Using Trident Controlled 2-Part Dosing and a KALK reactor fed by the DOS

[aarbutina]

I posted this over in the Nepture forum but thought I would post it here too to see if anyone here has thoughts

So I would basically like someone who is better than me at programming and APEX to check my logic.

What I want to do is provide a constant (near constant) drip from they kalk reactor that would provide 50 to 75% of my tanks needs and then make up for the rest with trident controlled dosing using two part. My thinking is this would provide the pH benefits of kalk and then have the ability to accurately maintain my Ca and ALK levels with 2 part. I think the 2 part piece of this is the easy part (already using trident controlled dosing with 2 part and would just need to adjust my Interval and Control Interval settings to account for the reduced need of 2 part).

I want to check my thinking for how to program the DOS to dose the Kalk. For this example I am using an estimated dose of 0.5 gallon/day (1892.71 mL/day) (this may not be the final amount it is just a number to check the math).

First I was thinking about setting up the following profile. This would provide a constant dose over 24 hours, with a dose being delivered every 5 minutes.

Name: Kalk_Dose
Type: Dose
Dose Rate: 7 mL/min
Pump Direction: Forward
Per Dose Amount: 6.57
Dose Interval: 300
Dose Count: 288

Obviously i could create other profiles if i wanted to vary the amount that I dosed at different points of the day.

Next I would program the DOS channel itself as follows:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Alkx3 < 9.0 Then Kalk_Dose
If Cax3 >500 Then OFF
If pH > 8.6 Then OFF

My thinking is that this programming would default the DOS to OFF in the event of a power loss. Then as long as the ALK as measured by the trident is less then 9.0 and the CA is < 500 the Kalk would be dosed according to the profile names "Kalk_Dose" (above). Lastly if the pH is higher than 8.6 it would shut off the Kalk dosing.

The trident controlled dosing with 2 part would then be set up to dose the remaining ALK and CA and control ALK to 8.5 of and CA to 420.


Does anyone see anything theoretically wrong with this programming?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Doctorgori]

bump...Your Idea sounds slick; have the best of both worlds ...
following

 

[Forshurley]

following, I run kalk and about to set up my trident and was thinking some of these same questions. I use the kamour continues pump and dosing 5ml every min in my 250g of kalk. Once bio load is heavier I believe I will have to have controlled 2 part dose from trident with the lion share of additives from kalk.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Why not do it the other way around? Why not make limewater your primary alkalinity and calcium supplement and fall back to two-part when necessary? Depending on your consumption and water evaporation, you may not need to dose any two-part. This would also give you the biggest pH boost possible.

The only tricky part is that you can dose more limewater than you evaporate. So, you'll need to play around with it a bit and see exactly how much you can dose per day. Once you figure that out, it probably won't change much. It's also a lot easier if you have Neptune's ATO. You can choose to only dose limewater when the water level is low enough to accept it and shut it off when the water is too high.

I do a lot more low-tech version of this with a Jebao doser. I dose 43 mL of limewater every hour (~1L per day) to my 80g system. This handles my calcium and alkalinity needs, and my tank evaporates more than that. So I just top off manually every few days to make up for what the limewater doesn't replace. I haven't had to use two-part in a long time, but I have some sitting on the shelf if necessary.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Another option is to skip the limewater and use Randy's high pH two part. This is dosed like a normal two-part, but it gives the same pH boost as limewater. The only caveat is you can add more of this two part, so it's possible to get more of a pH boost with this than with limewater.

 

[aarbutina]

Why not do it the other way around? Why not make limewater your primary alkalinity and calcium supplement and fall back to two-part when necessary? Depending on your consumption and water evaporation, you may not need to dose any two-part. This would also give you the biggest pH boost possible.

The only tricky part is that you can dose more limewater than you evaporate. So, you'll need to play around with it a bit and see exactly how much you can dose per day. Once you figure that out, it probably won't change much. It's also a lot easier if you have Neptune's ATO. You can choose to only dose limewater when the water level is low enough to accept it and shut it off when the water is too high.

I do a lot more low-tech version of this with a Jebao doser. I dose 43 mL of limewater every hour (~1L per day) to my 80g system. This handles my calcium and alkalinity needs, and my tank evaporates more than that. So I just top off manually every few days to make up for what the limewater doesn't replace. I haven't had to use two-part in a long time, but I have some sitting on the shelf if necessary.

It is my thought to let the Kalk to the majority of the heavy lifting. The 50 to 75% was just an example and would probably be the starting point so that I could get things dialed in with out being too close to an edge. My idea is really only to use two part to fine tune things with the controlled dosing.

 

[CasperOe]

Not sure this was ever resolved, so allow me to give this a bump! I am looking at achieving similar with constant kalkwasser and additional 2-part if needed.

However, I could like the Trident to control the dose of kalkwasser based on alkalinity- and do my manual corrections of two-part required using a Red Sea ReefDose4 (because i have it already!)

Any takers?

 

[All_talk]

I have always used kalk for Alk/Ca, but now require more than I can get through evaporation so I have added in Tropic Marin All-For-Reef to pick up the slack. My setup uses three dosing pumps, kalk and ATO are configured on one Apex DOS and the AFR is on a stand alone doser (BRS 1.1).

I do not use controlled dosing. I occasional see test anomalies from my Trident so I prefer to set things on a steady course and make corrections base on combined data from the Trident and manual testing. My kalk dosing varies throughout the day to prop up PH but covers about 90% of my evaporation, with the ATO filling in the balance/variation. At this point the AFR is set for a steady dose over 24 hours but I may change this to balance out daily variations in Alk.

I do have a high limit set on the AFR so it will suspend dosing based on the Trident testing of Alk. But this is more of a temporary safety because I an still tuning in the AFR dose. Once things are balanced to the tanks needs this should not come into play. I prefer to run my tank in balance and not have things bouncing off high or low limits.

 

[aarbutina]

Not sure this was ever resolved, so allow me to give this a bump! I am looking at achieving similar with constant kalkwasser and additional 2-part if needed.

However, I could like the Trident to control the dose of kalkwasser based on alkalinity- and do my manual corrections of two-part required using a Red Sea ReefDose4 (because i have it already!)

Any takers?

Well this is a blast from the past!

I have actually been running something very similar to what I originally proposed for some time with a couple modifications.

I am currently running what I guess you could consider a modified Balling Method. Where I use a Kalk reactor to supplement the majority of my ALK and Ca needs (as well as the added benefit to pH) while at the same time using Trident controlled dosing to add any additional ALK or Ca that the system needs (or throttle it back if these are getting to high) and Part C (which is also added using trident controlled dosing at a rate double the ALK dose).

I didn't like the way that Kalk was being added when I was using a DOS to supply the feed water, so I switched that over to a Versa recently. I now get a steady drip coming out of the Kalk reactor instead of a surging discharge that I would get when I was using the DOS. I also like that the Versa is a much quieter pump. Hearing the DOS constantly adding the Kalk wasn't my favorite. The only negative to this set up is that the Versa can't be programed to shut off through APEX so there isn't the same fail safes that can be built in. My hope is that when they finally release the mobius control unit there will be capabilities to control the Versa built in.

I have no idea if there are any over all benefits to running my system like this, but it just made sense to me.

 

[CasperOe]

Well this is a blast from the past!

I have actually been running something very similar to what I originally proposed for some time with a couple modifications.

I am currently running what I guess you could consider a modified Balling Method. Where I use a Kalk reactor to supplement the majority of my ALK and Ca needs (as well as the added benefit to pH) while at the same time using Trident controlled dosing to add any additional ALK or Ca that the system needs (or throttle it back if these are getting to high) and Part C (which is also added using trident controlled dosing at a rate double the ALK dose).

I didn't like the way that Kalk was being added when I was using a DOS to supply the feed water, so I switched that over to a Versa recently. I now get a steady drip coming out of the Kalk reactor instead of a surging discharge that I would get when I was using the DOS. I also like that the Versa is a much quieter pump. Hearing the DOS constantly adding the Kalk wasn't my favorite. The only negative to this set up is that the Versa can't be programed to shut off through APEX so there isn't the same fail safes that can be built in. My hope is that when they finally release the mobius control unit there will be capabilities to control the Versa built in.

I have no idea if there are any over all benefits to running my system like this, but it just made sense to me.

In all honesty, that might just be the way to go!

It is good to hear someone's experience on the matter, and it just so happens that I joust bought a used Versa It was gonna be dosing all for reef in a smaller tank I have but now it might just be upgraded a wee bit.

Need myself a used DOS to achieve what you're doing. I have two already (one for AWC) and one bought for the kalk...

As for the security, the Versa can be powered by an Apex outlet i suppose, programmed to shut off if PH/ALK rises above a set point?

Time to re-assess.

Cheers!!

 

[aarbutina]

In all honesty, that might just be the way to go!

It is good to hear someone's experience on the matter, and it just so happens that I joust bought a used Versa It was gonna be dosing all for reef in a smaller tank I have but now it might just be upgraded a wee bit.

Need myself a used DOS to achieve what you're doing. I have two already (one for AWC) and one bought for the kalk...

As for the security, the Versa can be powered by an Apex outlet i suppose, programmed to shut off if PH/ALK rises above a set point?

Time to re-assess.

Cheers!!

I had considered powering the Verse on a APEX outlet, but I think I was short on outlet at the time and I wasn't totally clear on what the Versa would do if power was cut (i.e., would it start up again when the power came back on).

 

[Mike1970]

I am using versa pump to dose kalk 24/7 and using the trident control dosing to keep up with what kalk doesn’t provide. you really don’t need to over think it, you just need a baseline to start your controlled dose, like when you max out on kalk and you need to add more ALK/CAL just add it by hand take notes for a couple of days then When you get how much you are adding go into apex controlled dose tell it how much to add and should be good at least this is the way I did it