New Tanks and Triton

[ksfulk]

After reading through about 15 pages of posts here in this forum, I found that there is a common phrase thats used over and over - "... the Triton method is for mature, established tanks..."

Im in the process of building a 180 gallon tank + 150 sump + 40 gallon macro-fuge system. I had been collecting all of the equipment to run kalk+ calc reactor + bio pellets, but have been reading more and more about the Triton system and how it seems to work more with the style of reef keeper that I want to be. I like to tinker with the tank, but I dont want it to become a 20+ hour a week chore, which some hobbies can easily become. My hesitancy is now because Im not entirely sure how to implement this system on a 'new' tank. Im using dry sand, and dry rock - no pests or hitchhikers present to begin with (no more majanos!!!) and allowed to cycle 4 - 6 weeks before stocking (Ill be in Europe on business anyhow, so no worries there).

So, that was a long-winded way of getting to this - Assuming the tank is properly cycled and the macro algae fuge is rocking, would I start the Triton method at the recommended rate as a plug and play type of deal, or would you start off at a lower rate and gently ramp up as the parameters start to change? Also, when would you recommend submitting samples for water testing? Obviously there is some benefit to getting a base line of what the water looks like right off the bat (post-cycle, pre-livestock), but how often initially should water samples be submitted for testing - once a month? every two weeks? every other month?

Bonus question: Are there any testing kits you would NOT recommend using for daily monitoring (Other than API color kits)? I use Hanna checkers for Alk and Phosphate (and to double check my calcium), and red sea kits for magnesium and calcium. It seems like those would be the main components to check and document daily in the beginning, but maybe there are more/less parameters that would be beneficial to monitor as well. I do enough chemistry at work that the thought of more titrations makes me want to gag sometimes...

 

[BetURWrasse]

Tagging along,

I have been wondering the same thing. I am starting up a 130 with 40g sump I specifically designed for a triton system. I will have a chamber dedicated to planted and another to floating macro.

So how does one start triton on a fresh tank?

 

[jvb89]

Tagging along also

 

[Drewmoore29]

I'm following as well!

 

[Sangheili]

My tank was started on Triton. I wouldn't say it was turn-key and it took some effort but it worked.

Lets see if I can remember the approx. time frame of how my tank started up...

• I started off with a 10 day KZ Zeovit cycle, DRY rock, and dry sand on my 67gallon frag tank.
• At the end of 2 weeks I added a fish or two and a couple corals.
• Around the 4 week mark I finally received my 100g display tank and got it up and running with the 40g breeder sump. At this point I moved most of the rock over and added some additional sand. The display was plumbed to a common sump with the frag tank.
• Around the 6 week mark I added refugium macros and sent off my first water test to Triton.
• A week after that I got my results and things looked good (didn't need to make large water change corrections) so I started dosing Base Elementz.

I had issues getting consistent growth out of my refugium at first (essentially no bioload was the issue). I also fought Cyano for about 6-8 weeks shortly after getting the refugium up and running. The cyano growing on the cheato wasn't helping things.


More to your specific post, here is what I would do. Cycle the tank and get the macro established. For the macro to really flourish you will need some fish and feed a nice amount. Once you have the macro growing, the fish happy, and your not adding new water, send off a water sample.

Hopefully the water will be good and you wont need to switch salts or do large water changes (If you can - use Tropic Marin Pro, DD h2ocean, or Red Sea Blue Bucket salts). If everything is good, you could start Base Elementz right away. The dosage really depends on two things: How much stony coral you have, and how much coralline is growing. I started at 85ml on my 165g system - now I am up to 200ml. I have added quite a bit of coral since then but I am also seeing growth taking off.

Test alk each day with a Hanna Checker. As far as other test kits, I can only recommend Hanna ULR Phosphorus and Salifert Nitrate. I do monthly Triton tests so those are about all the test kits I use. Sometimes I will use Red Sea calc/mag but I find they are inconsistent and Triton is much more accurate. Make sure your are accurate with your salinity - if you have a refractometer then grab some good calibration solution - DO NOT calibrate to zero with RODI. Also keep in mind the Hanna Phosphorus kit can be a bit off as well (up to 5-10 off).

Hope this helps, sorry for the disorganized text. :smile:

 

[joefishUC]

Very good info ^^^^


If I may add to that- Any new tank needs time to establish itself regardless of the method used. This is simply reef keeping 101. The good thing with Triton is that it very much is a recipe and if followed pretty closely, should work for most people who can follow the general guidelines. Experienced reefers will of course deviate from the method and adjust to fit their needs and likings and this of course is to be expected.

The reason why we say that the base elementz is designed for mature tanks is as follows.

When you are dosing base elementz you are dosing the full matrix of elements from macro to trace amounts, in proportions similar to those found in saltwater. Since the base elementz really are the core of the system, adding them daily to maintain a target alkalinity around 8dkh means that you are adding a proportionate amount of calcium, potassium, boron, iodine, etc. These proportions are found in nature to be pretty consistent. Keeping them consistent in our home aquaria is the common goal of any reefer. In a new tank with only a handful of corals and an algae bed that is brand new, the "pull" on the matrix is often not consistent. To further add complexity to this is the fact that many people start off with frags nowadays and it is theorized that frags use minerals in a different proportion than mature colonies. Frags are trying to encrust and heal which puts a different strain on the minerals of the water than mature colonies would. Put bluntly, any new tank needs time to settle and balance itself but when it inevitably does, you would want a simple daily dosed supplement that caters to this fact the best.

Here is an example I like to think of:

Another hobby of mine is hot-rodding. Often times I would have to sacrifice a poor idle and drive quality to get a cam/ignition/computer system that runs super smooth at high rpm under high load. Balancing the best of both worlds often meant dealing with some stalling out or burping while sitting at a light. Finding the balance where the car will start, idle and behave in traffic while being a monster at wide open throttle is essence of a true street hot rod. I now drive a 94 turbo supra to work that has achieved this balance. It has all the creature comforts like A/C, power steering, traction control, stereo, decent highway mileage, fairly quiet, yet makes 1000 hp. Any more power than this and I will need larger fuel injectors and have to sacrifice more drive quality. I think of Triton in a similar fashion. Once it gets going, you will be happy you have the full matrix of elements being dosed daily. Any additional tuning is always optional and pretty much mandatory to enhance the ride, just like in racing. There is no such thing as a turn key setup that will not need tuning to perform at its absolute best.

The great thing about Triton is that it comes closer than anything I have seen to being a turn key system. If you think I just said it is a turn key system please read the last paragraph.

If I were a hobbyist looking to setup a new reef tank I would do something similar to what Sangheili suggested. Keep it simple in the beginning and start with high quality water and salt. Minimize what you put into the tank as far as chemicals and foods are concerned and watch for any faulty seals on pumps, lights, etc that may possibly contaminate the water. Get the tank "idling" and watch for nutrient spikes while getting all the life cycles going. Don't worry about tightly balancing the trace elements and coral growth for the first few months. Focus on getting coraline algae to grow and the chaeto to flourish. Feed the fish, find the balance where the nitrates and phosphates are staying low. Start with the base elementz and only do water changes if necessary and to knock down stubborn levels of nutrients. I don't recommend having to send water to triton other than to rule out possible contaminants in your source water or to make sure your ro/di is functioning as it should (if you have any doubts). Standard hobby kits are more than suitable to keep make sure mg, ca, and alk are generally where they should be. You do not need Triton testing to tell you things these hobby kits can. Use Triton once you see good coral growth to fine tune your mineral balance. How often you send in the sample is really a matter of preference and budget. Although we have done everything we can to keep the Triton testing as affordable as possible, $49 is a pretty penny to spend on a water test so be smart about when to opt for this service. Once the tank is established I think sending it off every 2, 3 or even every 4 months is reasonable enough in my opinion. Once you have the results, USE them. Don't just post them online and feel good or bad about them. Start dosing things that are getting used up in your tank quickly. Things like vanadium, zinc, nickel, molydenum, etc. If you follow the correction dosage on your results page and start a log book to keep track of how much you dose, once you have the results from two data points (two test results) plus the logged info, you can adjust pretty well going forward. To get the most out of this process, you would want the most stable system possible. This is where the lack of water changes also helps. (Anything to minimize variables will allow for more efficient tuning of a dynamic system) The results are simply data, information to better assist your decision making. Data is a good thing but it must be balanced against your individual budget.

When the system is new it will not need much in the way of mineral replenishment so the dosing cost in the beginning is quite affordable. People often don't realize that the corals and coraline algae are the thins that pull from the buffer capacity of the water. Hypothetically speaking, the same amount of coral in a 100 vs a 1000 gallon tank would use the same amount of dkh, calcium magnesium etc. The animals are pulling these minerals from the bank of dissolved solids available to them. So you are really just replacing what is being used regardless of the size of the system. When Triton gives a starting dose of 10ml pr 100 liters of system volume this is simply a baseline, average starting dose. Your coral density and growth will ultimately determine what the uptake and therefore replenishment becomes. This is why you see some people with heavily stocked small aquariums needing to dose well above the starting dose. The math is not linear based on your size tank. (If someone with a 50 gal tank uses a set of base elementz in 2 months, someone with the same amount of corals in a 150 gallon tank should not need 3 times this amount of elementz.)

Hope all this helps in your decision.

PS. One thing I would add is although supplementing tha aquarium with additional amino acids is not part of the official triton method, we have found it to be beneficial. At Unique, we also do not run diverse tanks with lots of mature colonies but rather our emphasis is on healing and encrusting corals. We don't have a lot of fish in our coral raceways and have relatively small algae filters. We consider our 4 x 2000 gallon and 3500 gal coral system to be modified triton systems. We do not change water any more. The corals have never looked better. If anyone reading this is ever in the Van Nuys California area, feel free to stop by and I''ll further elaborate on all of this while showing you the raceways.

 

[joefishUC]

After reading through about 15 pages of posts here in this forum, I found that there is a common phrase thats used over and over - "... the Triton method is for mature, established tanks..."

Im in the process of building a 180 gallon tank + 150 sump + 40 gallon macro-fuge system. I had been collecting all of the equipment to run kalk+ calc reactor + bio pellets, but have been reading more and more about the Triton system and how it seems to work more with the style of reef keeper that I want to be. I like to tinker with the tank, but I dont want it to become a 20+ hour a week chore, which some hobbies can easily become. My hesitancy is now because Im not entirely sure how to implement this system on a 'new' tank. Im using dry sand, and dry rock - no pests or hitchhikers present to begin with (no more majanos!!!) and allowed to cycle 4 - 6 weeks before stocking (Ill be in Europe on business anyhow, so no worries there).

So, that was a long-winded way of getting to this - Assuming the tank is properly cycled and the macro algae fuge is rocking, would I start the Triton method at the recommended rate as a plug and play type of deal, or would you start off at a lower rate and gently ramp up as the parameters start to change? Also, when would you recommend submitting samples for water testing? Obviously there is some benefit to getting a base line of what the water looks like right off the bat (post-cycle, pre-livestock), but how often initially should water samples be submitted for testing - once a month? every two weeks? every other month?

Bonus question: Are there any testing kits you would NOT recommend using for daily monitoring (Other than API color kits)? I use Hanna checkers for Alk and Phosphate (and to double check my calcium), and red sea kits for magnesium and calcium. It seems like those would be the main components to check and document daily in the beginning, but maybe there are more/less parameters that would be beneficial to monitor as well. I do enough chemistry at work that the thought of more titrations makes me want to gag sometimes...

Forgot to reply to your questions. Please see above

 

[ksfulk]

My tank was started on Triton. I wouldn't say it was turn-key and it took some effort but it worked.

Lets see if I can remember the approx. time frame of how my tank started up...

• I started off with a 10 day KZ Zeovit cycle, DRY rock, and dry sand on my 67gallon frag tank.
• At the end of 2 weeks I added a fish or two and a couple corals.
• Around the 4 week mark I finally received my 100g display tank and got it up and running with the 40g breeder sump. At this point I moved most of the rock over and added some additional sand. The display was plumbed to a common sump with the frag tank.
• Around the 6 week mark I added refugium macros and sent off my first water test to Triton.
• A week after that I got my results and things looked good (didn't need to make large water change corrections) so I started dosing Base Elementz.

I had issues getting consistent growth out of my refugium at first (essentially no bioload was the issue). I also fought Cyano for about 6-8 weeks shortly after getting the refugium up and running. The cyano growing on the cheato wasn't helping things.


More to your specific post, here is what I would do. Cycle the tank and get the macro established. For the macro to really flourish you will need some fish and feed a nice amount. Once you have the macro growing, the fish happy, and your not adding new water, send off a water sample.

Hopefully the water will be good and you wont need to switch salts or do large water changes (If you can - use Tropic Marin Pro, DD h2ocean, or Red Sea Blue Bucket salts). If everything is good, you could start Base Elementz right away. The dosage really depends on two things: How much stony coral you have, and how much coralline is growing. I started at 85ml on my 165g system - now I am up to 200ml. I have added quite a bit of coral since then but I am also seeing growth taking off.

Test alk each day with a Hanna Checker. As far as other test kits, I can only recommend Hanna ULR Phosphorus and Salifert Nitrate. I do monthly Triton tests so those are about all the test kits I use. Sometimes I will use Red Sea calc/mag but I find they are inconsistent and Triton is much more accurate. Make sure your are accurate with your salinity - if you have a refractometer then grab some good calibration solution - DO NOT calibrate to zero with RODI. Also keep in mind the Hanna Phosphorus kit can be a bit off as well (up to 5-10 off).

Hope this helps, sorry for the disorganized text. :smile:

It helps immensely - I was hoping that some of the people that were invested with the system would also chime in with their own observations. I've read through your threads as well, and the tank shots are really nice. Currently, I have a 70 gallon system set up with a heavy fish and coral population (Im dosing about 80ml of BRS 2part a day + Kalk in the top off) because its basically turned into a giant sps frag tank. My hope to is to get the new 180 set up and running before I slowly move over the frags into their new home, but I dont want to completely shock the bejezus out of them with all sorts of parameter changes. Since the bioload (2 part wise) will be very low in the beginning, I wasnt sure if the "starting dose" would throw my parameters way out of wack to begin with - thats why I was curious about the 'ramp up' bit.

I dont mind the red sea kits, as I do titrations at work everyday and so I find them fairly accurate with a practiced hand and eye for those things (hooray for being a chemist and using it in "real" life!). Still, do you find yourself looking only at the alk and allowing that to set your dose, or are you seeing that you have to dial the alk down a little in order to maintain 'regular' calcium and trace levels? I've read that some people are having to dial the alk to ~7.8 to keep things better in line. Just curious as to your own experience. Also, are you having to remove much water to compensate for the increase in salinity, or did you dial in your skimmer to acheive that for you?

 

[BetURWrasse]

SO basically what I'm getting is if you are transferring to a larger tank (Im going from 30 to 130) after the cycle start transferring things over slowly and continue with what was used on the old system.

Then after things are stabilized and everything recovers and starts to grow again then look at Triton.

 

[ksfulk]

Very good info ^^^^


If I may add to that- Any new tank needs time to establish itself regardless of the method used. This is simply reef keeping 101. The good thing with Triton is that it very much is a recipe and if followed pretty closely, should work for most people who can follow the general guidelines. Experienced reefers will of course deviate from the method and adjust to fit their needs and likings and this of course is to be expected.

The reason why we say that the base elementz is designed for mature tanks is as follows.

When you are dosing base elementz you are dosing the full matrix of elements from macro to trace amounts, in proportions similar to those found in saltwater. Since the base elementz really are the core of the system, adding them daily to maintain a target alkalinity around 8dkh means that you are adding a proportionate amount of calcium, potassium, boron, iodine, etc. These proportions are found in nature to be pretty consistent. Keeping them consistent in our home aquaria is the common goal of any reefer. In a new tank with only a handful of corals and an algae bed that is brand new, the "pull" on the matrix is often not consistent. To further add complexity to this is the fact that many people start off with frags nowadays and it is theorized that frags use minerals in a different proportion than mature colonies. Frags are trying to encrust and heal which puts a different strain on the minerals of the water than mature colonies would. Put bluntly, any new tank needs time to settle and balance itself but when it inevitably does, you would want a simple daily dosed supplement that caters to this fact the best.

Here is an example I like to think of:

Another hobby of mine is hot-rodding. Often times I would have to sacrifice a poor idle and drive quality to get a cam/ignition/computer system that runs super smooth at high rpm under high load. Balancing the best of both worlds often meant dealing with some stalling out or burping while sitting at a light. Finding the balance where the car will start, idle and behave in traffic while being a monster at wide open throttle is essence of a true street hot rod. I now drive a 94 turbo supra to work that has achieved this balance. It has all the creature comforts like A/C, power steering, traction control, stereo, decent highway mileage, fairly quiet, yet makes 1000 hp. Any more power than this and I will need larger fuel injectors and have to sacrifice more drive quality. I think of Triton in a similar fashion. Once it gets going, you will be happy you have the full matrix of elements being dosed daily. Any additional tuning is always optional and pretty much mandatory to enhance the ride, just like in racing. There is no such thing as a turn key setup that will not need tuning to perform at its absolute best.

The great thing about Triton is that it comes closer than anything I have seen to being a turn key system. If you think I just said it is a turn key system please read the last paragraph.

If I were a hobbyist looking to setup a new reef tank I would do something similar to what Sangheili suggested. Keep it simple in the beginning and start with high quality water and salt. Minimize what you put into the tank as far as chemicals and foods are concerned and watch for any faulty seals on pumps, lights, etc that may possibly contaminate the water. Get the tank "idling" and watch for nutrient spikes while getting all the life cycles going. Don't worry about tightly balancing the trace elements and coral growth for the first few months. Focus on getting coraline algae to grow and the chaeto to flourish. Feed the fish, find the balance where the nitrates and phosphates are staying low. Start with the base elementz and only do water changes if necessary and to knock down stubborn levels of nutrients. I don't recommend having to send water to triton other than to rule out possible contaminants in your source water or to make sure your ro/di is functioning as it should (if you have any doubts). Standard hobby kits are more than suitable to keep make sure mg, ca, and alk are generally where they should be. You do not need Triton testing to tell you things these hobby kits can. Use Triton once you see good coral growth to fine tune your mineral balance. How often you send in the sample is really a matter of preference and budget. Although we have done everything we can to keep the Triton testing as affordable as possible, $49 is a pretty penny to spend on a water test so be smart about when to opt for this service. Once the tank is established I think sending it off every 2, 3 or even every 4 months is reasonable enough in my opinion. Once you have the results, USE them. Don't just post them online and feel good or bad about them. Start dosing things that are getting used up in your tank quickly. Things like vanadium, zinc, nickel, molydenum, etc. If you follow the correction dosage on your results page and start a log book to keep track of how much you dose, once you have the results from two data points (two test results) plus the logged info, you can adjust pretty well going forward. To get the most out of this process, you would want the most stable system possible. This is where the lack of water changes also helps. (Anything to minimize variables will allow for more efficient tuning of a dynamic system) The results are simply data, information to better assist your decision making. Data is a good thing but it must be balanced against your individual budget.

When the system is new it will not need much in the way of mineral replenishment so the dosing cost in the beginning is quite affordable. People often don't realize that the corals and coraline algae are the thins that pull from the buffer capacity of the water. Hypothetically speaking, the same amount of coral in a 100 vs a 1000 gallon tank would use the same amount of dkh, calcium magnesium etc. The animals are pulling these minerals from the bank of dissolved solids available to them. So you are really just replacing what is being used regardless of the size of the system. When Triton gives a starting dose of 10ml pr 100 liters of system volume this is simply a baseline, average starting dose. Your coral density and growth will ultimately determine what the uptake and therefore replenishment becomes. This is why you see some people with heavily stocked small aquariums needing to dose well above the starting dose. The math is not linear based on your size tank. (If someone with a 50 gal tank uses a set of base elementz in 2 months, someone with the same amount of corals in a 150 gallon tank should not need 3 times this amount of elementz.)

Hope all this helps in your decision.

PS. One thing I would add is although supplementing tha aquarium with additional amino acids is not part of the official triton method, we have found it to be beneficial. At Unique, we also do not run diverse tanks with lots of mature colonies but rather our emphasis is on healing and encrusting corals. We don't have a lot of fish in our coral raceways and have relatively small algae filters. We consider our 4 x 2000 gallon and 3500 gal coral system to be modified triton systems. We do not change water any more. The corals have never looked better. If anyone reading this is ever in the Van Nuys California area, feel free to stop by and I''ll further elaborate on all of this while showing you the raceways.

Thanks Joe -

This was what I was looking to pull out from all of the other threads - when to start and how to start. Obviously when the tank is cycling its not really using up our 'trace' and 'essential' nutrients, so it would be silly to attempt to replace them, but there has to be a starting point and I wasnt sure if there was a 'suggested' point, or if you just started a minute amount from the beginning (seems like a silly thought, but stranger things have been said!) Seems like once I start to have a bit of bioload with the fish and macros then I should invest further.

Ive actually already started the macro algae in a 40b that will be plumbed into the system once I get it up and together. I've always thought that the small things you can start early should be. My chaeto and gracilia are starting to grow, while Ive purchased a few others that are at least maintaining for the moment (except for the ulva, which I cant seem to grow for some reason), so it sounds like I'm ahead of the curve on that one. It sounds like I need to finish my plumbing and get the tank set to cycle, once Im out of that phase, then I should send in a sample to be tested, adjust the water as needed from the test results, then begin a slow transfer of corals from established tank to new tank, then send out water again in a month or so (with daily monitoring to fine tune to the demands of the tank). Sounds correct?

More random thoughts - I know that Elementz is dosed at the same rate for reach part (1/2/3a&b), so what do you do when you get an high component imbalance due to the corals consuming these components at various rates? IE: My sps are consuming alkalinity and magnesium at the appropriate rate, but my calcium level is now high (~550ppm) - do you allow these levels to naturally compensate (in that the corals will consume the calcium eventually, just maybe not right this second) or do you do a water change in order to dilute the levels? Or do you adjust your Elementz dosage rate back some, and supplement the Alkalinity with some manual dosing? For low levels, you could manually dose, but that doesnt really work for elevated levels. Perhaps this is a one off situation, but still an interesting thought.

Additionally, do you see any issue with using salts that are "reef" salt over a "fish" salt? Im currently using Red Sea Coral Plus as Ive seen closer water parameters to what I keep my tanks at then I did when I used Salinity a few years ago. Typically the differences in reef salts are the supplemental nutrients/elements that are added (iodine, strontium, etc) that are used by corals. In using a system like Triton, where you are trying to maintain levels through the use of a 3 part system, would a salt that doesnt contain those trace elements be a better starting point or is it neglible in the end?

And finally - Thanks! I know that there is always a lot of skepticism and questions when doing anything in this hobby, and its nice to have an open forum where the issues and questions can be discussed and referenced by others. Ive had the pleasure of dealing with Unique on a few purchases in the past, and that service and "up-front-itude" has made me more confident in my paths forward. Im eager to get this new build going, and once it is, then I'm looking forward watching how this system works within it. I appreciate the effort and the candor! If business carries me back out to the West Coast, I'll make it a point to stop by!

 

[Sangheili]

Great info here.

I would say to avoid fish salts. RDCP Will be a good salt but keep in mind the alk is way too high (13.5 in my experience). It is the salt I used to startup my system. Red Sea Blue Bucket is better, and Tropic Marin Pro as well as dd h2ocean are all great choices. There are some very interesting salt Triton tests floating out there on the "other" forum.

The imbalance can be adjusted. If calcium gets too high you can dial it down since (AFAIK) the only element in Base 2 is Calcium. Other levels can be tricky however since Base 1 contains Alk and Potassium (so using an alk-only supplement to boost levels is much preferred). Triton sells individual bottles of these elements but you could also use alternative sources (like BRS mixes). I made some large magnesium corrections in the beginning with my tank (Coraline consumes mag much more then corals) using BRS Mag mix.