Trident or not?

[road_runner]

Are the lights not complicated enough? I like toys etc but honestly my eyes roll back in my head when I read about these things, I really don't know what they are. I intentionally skipped to the end of this thread so that I would gain no insight. It's an order of magnitude beyond a controller and I am just not interested, I'm still learning how to analog reef. Ignorantly blissful.

I sold my Apex because honestly there is something romantic about those wall timers. So satisfying to have explored and set all the options of said device.

lol I shuddered when I briefly read about the nuances using API tests kits with particular robots. I'll leave it to you crazy reefers to sort out whatever this thing is, by then I will consider buying this machine and associated paraphernalia, cloud service and all, when it when the bugs are worked out of or into it.

This thing has to be good to be on wait lists. So what does it do? Must have something to do with AEFW or Aiptasia? Does it wam-bam the dreaded Dianos? Man now I am curious lol. How much and how long until I get one?

For sure you do not have to have conteoller and test automations to run successful reefs. I ran sps dominant systems since there was no controller in the market...
If you in to gadget and automation these are for you, if not, old school reefing have no shame in it sir.

 

[vangvace]

Corry sorry, I was referring to the common ones.
Mindstream is very disruptive and innovative equipment.

No reason to apologize. I found a nugget of info on how the mindstream is going to bypass the need for tritation testing and passed it along.

 

[road_runner]

No reason to apologize. I found a nugget of info on how the mindstream is going to bypass the need for tritation testing and passed it along.

Please do. Recently am researching ion based probs
Mindstream use ion activated setups that react to water chemistry and change color then the device read the color off the strip to calculate the paramater.
Fascinating topic.
Ion probs not new technology. It's just recently got commoditized and probably were cheap enough to be used in the industey.
These probs contain gold since gold is hyper sensitive to chemistry...this is simple terms ofcourse am still learning about these probs.
Am suprised randy have not done a write up about these probs.

 

[HCl+NaHO=]

Mindstream isn't testing Alk the same way the tritation products test either. It will measure one of the ions that makes up Alk and ignore the rest. Maybe it'll use some fuzzy math on the backside based on ratios found in NSW for total alk, but dunno.

It only needs to measure carbonate (or bicarbonate)

Calcium is already being measured in the other tests

dKH can be interpolated my measuring carbonate in one test and calcium in another.

 

[LV3]

This is what I mean- you say I am one of the odd ones. That is simply not true there are many people out there using the Trident and DOS without issue.

I’m using the trident and DOS as well and am not having any issues at all. I haven’t noticed an inconsistent ca or mg reading up to this point.

 

[powdertang05]

Not correct. Coral vue stopped selling cause they want to double down on xepta.
Yoi can now get khg pro(dose and test) for around 500$ directly from the source.
friend of mind just got his.
As a matter of fact I just recently added 3rd unit to my setups that I purchased 2 months ago

Sorry let me clarify. They are no longer making new units. They are on sale by $100 due to being discontinued. Coralvue stated they are now telling customers to move to the alkatronic. At least this is what my coralvue rep has told me.

 

[road_runner]

Sorry let me clarify. They are no longer making new units. They are on sale by $100 due to being discontinued. Coralvue stated they are now telling customers to move to the alkatronic. At least this is what my coralvue rep has told me.

Yeh i think thats why khg moved from coral vue.
You can buy directly from the company. Very responsive and ship in couple.of days.
I believe now you can hey the khg pro for 475$...how can you beat this deal..this will test and dose

 

[road_runner]

This is the sales contacts I use
[email protected]

Also the owner of the company email who I use to ask questions

[email protected]
He is very responsive and the inventor of the khg.

 

[vangvace]

It only needs to measure carbonate (or bicarbonate)

Calcium is already being measured in the other tests

dKH can be interpolated my measuring carbonate in one test and calcium in another.

I should have just quoted them early:

The MindStream Monitor measures Carbonate Alkalinity, which is the form of alkalinity necessary to promote vibrant coral growth. Other methods measure total alkalinity, which includes carbonate, borate, and other ions and therefore is not a true representation of the amount of carbonates available for coral growth​

 

[CoralVue_Marketing]

Hi all! Came across this thread this morning and just wanted to share that all the units CoralVue has in stock have been upgraded to the latest parts from KHG. We have also not moved on from KHG. We are eagerly awaiting their new products—which will not be released until thoroughly tested, according to the owner. Hope that dispels some of the rumors going around!

Jeff @ CoralVue

 

[road_runner]

Hi all! Came across this thread this morning and just wanted to share that all the units CoralVue has in stock have been upgraded to the latest parts from KHG. We have also not moved on from KHG. We are eagerly awaiting their new products—which will not be released until thoroughly tested, according to the owner. Hope that dispels some of the rumors going around!

Jeff @ CoralVue

Thank you for setting the record straight. I have purchased 2 units from coral vue over the last 3 years and couldn't love the device more.

 

[CoralVue_Marketing]

Thank you for setting the record straight. I have purchased 2 units from coral vue over the last 3 years and couldn't love the device more.

Thank you for the reply. We are so happy to hear that! We love them, too! We happened to stumble upon this thread today and thought perhaps we might want to wade into this discussion. We just want to let any folks know that may read this that our commitment to the brand hasn't wavered! It is an exciting time to be an aquarium hobbyist with all of the cool automation products coming to market!

Jeff @ CoralVue

 

[road_runner]

i must say one thing I respect greatly about Coral vue, is that they try to stay at equal distance from all vendors. like amazon they try to carry as diverse products as possible and avoid leaning on one vendor. of course am sure there are some deals and different tradeoffs between different products for them as a distributor, but they try to support all. I find things at CV that I do not find easily elsewhere...kudo.

 

[Millimylilly]

I would wait for a little bit; like next spring or summer. Let the early adopters find the possible kinks and bugs along with a more mature support system in place. By next summer we'll have more places to buy reagents, more details on maintenance periods/costs, and community programming support. If it is a solid product, or more of their version 1 optical sensors or pH probes. XD

The value of monitoring can be great, but could take away some of the touch and feel of the tank. On a trip, it could mean a message to the tank sitter to check on specific things before things stray too far from center.

On a aside, there are so many automated testers either on the market or coming within the year. The competition is great for us as hobbyists.

No kinks with the reefbot. It is all around better than the trident

 

[road_runner]

@Jeff@CoralVue,
When you think the xepta will be available on CV? Any insights yet?

 

[roberthu526]

Personally I would wait for the Abex Xepta or other ion based testers. To me the trident along with all the other reagent based systems are going to be out of date with ion testing right around the corner. They launched a little late in my opnion.

Or Neptune announced too early.

 

[roberthu526]

There seems to be quite a few things people are reporting on the trident so I would hold off for a while. From the way it’s released, I think Neptune is not confident that it’s perfect and the first batch is more like a bigger testing group.

 

[Fiesty]

I purchased a Trident early on and was also worried that it such a new product that would be a problem. Also kind of viewed it as a luxury and not neccessary but my thoughts have now changed drastically!

It has worked flawlessly for me and has actually saved from from 1 serious tank disaster (dosing line came loose and wouldnt have caught it for days or a week if not for trident) and has really helped me dial in my dosing pump. Also figured out there was a problem with my red sea calcium test kit i had been using and was able to correct the problems that test created.

I have many expensive sps corals, clams, fish etc. in my tank and I now view the trident as a necessary safety net. And great for piece of mind. And for the price, or even higher, seems like a bargain compared to a tank catastrophe and how much $$$ that would cost plus the emotional set back.

And like others, at first i thought the 4 times a day testing seemed ridiculous, but now feel its a perfect amount when running dosing pumps, etc and makes sense to me now.

Hope this helps. If u can afford it i say get one. U probably wont be sorry. And hopefully u can get one at msrp. If not, I do know where u can purchase a brand new one today for less that ebay prices and under a grand.

 

[Dom274]

I really wanted one at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realize that I don't think it would be any benefit to me, as well as possibly others. The thing is, I only have maybe a dozen small SPS in my tank. Between my 1% daily AWC, and a DOS dosing 10ml of alk and calcium a day, I don't really have an issue with calcium or alkalinity swings, and I find myself rarely testing them now.

What I think would be better (And probably much more difficult to make) is a trident that does phosphates and nitrates monitoring in real time. You could have it automatically open a solenoid for a GFO reactor to reduce phosphates down to a certain level and then shut it off so you don't strip the water clean. For nitrate control, you would need to be able to adjust the skimmer somehow. Haven't thought it that much through, but now that I am, I think you could do this somewhat via the ORP reading. 200 to 250 ORP is getting too clean and not enough nutrients. 350 to 400 is where the phosphates and nitrates start getting a little higher than some coral may like.

Basically: the code would be:

Failsafe = ON (I'd rather over clean the water than risk the skimmer shutting down for long periods of time.)
If ORP <= 250, turn the skimmer pump down to the lowest setting.
If ORP <= 300, Close GFO solenoid.
If ORP >= 350, Turn skimmer pump up to medium and open solenoid for the GFO reactor.

 

[CDavmd]

I really wanted one at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realize that I don't think it would be any benefit to me, as well as possibly others. The thing is, I only have maybe a dozen small SPS in my tank. Between my 1% daily AWC, and a DOS dosing 10ml of alk and calcium a day, I don't really have an issue with calcium or alkalinity swings, and I find myself rarely testing them now.

What I think would be better (And probably much more difficult to make) is a trident that does phosphates and nitrates monitoring in real time. You could have it automatically open a solenoid for a GFO reactor to reduce phosphates down to a certain level and then shut it off so you don't strip the water clean. For nitrate control, you would need to be able to adjust the skimmer somehow. Haven't thought it that much through, but now that I am, I think you could do this somewhat via the ORP reading. 200 to 250 ORP is getting too clean and not enough nutrients. 350 to 400 is where the phosphates and nitrates start getting a little higher than some coral may like.

Basically: the code would be:

Failsafe = ON (I'd rather over clean the water than risk the skimmer shutting down for long periods of time.)
If ORP <= 250, turn the skimmer pump down to the lowest setting.
If ORP <= 300, Close GFO solenoid.
If ORP >= 350, Turn skimmer pump up to medium and open solenoid for the GFO reactor.

Wait till your frags start growing... you will start seeing increased consumption of Alkalinity and stability can become an issue especially if you are testing infrequently. The trident on my frag system which is heavily stocked with 1 inch frags really helped me flatten the line out, it also has given me early warning when I suddenly see a drop in Alkalinity consumption I know something is up and I need to investigate. I was having intermittent STN/RTN every month or so but since getting the Trident and tweaking my alkalinity and keeping it stable, I have not had any more issues and everything is really growing. Of course other variables were at play but having the daily alkalinity measurements really helps especially when they start growing quicker and Alk consumption shoots up.

Regarding your idea....a phosphate/Nitrate tester is something that everyone has been clamoring for. I think Hanna looked into it but the chemistry involved in a Saltwater system precluded an accurate testing method at the hobby level. Hopefully someone cracks this egg soon. The GFO control with a solenoid is an issue however, at present the only solenoids that will function in saltwater are quite expensive and not available in our hobby. Similarly, ORP can be affected by many variables other than phosphate/Nitrate.

Nice thoughts though....happy reefing