Spotlight on the complete Triton Method | BRStv

[Ryanbrs]

Would BRS160 ever consider doing the hybrid route where you use a CaRX for 70%ish of alk/CA demand and use triton to support the difference as well as add those traces back in? Seems to be a happy medium.

I am working on some new test tanks and you are almost certainly going to see something like this : )

 

[rglewis]

My experience/opinion on the Triton method. It works just fine, but in my opinion it doesnt work as advertised. Dosing in equal parts didnt work for me. Calcium and Magnesium climbed when dosing equal parts while keeping alk stable. I was told to lower the doses on bottles 1 and 2. Which means I would have extra of bottles 1 and 2 and its sold in 4 bottle kits. And by lowering the doses of bottles 1 and 2 Im also lowering the doses of the trace elements along with the mag and calcium and have to adjust wifh the $32 individual bottles. In their defense, they did say we could contact our retailer and have them order single bottles. But doesnt change the fact that its expensive and not doing what its advertised to do. Problem #2 for me was ph. Ph dropped when I switched due to them using bicarbonate. I need the ph rising effect of carbonate due to living a new house that is very well sealed up and has a build up of co2. I had to hook up a co2 scrubber to fix this new problem costing me another $50 per month in soda lime on top of core 7 and cost of individual elements. Problem 3, salinity. I have to take water from my display everyday to keep salinity in line due to the salts in core7 causing salinity to rise. That puts me having to do maintenance daily. Not something I want to do. I went out of town for 3 days and my salinity rose to 1.028. My corals were not happy. I shouldnt be held hostage by my aquarium. Problem 4, I havent been able to get away from water changes. My ICP tests always show a contaminant or high trace element and they recommend 6 15% weekly water changes to fix it. So add a bucket of salt to the cost. While I know contaminants are not Tritons fault, ICP tests didnt show any problems when I was doing water changes. As far as nutrient control, I didnt see any difference before or after. My system has never had nutrient problems. All in all the cost is why Im stopping. I had the same results with BRS 3 part, water changes and an ICP test every few months to adjust trace elements. I will continue to use the ICP tests and invidual bottles but the full system just wasnt for me.

 

[Ryanbrs]

The metaphor that, "time is money" maybe true for some business people who are always on the clock. But time is not money for everyone. As you have said, priorities and perceptions vary. The idea that running Triton is going to save you $1k per year in time spent is debatable.

Yeah, I don't think it is a "time is money" where you are going to make money during that time. I think this is more similar a willingness to pay for lawn or snow service, oil changes or even something like buying a dishwasher or sprinkler system. Each one of these things is some type of calculation of what your time is worth and in some cases what you enjoy doing.

I can only speak for myself here but I enjoy taking care of my yard so I wouldn't pay for that but I will absolutely pay to not pick up a snow shovel. I'd probably even change my oil if I didn't have to bother with getting rid of the old stuff. As relates reef tanks I obviously love them but I there isn't anything about mixing and changing water or dirty filter stocks that brings value to my life

Maybe a dollar value isn't the right path but simply saying one costs more than another isn't a complete picture for me.

 

[SteadyC]

How has the PH been on the BRS160? Still not using the co2 scrubber? I agree with rglewis, PH is a huge concern for me. I have an outside line for the protein skimmer air intake, I use kalk, have an ATS, have a huge area of chaeto with the Kessil 380, stagger tank lights with the algae lights, and in the summer I have to add soda ash to keep alk mantained (since house co2 drops and there isn’t enough to combine with hydroxide to maintain alk alone ), and my PH is around 8.2. Actually right now, it is 8. Windows and doors are closed for more months in the year. Without kalk, I think my PH would drop drastically.

Maybe this is where the hybrid perspective comes in, calcium reactor or kalk, along with some parts of triton. For me, the ATS, chaeto, and protein skimmers are my only nutrient export, I haven’t had filter socks for years, so I’m half way there. Just can’t see me moving to the 4 part system due to PH. But I do use the ICP tests to show me what I am lacking outside of the 3 major elements. For example, I think potassium is the 4th most important major element. So, I dose that, along with kalk and magnesium. And iodine too.

Thanks for all this great info BRS, all the videos you have done, and all the experimenting. I am improving as a reefer, and that’s mostly due to the great info coming from you. All that kalk chemistry talk above was from your BRS160 episode on kalk.

 

[Eazy Reefer]

One thing I’ve noticed on this thread is lack of pictures, I’ve been involved with supplying Triton in the UK since it first hit the shores and over that time have had to answer or seek assistance in answering many of the questions/concerns I see appearing on this thread and those which I envisage will crop up.

New methods and products will always come into question, it is the nature of our hobby, but I urge people to try not to be skeptic instead think a little wider and seek out the benefits and opportunities.

I have spoken to some of the YouTube community based in the US and some have been running Triton for several months now and speak highly of it from their experience.

Here’s some inspiration for you, pictures of my good friends tank that is the UK distributor for Triton and maybe something of inspiration to those considering Triton and the results that can be achieved...

Pictures taken with a Samsung S8 on pro mode, tank is lit with reefbrite 400w Halides supplemented with reefbrite XHO blue leds.

 

[Eazy Reefer]

My experience/opinion on the Triton method. It works just fine, but in my opinion it doesnt work as advertised. Dosing in equal parts didnt work for me. Calcium and Magnesium climbed when dosing equal parts while keeping alk stable. I was told to lower the doses on bottles 1 and 2. Which means I would have extra of bottles 1 and 2 and its sold in 4 bottle kits. And by lowering the doses of bottles 1 and 2 Im also lowering the doses of the trace elements along with the mag and calcium and have to adjust wifh the $32 individual bottles. In their defense, they did say we could contact our retailer and have them order single bottles. But doesnt change the fact that its expensive and not doing what its advertised to do. Problem #2 for me was ph. Ph dropped when I switched due to them using bicarbonate. I need the ph rising effect of carbonate due to living a new house that is very well sealed up and has a build up of co2. I had to hook up a co2 scrubber to fix this new problem costing me another $50 per month in soda lime on top of core 7 and cost of individual elements. Problem 3, salinity. I have to take water from my display everyday to keep salinity in line due to the salts in core7 causing salinity to rise. That puts me having to do maintenance daily. Not something I want to do. I went out of town for 3 days and my salinity rose to 1.028. My corals were not happy. I shouldnt be held hostage by my aquarium. Problem 4, I havent been able to get away from water changes. My ICP tests always show a contaminant or high trace element and they recommend 6 15% weekly water changes to fix it. So add a bucket of salt to the cost. While I know contaminants are not Tritons fault, ICP tests didnt show any problems when I was doing water changes. As far as nutrient control, I didnt see any difference before or after. My system has never had nutrient problems. All in all the cost is why Im stopping. I had the same results with BRS 3 part, water changes and an ICP test every few months to adjust trace elements. I will continue to use the ICP tests and invidual bottles but the full system just wasnt for me.

I’m not sure how the Triton is ‘ advertised ‘ in the states but Triton isn’t a case of simply dosing the 4 bottles of solution, every tank may be different due to coral stocking types and levels of stocking.

The 4 Solutions is to give you a baseline and should be followed up with an ICP to then tune the dosages of elements to be inline with your systems uptake, hence the availability of the individual trace elements bottles.

For some, dosing the 4 Solutions may surfice, others may need to tweak here and there with the addition of other trace elements from the Triton range, due to the individual nature of their system.

The ICP test will guide you to this end.

When moving onto Triton I’ve noticed several of my customers find their system go through a stage of magnesium uptake which then settles out, I also advise to ensure dosing is spread out and in some cases the solutions diluted to enable more frequent delicate dosing to allow the water to take up and hold the dosaage of elements and prevent precipitation which can skew the readings until the system bases out, perhaps this is what you may have experienced ?

 

[Fishinwall]

I have been using Triton for two years on my 65gal. I really like the Core 7 Base. My corals are bright and colorful and I use the ICP for adjustments. I do find that I need to do a 10% water change per month but that may change in the future. I have some rusty hinges around my tank I need to get rid of. But as I work out the tweaks I'm seeing great progress and success! I currently Dose 10ml of each right now. My micro algae grows like weeds too with light on opposite from display.

 

[Ryanbrs]

How has the PH been on the BRS160? Still not using the co2 scrubber? I agree with rglewis, PH is a huge concern for me. I have an outside line for the protein skimmer air intake, I use kalk, have an ATS, have a huge area of chaeto with the Kessil 380, stagger tank lights with the algae lights, and in the summer I have to add soda ash to keep alk mantained (since house co2 drops and there isn’t enough to combine with hydroxide to maintain alk alone ), and my PH is around 8.2. Actually right now, it is 8. Windows and doors are closed for more months in the year. Without kalk, I think my PH would drop drastically.

Maybe this is where the hybrid perspective comes in, calcium reactor or kalk, along with some parts of triton. For me, the ATS, chaeto, and protein skimmers are my only nutrient export, I haven’t had filter socks for years, so I’m half way there. Just can’t see me moving to the 4 part system due to PH. But I do use the ICP tests to show me what I am lacking outside of the 3 major elements. For example, I think potassium is the 4th most important major element. So, I dose that, along with kalk and magnesium. And iodine too.

Thanks for all this great info BRS, all the videos you have done, and all the experimenting. I am improving as a reefer, and that’s mostly due to the great info coming from you. All that kalk chemistry talk above was from your BRS160 episode on kalk.

pH ranges from 8.0 to 8.2 on the weekdays and 8.25 - 8.35 on the weekends. variance is because there are 60+ people breathing co2 into the air on weekdays. I don't have the scrubber connected but I may put it back on during the week at some point.

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

Great thread! And many thanks to the brs team for all their hard work on trying new methods and helping us make informed decisions! Really appreciate the level headedness and objectivity you guys bring to these topics! It's great to see a company advancing the hobby over just pushing product!

 

[sidney109]

to the person that was getting an imbalance in the bottles, although that could be to do with uptake i had a similar problem with chasing the alk reading and it was something different.

I was running far too much rowa phosphate remover and although i cant find the link atm somehow it gets phosphate bound to the kh (i had a phos prob from old live rock)

tldr: i pulled the gfo and all went back to equal amounts, using smaller amounts was fine and so was there alu based gfo.