Trident Thoughts

[KrispyKashew]

I pretty much regret going with the trident and apex system. Apex has been great however the trident has been another story.

My unit has been off from day one. Alk is .4dkh lower. Cal is 80ppm higher and mag is 100ppm lower. I’ve had the unit for six months and run the 6 test schedule. It has been calibrated 5 times and every time it is off by something wildly different than before. I could live with it if it was a consistent value.

support was honestly a weird and awkward experience. First they blamed my test kits so I bought new ones. They blamed those. So I got 3 icp tests done by three different companies. All three test were consistent with each other. So finally they told me I needed to pay and send it in. I don’t remember what the exact amount was but it is not trivial and I find it insane I need to pay to have my unit in working order.

all and all I just kinda regret going the Neptune route. Think I will end up paying to have it fixed then sell the unit with they apex and go ghl

 

[KrispyKashew]

double post

 

[Gtinnel]

I pretty much regret going with the trident and apex system. Apex has been great however the trident has been another story.

My unit has been off from day one. Alk is .4dkh lower. Cal is 80ppm higher and mag is 100ppm lower. I’ve had the unit for six months and run the 6 test schedule. It has been calibrated 5 times and every time it is off by something wildly different than before. I could live with it if it was a consistent value.

support was honestly a weird and awkward experience. First they blamed my test kits so I bought new ones. They blamed those. So I got 3 icp tests done by three different companies. All three test were consistent with each other. So finally they told me I needed to pay and send it in. I don’t remember what the exact amount was but it is not trivial and I find it insane I need to pay to have my unit in working order.

all and all I just kinda regret going the Neptune route. Think I will end up paying to have it fixed then sell the unit with they apex and go ghl

My readings change the few times I've swapped reagents and re calibrated it. On my first full reagent swap my calcium shows about 100ppm higher than it really is, and my mag is a few hundred lower than it really is.. I'm pretty sure this issue has more to do with their calibration solution than anything else. I've seen people online saying that calibrating with your tanks water often helps "fix" that issue. From now on when I swap reagents I'm going to test my tank with other test kits and set it to calibrate to those values.

 

[KrispyKashew]

My readings change the few times I've swapped reagents and re calibrated it. On my first full reagent swap my calcium shows about 100ppm higher than it really is, and my mag is a few hundred lower than it really is.. I'm pretty sure this issue has more to do with their calibration solution than anything else. I've seen people online saying that calibrating with your tanks water often helps "fix" that issue. From now on when I swap reagents I'm going to test my tank with other test kits and set it to calibrate to those values.

Support suggested I do that and I did. After seeing pretty decent results for awhile I kinda got lazy and started relying on the trident for testing. After a few weeks of manual dosing, my numbers were way way off from what the trident was reading. In fact the trident never really registered a change. I should have know better to test manually while trying to bring numbers up but was being lazy. Ended up with cal being 575 and mag in 1750 range all while the trident hummed along not registering a thing.

I would probably be ok with the system if they just let me manually correct the numbers

 

[PanhandleReef]

I've had the Trident almost two years now and haven't had a single issue with it. If you are already in the Apex ecosystem then, buy the Trident with confidence. With that being said, if I didn't already have Apex I would prefer GHL because I don't pay attention to the Cal and Mag. I would prefer the cheaper operating cost and I think all the testing systems do well with Alk.

 

[Gtinnel]

Support suggested I do that and I did. After seeing pretty decent results for awhile I kinda got lazy and started relying on the trident for testing. After a few weeks of manual dosing, my numbers were way way off from what the trident was reading. In fact the trident never really registered a change. I should have know better to test manually while trying to bring numbers up but was being lazy. Ended up with cal being 575 and mag in 1750 range all while the trident hummed along not registering a thing.

I would probably be ok with the system if they just let me manually correct the numbers

As I understand it calibrating it with your tanks water set to the values that you tell it they are should allow you to set it so that it's values match your other test kits. I still test my water about every week just to confirm the values for the trident are at least consistent, and so far for me they have been, although still off they're at least off by the same amount each time.

 

[blaxsun]

I've only been using my Trident for about 4 months now, so I'm still on my second batch of reagents. What I can say is that the calibration fluid included has been accurate only with respect to alkalinity; in both calibration bottles the calcium and magnesium was off by as much as ±120ppm. And just to dispel any doubt, I ran several titration and digital tests for each parameter on the last batch of calibration solution itself. And while user error will play into this to some extent, it doesn't explain that much of a variance.

Even if you get a Trident you should still keep your existing test kits - if only to keep the Trident honest (which we now know we pretty much have to). What has worked for me is to calibrate the Trident based on my (external) testing values and tank water, and this has resulted in the Trident generally being accurate (or at least more accurate).

There's no point in calibrating the Trident to some "magical numbers" when you're going to be using whatever titration or digital test to periodically test. You're better off running several tests using whatever method you test and take the average for your calibration numbers.

That being said, I think the Trident does provide some beneficial day-to-day numbers and when properly calibrated it's generally within the margin of error stated. If you have a DOS connected the Trident can also influence your dosing by increasing or decreasing the allotments based on where you'd like your parameters to be, ie: if your alkalinity is 8.0 and you set the Trident to 8.5, it will increase or decrease your dosing based on reaching or exceeding this target. You can either give the Trident a wide berth or keep a tight grip on the reigns, too.

 

[MichaelReefer]

So I am contemplating getting a Trident for automated testing and Calcium and Alk dosing (via DOS). First of all, I know how expensive this will be...so I already understand the cost. However, I will be stepping in to a new job soon which will involve frequent travel and the automation is very valuable to me (and worth the cost).

So what I am looking for is thoughts on the Trident and it's performance, accuracy, reliability and cost. I've read some posts that seem to indicate setup can be a bit of a pain in the &*$#.

Thanks!

Love mine *shrug*

 

[adsf430]

Anyone have any thoughts on purchasing a used versus a new Trident? Obviously the lure is saving money but the new one comes with 2 months of regents ($45 value) and the one year warranty. I'm also not seeing people selling their used units for too attractive of a discount. Want to make the purchase soon before BRS raises the price.

 

[blaxsun]

Anyone have any thoughts on purchasing a used versus a new Trident? Obviously the lure is saving money but the new one comes with 2 months of regents ($45 value) and the one year warranty. I'm also not seeing people selling their used units for too attractive of a discount. Want to make the purchase soon before BRS raises the price.

I'd buy new, mainly because apparently after about 1 year you need to either send it in for the recommended maintenance -or- purchase the do-it-yourself kit from Neptune (which I'm not sure is available yet). And the 2 months of free reagent. Out of the box brand new there was an issue with mine from shipping (connection got jostled), so this was fixed within 24 hours of a quick email to Neptune.

Then again, if you find a Trident for an absolute theft, well...

 

[Waboss]

I've had a Trident for right at 2 years now. It's been a great tool for me to keep an "eye" on my tank. I travel a lot for work so I needed something I could access remotely. I've never really had an issue with it that wasn't self induced (accidentally crimping one of the tubes) and it's made me feel a lot more confident in knowing what's going on in my tank while not taking up much of my time.

For me, it was well worth the investment. I'm not going to say it's better or worse than any of the other options out there, but it works for me.

 

[Actup85]

I'm on my second trident both had issues with tubes coming loose and leaking and the 2nd one always reads +100 on mag I've been having a lot of neptune stuff fail lately honestly feels like the quality is going down especially considering how expensive the equipment is .