it. I am running kalk being feed by a doser and I recently added a bunch of frags to my DT and noticed that my Alkatronic was dosing more frequently so I increased the amount of water my doser was sending to the kalk stirrer and notice that the Alkatronic isn't dosing near as much (actually hardly ever). As my consumption increases, I will do the same process. Without the Alkatronic, this whole process would take some of the fun out of growing SPS I think. I can focus my attention more on the coral and tank than the metrics.

 

[Kann]

I'm not using pump D for dosing alkalinity, but am still getting the calibration reminders. Is there a way to turn off the reminder?

 

[mitch91175]

I'm not using pump D for dosing alkalinity, but am still getting the calibration reminders. Is there a way to turn off the reminder?

No way to turn it off ATM. I think they are looking to add that into a software update. Are you gonna use it eventually?

 

[Kann]

As of now, I'm using the Alkatronic to control my calcium reactor. I don't anticipate ever needed pump D, but you never know...

 

[danoo]

As a followup to my earlier review, I got my BNC cable and setup everything up with the Apex. Even with a 25ft BNC cable, the difference in the measurements between the Alkatronic and Apex is <0.05dkh. I'm only concerned with trends, not perfect accuracy, so this is no problem for me.

The BNC cable I'm using is a little cheaper than ones that have been posted earlier, so for anybody interested I can confirm that this M/M BNC cable from Monoprice works great. They sell it in all different lengths and I'm sure if you have a length shorter than 25ft the error would be less, but even at 25ft long the error is still very minor.

It really is so amazing just to have "Alk" on my apex display without me having to do anything.

 

[biecacka]

Question for those using this unit in conjunction with a CaRx, you are using the unit to check your alk then turn you reactor on/off, correct?
How is this any different than using your apex to run your reactor? I’m asking because it’s an interesting concept that I don’t think I fully understand.

Corey

 

[danoo]

For my calcium reactor, I'm purely using the system to provide measurements, not perform any actions. I use a masterflex pump and carbon doser electronic regulator for my calcium reactor, so as long as I don't change either the feed rate or the co2 bubble rate, the calcium reactor will be very consistent in how much alk/calcium it adds to the tank.

So this means once my calcium reactor is dialed in and the consumption of the tank is matching the calcium reactor output, changes happen really really slowly. So if my tank alk/calcium usages starts to increase, I might start to notice this by my dkh dropping 0.05 or 0.1 per day. In the pre-Alkatronic days, I tested my alkalinity every day or every other day to spot these trends. With the Alkatronic I can just sit back and let the machine do it for me.

But my actions are the same either way. If I see the alkalinity slowly dropping, I'll just slightly increase the co2 rate and continue monitoring the alkalinity to find the balance point again. If the alkalinity is slowly going up, I'll decrease the co2 rate. I could automate the co2 rate if I really wanted to, but there isn't much point... I only tweak this about once or twice a month.

So by letting the Alkatronic do the testing for me, I'm saving tons of time. But even if I did automate somehow automate my calcium reactor I would save barely any time at all. Not to mention the potential error that could happen. Once my system is dialed in, the error rate per test is higher than my expected alkalinity change per day, so I wouldn't want the system to act on any individual test anyways, only on the trend over the course of multiple days or weeks. So instead of doing some really complicated programming I can just look at the results myself and tweak the calcium reactor accordingly.

 

[Sherman]

I am using pump D to add alkaline (Aquaforest Component 2) when it fall below the low setting .
So far working great for since setup

 

[mitch91175]

Hey guys just an FYI, just found out that Focustronic has started a forum where you can post to get questions answered as well as general info. Just recently started so sure more info will be posted to it in due time.

https://focustronic.club/

 

[biecacka]

Danoo, thank you. That is what I was wondering. So you use it for monitoring purposes only in conjunction with your reactor.

Corey

 

[Rst]

I have been following this thread for a long time, and now I finally took the plunge. Because of of my inexperience, yesterday I started a new R2R Alkatronic equipment thread hoping for advice on a permanent “working” location for my new controller. Maybe nobody here has seen it. I don’t intend to hijack this thread, but my new thread gets buried on R2R far too fast. Can someone here with Alkatronic experience can take a moment and respond. (you can search under Alkatronic to find my thread) Thanks!

 

[mitch91175]

I have been following this thread for a long time, and now I finally took the plunge. Because of of my inexperience, yesterday I started a new R2R Alkatronic equipment thread hoping for advice on a permanent “working” location for my new controller. Maybe nobody here has seen it. I don’t intend to hijack this thread, but my new thread gets buried on R2R far too fast. Can someone here with Alkatronic experience can take a moment and respond. (you can search under Alkatronic to find my thread) Thanks!

Will post here as well but I did reply to your thread. I made a small stand for mine out of some plywood I had laying around and screwed it to my tank stand. Works great. Here is the pic.

 

[Twocoralsonetank]

Wondering if somebody could help me out in this forum before I created another one. Just received mine today and got it all set up and the reading is 4 dkh higher with the alkatronics.

Alkatronics is 13.5
Hanna and Red Sea is 9.5

I mixed the provided 250ml bottle regent with 1000 ml of RO water. Did it by weight, 1000 ml = 33.8 oz plus 25 ml from the bottle 8.5 oz gave me 42.60z I think? bottle has a little or than 250 ml.

Calibrated Channel A twice 57 ml twice
Calibrated Channel B twice 8.5 ml twice (I did notice the .5 ml per line)

PH probe calibrate to both 7 ph and 4 ph.

It seems pretty simple put its way off. Anybody have any ideas?

 

[mitch91175]

Wondering if somebody could help me out in this forum before I created another one. Just received mine today and got it all set up and the reading is 4 dkh higher with the alkatronics.

Alkatronics is 13.5
Hanna and Red Sea is 9.5

I mixed the provided 250ml bottle regent with 1000 ml of RO water. Did it by weight, 1000 ml = 33.8 oz plus 25 ml from the bottle 8.5 oz gave me 42.60z I think? bottle has a little or than 250 ml.

Calibrated Channel A twice 57 ml twice
Calibrated Channel B twice 8.5 ml twice (I did notice the .5 ml per line)

PH probe calibrate to both 7 ph and 4 ph.

It seems pretty simple put its way off. Anybody have any ideas?

Looks like from what you explained you did everything correctly. You ended up with a total weight of 1250ml of mixed reagent. If using a scale, try using it for weighing when calibrating. For the pH calibration, you sure it was 7 and 4 and not 10 and 7? Just asking.

Also did you take sample for Hanna from same location as Alkatronic? Did you make sure to turn off doser, etc while testing? Do you have 1.0 for baseline in app?

 

[mitch91175]

Wondering if somebody could help me out in this forum before I created another one. Just received mine today and got it all set up and the reading is 4 dkh higher with the alkatronics.

Alkatronics is 13.5
Hanna and Red Sea is 9.5

I mixed the provided 250ml bottle regent with 1000 ml of RO water. Did it by weight, 1000 ml = 33.8 oz plus 25 ml from the bottle 8.5 oz gave me 42.60z I think? bottle has a little or than 250 ml.

Calibrated Channel A twice 57 ml twice
Calibrated Channel B twice 8.5 ml twice (I did notice the .5 ml per line)

PH probe calibrate to both 7 ph and 4 ph.

It seems pretty simple put its way off. Anybody have any ideas?

Also watch the unit during testing to make sure it’s adding water and reagent during testing. Also make sure water in is pulling tank water and reagent in is pulling reagent

 

[Twocoralsonetank]

I sampled from the same area.

Test the probe, it tested at 7.15 ph so I recalibrated the probe. Ran a new test, looks like its down to 11.5 now.

Unit is doing what is suppose too. This was the main issue I was afraid of with a unit like this. I have the baseline turned off.

Ill do the calibration with weight and see what happens. Still 2 dkh is really high.....

 

[mitch91175]

I sampled from the same area.

Test the probe, it tested at 7.15 ph so I recalibrated the probe. Ran a new test, looks like its down to 11.5 now.

Unit is doing what is suppose too. This was the main issue I was afraid of with a unit like this. I have the baseline turned off.

Ill do the calibration with weight and see what happens. Still 2 dkh is really high.....

I do not think you'll have issues and you are like I was when I first hooked up the unit, paranoid, lol. Give it a few test to settle in and see what it looks like tomorrow. You can go to their support forum at https://focustronic.club/ or send them a message on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/alkatronic/ and I am positive that they will get it figured out for you. I am just a user that try to help out others when possible, but since you have already gone through the stuff that I mentioned, that is where my level of expertise stops.

Soon you're gonna be like me and everyone else that has the unit and be singing its praise. I really haven't seen anyone yet say they regret the purchase after getting past the initial setup of the unit. I'd be interested to see if anyone is dissatisfied and wish they didn't purchase it.

 

[Twocoralsonetank]

yeah I just measured out the the Calibration. Tube A said it was 56 ml but weight out at 53. Tube C measured out a 8.5 but weight 8.8.

Retested at 12.7 DKH....ugh Not sure what else to do at this point.

 

[mitch91175]

yeah I just measured out the the Calibration. Tube A said it was 56 ml but weight out at 53. Tube C measured out a 8.5 but weight 8.8.

Retested at 12.7 DKH....ugh Not sure what else to do at this point.

Everything points to reagent mix; at least that’s what I think, but could be wrong. Definitely send them a message and they’ll get you going.