Who actually lets their Trident control dosing?

[cilyjr]

Who here is actually using a trident to control dosing?

The reason I ask is because I will often, once a month or so I will get an alkalinity reading that's inaccurate. I will get a false low somewhere in the range of -.5.

For me it's no issue, I do not allow the trident to control what is dosed to the aquarium. when I get something that looks like an unusually large drop I tell the machine to retest and get a reading back in spec.

For people that do use the machine to control their dosing that could be a real problem.

I was curious on people's personal experiences with the Trident and automatic dosing.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I tried it for a while. I found that it would chase it's own tail and the parameters would get out of whack. It can be programed how quickly or slowly to adjust, but alk always seemed to jump by about .5 -.8 dkh no matter what setting it was on. I set it back to regular dosing, and manually adjust as required. Now the alk swing is .3 dkh or less.

 

[sublime275]

I must be really lucky, I guess. I’ve been using Trident controlled dosing for the last 3+ years with no major problems. Every couple of weeks or so I manually test with my other test kits just to verify the Trident readings and if they are off by a significant margin I just recalibrate with the readings from my test kits. Usually this doesn’t happen very often. Overall it has made my aquarium much more stable.

 

[nezw0001]

I agree with the chase its own tail. That was my experience as well.

 

[cilyjr]

I must be really lucky, I guess. I’ve been using Trident controlled dosing for the last 3+ years with no major problems. Every couple of weeks or so I manually test with my other test kits just to verify the Trident readings and if they are off by a significant margin I just recalibrate with the readings from my test kits. Usually this doesn’t happen very often. Overall it has made my aquarium much more stable.

Hmmm. Mine will occasionally get a false low reading meaning I will get something like

9.4, 9.2, 9.3, 9.5, then an 8.8 then back to 9.2, 9.5...ect

My concern would be the 8.8 drop triggering a pump that is dosing a bicarbonate solution and elevating alk due to an incorrect reading.
You've never experienced this?

 

[Lemons]

Hmmm. Mine will occasionally get a false low reading meaning I will get something like

9.4, 9.2, 9.3, 9.5, then an 8.8 then back to 9.2, 9.5...ect

My concern would be the 8.8 drop triggering a pump that is dosing a bicarbonate solution and elevating alk due to an incorrect reading.
You've never experienced this?

I let mine control my dosing, but i keep an eye on the levels like a hawk. Whenever it gets a false low (or what i assume) i usually run another alk test on the trident to verify if its actually that low or if it was just a wack sample (and compare to my manual tests). Only if its really off or gets a bad sample at night i sometimes see my alk swing 0.3-0.5 dkh up but it quickly falls back to equilibrium.

Corals never seem to mind the slight swings... but then again im only dosing like 24-30ml in my LPS dominant reef lol

 

[sublime275]

Hmmm. Mine will occasionally get a false low reading meaning I will get something like

9.4, 9.2, 9.3, 9.5, then an 8.8 then back to 9.2, 9.5...ect

My concern would be the 8.8 drop triggering a pump that is dosing a bicarbonate solution and elevating alk due to an incorrect reading.
You've never experienced this?

I get fluctuations from day to day. Nothing I would say that is too major. The fluctuations balance themselves out over time. Over the last week my alk has ranged from a min of 8.38 to a max of 8.83. I have my controlled dosing for alk set a 8.6 with range of +- of 0.5 and dosing amount +- 35%.

 

[rtparty]

Almost 8 or maybe 9 months of Trident controlled dosing on my tank. Been absolutely game changing. I love it!

 

[cilyjr]

I let mine control my dosing, but i keep an eye on the levels like a hawk. Whenever it gets a false low (or what i assume) i usually run another alk test on the trident to verify if its actually that low or if it was just a wack sample (and compare to my manual tests). Only if its really off or gets a bad sample at night i sometimes see my alk swing 0.3-0.5 dkh up but it quickly falls back to equilibrium.

Corals never seem to mind the slight swings... but then again im only dosing like 24-30ml in my LPS dominant reef lol

But if you're letting the computer control the dosing and it gets a false low and it doses a certain amount of some sort of bicarbonate solution it could raise it by say .5
So then if you were at 9

 

[Lemons]

But if you're letting the computer control the dosing and it gets a false low and it doses a certain amount of some sort of bicarbonate solution it could raise it by say .5
So then if you were at 9

I Suppose yea, but it would have to be a consisent low as the dosing amount is spread throughout the whole day and i have the trident test my alk 6 times a day maybe more if im bored lol

 

[Gtinnel]

I have been using trident controlled dosing for a few years now and absolutely love it. It is probably my favorite aspect of the whole Apex system.

I can’t say that I ever really notice any wildly wrong trident readings, but even if I did have one if it is too far off of my norm then it will get ignored and the dosage will go back to the default value. If you do have a reading that is too low but not outside of the allowable range then it will just increase the percentage of your dose up to a set percentage. It’s not like the system tries to instantly bump the alkalinity up.

I almost never even manually check my values with the exception of when changing reagents. I do look at my liquid levels of my alk/cal solutions to make sure they are roughly the same. If I start to see one being used a lot more or less than the other I will test manually and re calibrate.

There are two failsafes to prevent the system from having too much control over the amount that is dosed and it has worked well for me.