Trident vs Hydros X10+IVPro

[jmcdona6]

Looking to buy a automated testing solution for my Waterbox 6025 peninsula. Stuck between the popular Trident option or going for the Hydros X10+IVPro. I wanted to get the communities thoughts, especially on Hydros if you have any. Feedback is so few and far between. I feel like the right answer should be Hydros...but truly conflicted.

Hydros:

- Pro: I already have several Hydros controllers and everything else is on Hydros. But testing/dosing is largely separate from everything else from a control standpoint so I don't think it is that much of an advantage.
- Pro: Can drain waste back to tank so no waste container...quality of life improvement.
- Pro: Cheap reagent.
- Con: Cheap reagent. You have to worry about the shelf life, mix consistency, etc. Vs more expensive but out of the box reagent experience.
- Con: Price is only $120 cheaper....but with APEX I get another smart power strip and access to other Neptune offerings, redundancy, etc. The X10 is priced in a way that makes having other Hydros controllers not as much of a competitive advantage.
- Con: Not a lot of user feedback and reviews.
- Con: From what I have read and seen on the Hydros forum and elsewhere...works really well but is finicky...requires tinkering. Recommends replacing pump heads every 6-12 months. More maintenance. Vs the Trident that might be less accurate but is largely set and forget in my experience.

Trident:

- Pro: Used for years in the past so familiar. Has its kinks but has worked decently enough for me. I don't care as much about accuracy as much as I care about consistency for dosing guide rail purposes.
- Con: That said I do not have APEX so it would be a $1,100 purchase (maybe a little less if I get one of the JR packages with adapters, but no thank you). But you also get an EB8 with it...which I don't need right now but more smart power strips is never a bad thing.
- Con: I would have to keep and maintain a separate container for waste water (negative compared to Hydros).
- Con: Two separate ecosystems/apps/etc. .
- Meh: I don't care about Calcium/Magnesium testing. I use TM AFR so I really just test for Alkalinity dosing and occasionally manually test the other two to verify things are within acceptable range. Also why I don't care to wait for the Maven.

 

[leepink23]

My original trident lasted 3 years, the newer ones me and my buddies bought barely made it a year. I have considered the Kh carer as well with hydros but for now just test 2x week with Hanna

 

[jmcdona6]

My original trident lasted 3 years, the newer ones me and my buddies bought barely made it a year. I have considered the Kh carer as well with hydros but for now just test 2x week with Hanna

Thats another thing I had not considered/heard about. My trident lasted two years, sold it when I broke down my tank to move states and I know it lasted at least another year before I lost contact with the guy I sold it to. Do you think its a change in build quality or luck?

I've considered other options as well. I travel/get caught up with work a lot so I know the manual option isn't for me. I've tried that in the past and my reef suffered. Blossomed once I got to where I ignored it most days. Funny how that works...

 

[leepink23]

Thats another thing I had not considered/heard about. My trident lasted two years, sold it when I broke down my tank to move states and I know it lasted at least another year before I lost contact with the guy I sold it to. Do you think its a change in build quality or luck?

I've considered other options as well. I travel/get caught up with work a lot so I know the manual option isn't for me. I've tried that in the past and my reef suffered. Blossomed once I got to where I ignored it most days. Funny how that works...

I think it’s build quality, we had 4 fail within 12-14 months. 2 of us aren’t using one anymore. I sold my warranty replacement, didn’t trust it anymore.

 

[jmcdona6]

I think it’s build quality, we had 4 fail within 12-14 months. 2 of us aren’t using one anymore. I sold my warranty replacement, didn’t trust it anymore.

Thanks for the feedback...something to take into consideration.

 

[n2585722]

I have an X10 and a iV and do alkalinity testing 4 times a day just before one of the 4 AWC's done each day. After the water change I dose All For Reef and then a KH buffer using dynamic dosing using the results of the test. I have 15 Hydros controllers in my collective and the X10 is one of them. I have all the probe ports and sense ports in use on the first X10 along with a drive port.

 

[jmcdona6]

I have an X10 and a iV and do alkalinity testing 4 times a day just before one of the 4 AWC's done each day. After the water change I dose All For Reef and then a KH buffer using dynamic dosing using the results of the test. I have 15 Hydros controllers in my collective and the X10 is one of them. I have all the probe ports and sense ports in use on the first X10 along with a drive port.

How do you feel about the stability of the X10/IV? I've read a lot of horror stories about people having issues with bubbles in tubes, frequent probe calibrations, etc. The trident wasn't maintenance free when I had it either, but it was maybe a once a few weeks intervention at worst.

 

[n2585722]

How do you feel about the stability of the X10/IV? I've read a lot of horror stories about people having issues with bubbles in tubes, frequent probe calibrations, etc. The trident wasn't maintenance free when I had it either, but it was maybe a once a few weeks intervention at worst.

I had the bubble issue but I removed the tubing and flushed it out and pinched as I was using a syringe to push water through it. I think there was a reaction between the tubing and the reagent when the tubing was new. I have not had an issue with that since I cleaned out the tubing. Mine has been stable. At first I was having an issue but then noticed that during the test when the fill pump would prime the tubing again it would not quite get it primed before stopping so I shortened the fill tube between the pump and the sump to make it shorter. I get the concentrate reagent and mix it 4 to 1 with DI water. There is also a way to check that using a test kit. It requires you to test your tank water with the kit and then do it again but use the reagent. I think should take the same amount of drops to get the color change as the test kit reagent. I don't remember the name of the kit but there is a post on the Hydros forum about doing this. Get the Milwaukee pH probe. It seems to be more stable in this use than others. With most dosing pumps there is a break in period for the tubing. Just give a few weeks and then calibrate again. The iV is basically a beaker and a stand with the places to hold the probes and tubing for drain, fill and reagent. The stand has a built in magnetic stirrer that runs off a drive port. When I first hooked it up I had the X10 as a stand alone controller and used a simple Hydros doser for the drain pump off of one of the drive ports. I used 2 of the X10 pumps for the reagent and fill pump. That left 2 X10 pumps for dosing my All For Reef and KH buffer. After a few months I added it to my collective so I could use the sense ports in the collective. I did put a temp sensor in the beaker for use as a temp offset for the salinity probe and pH probe. The salinity was ok during the summer months but when it got to this time of the year the reading would drop considerably. Now it seem to rise but no where near as much as it would drop before. I also setup a schedule to run the drain and fill pumps in sequence 20 minutes before and 10 minutes before the actual start of the test to get the temp up some on the items in the iV to match the tank temp closer. That also seems to help. That was mainly for the salinity readings since temp does not affect the pH as much. The X10 iV was more stable for me than the KH Carer. It could be the dosing I do that gives the Carer problems but not sure.

 

[jmcdona6]

I had the bubble issue but I removed the tubing and flushed it out and pinched as I was using a syringe to push water through it. I think there was a reaction between the tubing and the reagent when the tubing was new. I have not had an issue with that since I cleaned out the tubing. Mine has been stable. At first I was having an issue but then noticed that during the test when the fill pump would prime the tubing again it would not quite get it primed before stopping so I shortened the fill tube between the pump and the sump to make it shorter. I get the concentrate reagent and mix it 4 to 1 with DI water. There is also a way to check that using a test kit. It requires you to test your tank water with the kit and then do it again but use the reagent. I think should take the same amount of drops to get the color change as the test kit reagent. I don't remember the name of the kit but there is a post on the Hydros forum about doing this. Get the Milwaukee pH probe. It seems to be more stable in this use than others. With most dosing pumps there is a break in period for the tubing. Just give a few weeks and then calibrate again. The iV is basically a beaker and a stand with the places to hold the probes and tubing for drain, fill and reagent. The stand has a built in magnetic stirrer that runs off a drive port. When I first hooked it up I had the X10 as a stand alone controller and used a simple Hydros doser for the drain pump off of one of the drive ports. I used 2 of the X10 pumps for the reagent and fill pump. That left 2 X10 pumps for dosing my All For Reef and KH buffer. After a few months I added it to my collective so I could use the sense ports in the collective. I did put a temp sensor in the beaker for use as a temp offset for the salinity probe and pH probe. The salinity was ok during the summer months but when it got to this time of the year the reading would drop considerably. Now it seem to rise but no where near as much as it would drop before. I also setup a schedule to run the drain and fill pumps in sequence 20 minutes before and 10 minutes before the actual start of the test to get the temp up some on the items in the iV to match the tank temp closer. That also seems to help. That was mainly for the salinity readings since temp does not affect the pH as much. The X10 iV was more stable for me than the KH Carer. It could be the dosing I do that gives the Carer problems but not sure.

Thank you for the detailed reply. I appreciate the input.

 

[jmcdona6]

Thank for your opinions. I ended up pulling the trigger on the Hydros X10/IV Pro.

Still not sure about my purchase, but we will see how it goes.

 

[clj]

Thank for your opinions. I ended up pulling the trigger on the Hydros X10/IV Pro.

Still not sure about my purchase, but we will see how it goes.

How are you liking it so far?

 

[Connor At CoralVue]

Thank for your opinions. I ended up pulling the trigger on the Hydros X10/IV Pro.

Still not sure about my purchase, but we will see how it goes.

Call us if you need us! Support is there for you, put us to the test at support.coralvue.com.

Thank you for your trust and aquarium controller! We won't let you down.

 

[jmcdona6]

Call us if you need us! Support is there for you, put us to the test at support.coralvue.com.

Thank you for your trust and aquarium controller! We won't let you down.

Thanks!

 

[jmcdona6]

How are you liking it so far?

So far so good. I did have a defect in my X10 when it arrived but Coralvue customer service was outstanding and took care of it right away. Superb. As is there support overall. Better than most vendors I've experienced in this hobby or any other. Is their product perfect? No. But they are obviously passionate and stand by it.

I would say all my pro's and con's I listed above are valid. It is finicky. I did have to tinker with the calibrations for a few weeks or so before I started getting consistent results that correlated with other testing methods. The trident is much more user friendly out of the box. For example it walks you through step by step like a chimp, meanwhile I am balancing my phone using a youtube video to figure out how to setup my X10/iV.

That being said, maintenance is actually a DIY task without needing to do surgery. Its actually a pretty simple setup so troubleshooting is not hard. So many times my trident would error and it would take me forever to figure out why and fix. With the X10/iV, if its not working right I just initiate a test and watch. It tells me what its doing in the app and I can see visually where it is failing and why. I can see the calibration details. Nothing is obscured. Its just...more user friendly in spite of being finicky and requiring the occasional tinker.

I have been running the testing for about 6 weeks now post setup/calibration/tinker and its still giving me good results. I check against redsea and hanna once a week...its always within range. I also use AFR for dosing so its only two liquids to manage which I can mix in bulk once a month or so instead of dealing with multiple bottles. I like it...

 

[n2585722]

So far so good. I did have a defect in my X10 when it arrived but Coralvue customer service was outstanding and took care of it right away. Superb. As is there support overall. Better than most vendors I've experienced in this hobby or any other. Is their product perfect? No. But they are obviously passionate and stand by it.

I would say all my pro's and con's I listed above are valid. It is finicky. I did have to tinker with the calibrations for a few weeks or so before I started getting consistent results that correlated with other testing methods. The trident is much more user friendly out of the box. For example it walks you through step by step like a chimp, meanwhile I am balancing my phone using a youtube video to figure out how to setup my X10/iV.

That being said, maintenance is actually a DIY task without needing to do surgery. Its actually a pretty simple setup so troubleshooting is not hard. So many times my trident would error and it would take me forever to figure out why and fix. With the X10/iV, if its not working right I just initiate a test and watch. It tells me what its doing in the app and I can see visually where it is failing and why. I can see the calibration details. Nothing is obscured. Its just...more user friendly in spite of being finicky and requiring the occasional tinker.

I have been running the testing for about 6 weeks now post setup/calibration/tinker and its still giving me good results. I check against redsea and hanna once a week...its always within range. I also use AFR for dosing so its only two liquids to manage which I can mix in bulk once a month or so instead of dealing with multiple bottles. I like it...

There is a break in period for the pumps with new tubing. I had the same issue with the KH Carer for about 4 weeks so that did not surprise me on the X10 with the iV.

 

[jmcdona6]

There is a break in period for the pumps with new tubing. I had the same issue with the KH Carer for about 4 weeks so that did not surprise me on the X10 with the iV.

For sure. The calibration steps really matter too. If you don't have the correct measuring tools it can be really difficult to get it right. Break-in got me more consistent in range results, using a decent calibrated scale got me consistently +/- .25 dKh from my other test results. Also applies to consistently mixing reagent as well.

Which is all well and good. I am sure the Trident has some of the same issues. But for me it was never as pronounced and the Trident handled the calibration with much less fuss.

Overall like it over the Trident, but I recognize many people don't like to tinker with that sort of thing...

 

[N11morales]

I'm very tempted to get this unit. Like you said though struggling finding a lot of reviews on it. So ty for this post. I would love to use Hydros x10 w/ IV Pro to test alkalinty and use the extra dosing head for alk dosing most likely (as needed).

Once Hydros Maven comes out though was thinking I could just keep the Hydros x10 as dosing unit and do all testing on the Maven.

 

[n2585722]

I'm very tempted to get this unit. Like you said though struggling finding a lot of reviews on it. So ty for this post. I would love to use Hydros x10 w/ IV Pro to test alkalinty and use the extra dosing head for alk dosing most likely (as needed).

Once Hydros Maven comes out though was thinking I could just keep the Hydros x10 as dosing unit and do all testing on the Maven.

If you are going to do multiple test per day for alkalinity then you would still want to go with the iV since the test water can be emptied back into the tank if you want and the reagent will be a lot less expensive than the Maven. The Maven test water cannot go back to the tank so you will need to add saltwater to replace what was used for testing. Also you can get a simple doser and hook that to the second drive port on the X10 like I did and use it as the drain pump. Then use 2 of the X10 pumps for the fill and reagent pumps. I dose All For Reef and a KH buffer with the other 2 pumps. I did have the X10 setup stand alone for a while but I now have it in the collective with other controllers.

 

[N11morales]

If you are going to do multiple test per day for alkalinity then you would still want to go with the iV since the test water can be emptied back into the tank if you want and the reagent will be a lot less expensive than the Maven. The Maven test water cannot go back to the tank so you will need to add saltwater to replace what was used for testing. Also you can get a simple doser and hook that to the second drive port on the X10 like I did and use it as the drain pump. Then use 2 of the X10 pumps for the fill and reagent pumps. I dose All For Reef and a KH buffer with the other 2 pumps. I did have the X10 setup stand alone for a while but I now have it in the collective with other controllers.

Great idea! I may have to try this myself.

 

[jmcdona6]

Great idea! I may have to try this myself.

I can attest that the emptying waste water back into the tank is a HUGE benefit. Removes a container from my cabinet and something else I never have to worry about it. I may or may not have let the waste container overflow when I had a trident a time or two...seems silly but part of this is about automation/convenience...and this is one less thing you have to worry about.

Its a tough call though. As a shopper I don't think anyone is knocking it out the park from a price and performance standpoint. Even if the Maven works well when it comes out...it looks like its going to be a mess in your cabinet not to mention having to manage however many reagents. Not to mention the price tag.