Understanding Trident With High Concentrated All For Reef

[Tasshu]

Good Morning all,

I currently have a Fluval Nano 60l but I have recently purchased a Red Sea 425 G2 alongside an Apex, trident and dual dosing containers.

My plan is to cycle the big tank with the apex installed, trident etc.

However, I'm struggling to understand what I should be putting in the dual containers for dosing. For example:

I hear people here chatting about using 'all for reef' which is highly concentrated and supplies all the essentials, so with that in mind:

1. do I fill both containers with this?

and

2. how would trident know that it's highly concentrated and not dose to much?

Thank you for your time,

Dan

 

[Chrisv.]

Good Morning all,

I currently have a Fluval Nano 60l but I have recently purchased a Red Sea 425 G2 alongside an Apex, trident and dual dosing containers.

My plan is to cycle the big tank with the apex installed, trident etc.

However, I'm struggling to understand what I should be putting in the dual containers for dosing. For example:

I hear people here chatting about using 'all for reef' which is highly concentrated and supplies all the essentials, so with that in mind:

1. do I fill both containers with this?

and

2. how would trident know that it's highly concentrated and not dose to much?

Thank you for your time,

Dan

People who control dosing using a Trident tend to use separate alkalinity and calcium supplements and so they put each of those in a separate dosing reservoir.

 

[Tasshu]

People who control dosing using a Trident tend to use separate alkalinity and calcium supplements and so they put each of those in a separate dosing reservoir.

Hello Chris,

Thank you for replying,

So, if I was to use one container with Alkalinity and one with calcium, would it matter if I top both up with highly concentrated or do I need to make it myself then put it in?

I hope that makes sense

Dan

 

[Chrisv.]

Hello Chris,

Thank you for replying,

So, if I was to use one container with Alkalinity and one with calcium, would it matter if I top both up with highly concentrated or do I need to make it myself then put it in?

I hope that makes sense

Dan

Hi Dan,

As with any dosing, it really makes sense to dial it in slowly. I should start by saying that I don't use a Trident with my apex, so hopefully others will chime in.

There are several ways to set up the equipment you described. Some people use the trident to determine calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium consumption-- then dose those using a dosing pump that is NOT controlled by the apex in a manner that's based on demand. For example, the tests happen, the data gets logged, and you tell your doser to dose x ml a day. This has the advantage of you being able to dial it in slowly as you figure out the needs of your tank early on. You can still have the dosing pumps plugged into the apex so that the apex cuts thier power if alk or calcium get too high.

You can also set your apex to dose based on consumption in the tank. E.g. the trident does a test, doses, waits, does a test a little later, doses a little more if needed.

Honestly I would probably start with the first version, so that you can gain experience using two part and understand the growing demands of your tank, and then once you're feeling comfortable with the apex, the trident, and dosing in general, consider the automated version.

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but as for the concentration of the reagent, I think these systems are all calibrated to work with standard concentrations of commercially available two part dosing supplements. Nothing wrong with diluting them with rodi, but you will need to dose more.

Chris

 

[Tasshu]

Hello Chris,

Thank you so much for your advice

So if I start with the first to understand how Apex / Trident and Dosing works then start automation down the line, which makes a lot of sense and I think that's an incredibly smart way to go about it so thank you

Additionally, how do I know what the best dosing to use is? for example, I have found Red Sea foundation A/B/C and AB+ but I'm not sure what I should start with? Ideally like you said it would be to go through alk and calcium and dose slowly to see what the needs are but I'm struggling to find out what other people use, ideally I would rather not mix it as I'm an idiot and would kill everything.

Also, I take it as time goes on and I had coral etc, my chemistry will start to swing that is where dosing becomes more important?

Thank you again for your time.

Dan

 

[Chrisv.]

Hello Chris,

Thank you so much for your advice

So if I start with the first to understand how Apex / Trident and Dosing works then start automation down the line, which makes a lot of sense and I think that's an incredibly smart way to go about it so thank you

Additionally, how do I know what the best dosing to use is? for example, I have found Red Sea foundation A/B/C and AB+ but I'm not sure what I should start with? Ideally like you said it would be to go through alk and calcium and dose slowly to see what the needs are but I'm struggling to find out what other people use, ideally I would rather not mix it as I'm an idiot and would kill everything.

Also, I take it as time goes on and I had coral etc, my chemistry will start to swing that is where dosing becomes more important?

Thank you again for your time.

Dan

I'm sure someone will strongly disagree, but my experience has been that most two or three part systems are roughly equivalent. If this were my tank, I would let testing be my guide. This will be very easy since you have a Trident! First, measure your alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium consumption in the new tank without dosing.

Once you add corals you will see levels drop. Some algae can consume these things too, so don't be too surprised if you see a drop before then.

My suggestion is to start slowly with an initial dose based on the amount of loss you see due to consumption. The commercial products all have a "add x ml to raise y gallons of water by z ppm (for Ca and Mg) or z dKH (for alk). Just start with that, and monitor to see how fast it's consumed. I prefer to add a consistent amount each day perhaps undershooting at first, then slowly increase based on the demand you see from testing.

The amount to add is typically on the bottle.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

I would dose seperate alk and calcium so the trident controlled dosing functions will work as intended. It's possible to to trident controlled dosing with all for reef, but you would have to peg it to alk and if your calcium drifts, it won't automatically compensate that. All for reef is also substantially more expensive than 2 part.

You can make the solution as concentrated or weak as you want. I prefer as concentrated as it gets so that I fill my containers less.

I just use the BRS 2 part because it is substantially cheaper than other pre-made alternatives. You can use the tropic Marin balling elements to add trace to these if you have a low water change schedule.

 

[Tasshu]

I'm sure someone will strongly disagree, but my experience has been that most two or three part systems are roughly equivalent. If this were my tank, I would let testing be my guide. This will be very easy since you have a Trident! First, measure your alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium consumption in the new tank without dosing.

Once you add corals you will see levels drop. Some algae can consume these things too, so don't be too surprised if you see a drop before then.

My suggestion is to start slowly with an initial dose based on the amount of loss you see due to consumption. The commercial products all have a "add x ml to raise y gallons of water by z ppm (for Ca and Mg) or z dKH (for alk). Just start with that, and monitor to see how fast it's consumed. I prefer to add a consistent amount each day perhaps undershooting at first, then slowly increase based on the demand you see from testing.

The amount to add is typically on the bottle.

You've been amazing! thank you so much for your help.

 

[Tasshu]

I would dose seperate alk and calcium so the trident controlled dosing functions will work as intended. It's possible to to trident controlled dosing with all for reef, but you would have to peg it to alk and if your calcium drifts, it won't automatically compensate that. All for reef is also substantially more expensive than 2 part.

You can make the solution as concentrated or weak as you want. I prefer as concentrated as it gets so that I fill my containers less.

I just use the BRS 2 part because it is substantially cheaper than other pre-made alternatives. You can use the tropic Marin balling elements to add trace to these if you have a low water change schedule.

I'm currently looking up BRS 2 part, is it 1 part alk and another calcium? I can't find many places to buy it here in uk

 

[ZombieEngineer]

I'm currently looking up BRS 2 part, is it 1 part alk and another calcium? I can't find many places to buy it here in uk

If you're in the UK, you can use Randy Holmes Farleys DIY 2 part. It's just food or pharmaceutical grade sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate (former if your pH is on the low side) and calcium chloride