Haha, just keep coming back to this thread every once in a while to see the level of frustration of those that are holding out for the Trident. It really is comical with the amount of patience some people have. I have nothing against Neptune Systems, just want to say that first and foremost. I do however know what issues I was having with my tank and the biggest one has ALWAYS been dKH. Someone mentioned about finding someone where the Alkatronic nuked their tank. From experience and chatting back and forth with the people over at Focustronic, I highly doubt that you will find any instances of that occurring. I have had my Alkatronic running for a pretty good amount of time and all I can say is that it fits the bill well.
I wanted/needed something because I put a ton of frags in my tank all at the same time and wanted to get a CaRx setup, etc. I will be honest in saying that there isn't anyway that I think I would have been able to do that without having a dKH solution in place.
People complaining about the price of the Alkatronic should already know that products are more expensive during early adoption. I was lucky to save $100 on mine since I was one of those earlier adopters that realized that the Alkatronic is the best current Alkalinity monitoring/correction solution on the market.
Just for grins I checked my magnesium after not checking it since October 1st and guess what, no problem with magnesium and I do not do any water changes. Calcium I haven't checked since October 17th. If it were me and I was running the show over at Neptune Systems, I'd do an about-face and switch gears to providing a dKH-only solution at a fraction of the cost and also have correction of the dKH with that solution.
If I personally am wanting to automate measuring calcium/magnesium I would wait to see how the Reefbot performs or see what Focustronic have up their sleeves for their next unit in their ecosystem after the Dosetronic has been released. I was going to get the Dosetronic, but now have a CaRx setup that is working quite well. Coral are encrusting and growing fast enough for my wife (BTW who isn't really into reefing) to notice the growth that is occurring. Definitely no need for frequent calcium/magnesium monitoring if you are running a CaRx (at least from my experience, everyone's is different).
Now I wouldn't mind knowing about my phosphates more frequently.
I wanted/needed something because I put a ton of frags in my tank all at the same time and wanted to get a CaRx setup, etc. I will be honest in saying that there isn't anyway that I think I would have been able to do that without having a dKH solution in place.
People complaining about the price of the Alkatronic should already know that products are more expensive during early adoption. I was lucky to save $100 on mine since I was one of those earlier adopters that realized that the Alkatronic is the best current Alkalinity monitoring/correction solution on the market.
Just for grins I checked my magnesium after not checking it since October 1st and guess what, no problem with magnesium and I do not do any water changes. Calcium I haven't checked since October 17th. If it were me and I was running the show over at Neptune Systems, I'd do an about-face and switch gears to providing a dKH-only solution at a fraction of the cost and also have correction of the dKH with that solution.
If I personally am wanting to automate measuring calcium/magnesium I would wait to see how the Reefbot performs or see what Focustronic have up their sleeves for their next unit in their ecosystem after the Dosetronic has been released. I was going to get the Dosetronic, but now have a CaRx setup that is working quite well. Coral are encrusting and growing fast enough for my wife (BTW who isn't really into reefing) to notice the growth that is occurring. Definitely no need for frequent calcium/magnesium monitoring if you are running a CaRx (at least from my experience, everyone's is different).
Now I wouldn't mind knowing about my phosphates more frequently.
Last edited: