Who's doing the full triton method?

[Bbart]

Your real close on salinity its why I didn't make a recommendation above. But adding NaCl (sodium chloride) is the way to increase sodium and that is going to increase salinity that's just how it works. P

From Randy's article on his triton test.

If I look at the major cations (sodium (Na), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and potassium (K)), I can see that the total of these adds up to about what I’d expect for my water at what I know the salinity to be of about 35 ppt (specific gravity of about 1.0264). In normal seawater at salinity of 35 ppt, these would add up to about 12,900 mg/L. In my Triton test they added up to about 12,600 mg/L.

I have gotten iodine back in my test (because I dose it) and really can't tell the difference between with and without. But I figure there are a lot of things in my tank I don't understand and the animals sighing have adapted in an environment with it so I'll add it.

As far as Iron and aluminum go I to use marine pure and habe elevate aluminum. No elevated iron ever so while everything is new it may be worth it to pull some pumps apart and look for cracked impeller magnets. Also look around your tank salt creep can move elements from items near your tank into it. If I recall correctly iron is very quick to process through a tank so finding the source is probably more important than treating it with water changes and unless you are seeing an adverse effect I'd just switch over now

 

[Bbart]

As far as how the switch occurred and your concern with screwing up alk. You don't have to do it all at the same time.

If you are say dosing 14 mL of each two part in the morning dose 10-12mL and dose a mL of each of the four triton parts. Test alk when you get home from work and see if it is in the same place as it was the after work the day before you started the change over. After you have determined then ratio of your current dosing to triton dosing (I.e if 4 mL each of your current dosing regime is equivalent to one of each of the 4 triton bottles) then you can transfer over to triton over the course of a week or two.

The first week I was testing alk 3 times a day and I still test at lease once a day before work. Mostly because my tank is growing pretty fast.

 

[Tim@Triton]

Hi guys sorry late to the party!

Any specific questions about Triton please fire away....

Also check out the Triton sub forum https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/triton-applied-reef-bioscience.739/

 

[Bbart]

Hi guys sorry late to the party!

Any specific questions about Triton please fire away....

Also check out the Triton sub forum https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/triton-applied-reef-bioscience.739/

I tried to be an advocate if you'd gloss though my responses to make sure I didn't commit any egregious errors that'd be great!

 

[Tim@Triton]

I tried to be an advocate if you'd gloss though my responses to make sure I didn't commit any egregious errors that'd be great!

Lol no problem, I will have a read, you'll have to excuse the timezone difference over this side of the pond.

 

[Tim@Triton]

Good job Bbart

I'm a little nervous on messing with my dkh though. Whatever is in the bottles I don't want to raise my alkalinity much over 7.0. Too much money is sps to jack with them.

The TRITON Method can be run with a stable KH of 7-9, the reason behind the recommendation of 8 dKH is to enable a little room to breath with the inaccuracies of home test kits and the human eye. Core7 will actually run better at a KH of 7 as long as you are confident with your testing.

If you are converting a system over to Triton with a stocked tank then I would not recommend you start at the beginning dose of 2ml per 100L, if you can tell me your current Alk daily consumption (how much your alk would drop in 24hrs without dosing) then I can give you an more suitable starting dose. This calculation will be available on the website soon.

One thing I have noticed is missing from the conversation so far unless I have missed it is the 2 varieties of Core7 that we offer. Core7 Base Elements and Core7 Reef Supplements. Base Elements is designed to work exclusively with the complete TRITON Method (encompassing the Triton algae refugium) whereas Reef Supplements is designed to work with any other method whilst given most of the benefits of the TRITON Method. An important caveat to note with using the Reef Supplements is you may have to carry out some routine water changes to keep on top of nutrient and more importantly toxin removal. Regular ICP testing will assist with letting you know if/when they would be required.

 

[Scott.h]

Good job Bbart



The TRITON Method can be run with a stable KH of 7-9, the reason behind the recommendation of 8 dKH is to enable a little room to breath with the inaccuracies of home test kits and the human eye. Core7 will actually run better at a KH of 7 as long as you are confident with your testing.

If you are converting a system over to Triton with a stocked tank then I would not recommend you start at the beginning dose of 2ml per 100L, if you can tell me your current Alk daily consumption (how much your alk would drop in 24hrs without dosing) then I can give you an more suitable starting dose. This calculation will be available on the website soon.

One thing I have noticed is missing from the conversation so far unless I have missed it is the 2 varieties of Core7 that we offer. Core7 Base Elements and Core7 Reef Supplements. Base Elements is designed to work exclusively with the complete TRITON Method (encompassing the Triton algae refugium) whereas Reef Supplements is designed to work with any other method whilst given most of the benefits of the TRITON Method. An important caveat to note with using the Reef Supplements is you may have to carry out some routine water changes to keep on top of nutrient and more importantly toxin removal. Regular ICP testing will assist with letting you know if/when they would be required.

Thanks for chiming in Tim. I'd like to try this, but I need to get a second dosing pump first.

This tank was built purposely for sps. 90 display/70 sump with a chaeto fuge. 7 months old, all frags. 4 fish. So I'm dosing nitrate (2) and phosphate (.016) , using tropic Marin pro, and dosing 4 ml a day of bulk cal and alk with a Dos. No carbon or gfo has been running for months now.

After reading my results, my calcium and magnesium (I haven't needed to dose mg, as Salifert always tested 1350) are both actually too high for my likings at 474 and 1446. At this point I feel I could do no water changes for a month and add only 4ml a day of alk and be good. Seems I have a big imbalance of alk and cal. Could I let let cal and mg fall on their own? At the same time, it shows elevated mg, but lower end Na at 10077, so I'm not sure how doing that would effect the salinity ratio?

Other then that, I need to figure out my higher iron problem, 2.479, no clue why, and raise iodine, 0, currently triton iodine not in stock over here.

I have kept my kh at 6.7 to 7.0 Salifert. Every time I've tried to go higher it's burned the tips. Back off, tips heal. So that's where I'm at. Any suggestion would be appreciated on how to handle this, or how much to dose.

 

[Tim@Triton]

Thanks for chiming in Tim. I'd like to try this, but I need to get a second dosing pump first.

This tank was built purposely for sps. 90 display/70 sump with a chaeto fuge. 7 months old, all frags. 4 fish. So I'm dosing nitrate (2) and phosphate (.016) , using tropic Marin pro, and dosing 4 ml a day of bulk cal and alk with a Dos. No carbon or gfo has been running for months now.

After reading my results, my calcium and magnesium (I haven't needed to dose mg, as Salifert always tested 1350) are both actually too high for my likings at 474 and 1446. At this point I feel I could do no water changes for a month and add only 4ml a day of alk and be good. Seems I have a big imbalance of alk and cal. Could I let let cal and mg fall on their own? At the same time, it shows elevated mg, but lower end Na at 10077, so I'm not sure how doing that would effect the salinity ratio?

Other then that, I need to figure out my higher iron problem, 2.479, no clue why, and raise iodine, 0, currently triton iodine not in stock over here.

I have kept my kh at 6.7 to 7.0 Salifert. Every time I've tried to go higher it's burned the tips. Back off, tips heal. So that's where I'm at. Any suggestion would be appreciated on how to handle this, or how much to dose.

If you can tell me your ID number I can have a look at your results, also if you can tell me your daily Alk drop then I could give you a better transition dose.

 

[Scott.h]

If you can tell me your ID number I can have a look at your results, also if you can tell me your daily Alk drop then I could give you a better transition dose.

no problem..

15202 user
B-KXdMgK

I don't know my actual alk drop, as it's been dialed in since day one.
100 gal total volume, 4 ml brs saturated carbonate spread over 5 dosings per day. If I didn't dose for a day I doubt I'd see 1/10ml drop in the Salifert syrenge. Each line is worth .3? So less then that. Probably between .1 and .3 daily drop.

 

[Scott.h]

One other thing.. if it's a month or two before I get a dosing pump, doing such a small amount, would manually dosing 2 of the 4 components until a get a second pump be a problem?

 

[Oberst Oswald]

I'm doing the full method (for about 7 months... using 2 part before) and am highly satisfied that Triton improved my reef. SPS, in a mixed 65 gallon tank, which I had problems with (not living) before Triton ( Dkh 7.4) are now nice & colorful but I think the growth is rather slow. Everything seemed to grow a lot faster (not SPS because, without Triton, I could not keep them alive) before Triton. Plenty of food for the fish, lots of light (2 Radions) and also feed the corals. Maybe the 'frug is taking most of the nutrients before the corals. I dose Iodine .26ml, Manganese .42ml and Zinc .10ml per day. I send a sample in about every month and a half. Dosing the Zinc & Manganese daily has me worried even though my tank has no ill effects. The 2 week turn around for the sample results is an issue with the Triton method even if the expense is not. Last test had copper in my tank which I think was from using Fuel for a month and high aluminum from using the Marine Pure blocks (which I sure). Stop using both (even though had good results with Fuel and the blocks) and aluminum went down to a safe level with a water change and will see if the copper (with test results coming next week) is gone when stopping Fuel. Google both and these are know issues. Not blaming Triton for anything but do be aware that Triton will change your tank. When going Triton you will be kind of "talk into" buying all the jars of chemicals for fine tuning because without the water changes these will get used up and somehow dosing the 4 bottles of Core 7 is only in the "ballpark". I also don't understand the numbers for Na. It would be nice if these numbers were totaled up or converted to ppm or Pt. I follow Triton to the letter but I sweat it out waiting for my results... like now to see if my zinc levels are sky high because I add .10ml daily. Just rambling on so that I have something to add to the forum instead of being a lurker. Will be spending a couple of hundred on SPS coral at the NY show because, with Triton, I finally found success with them.

 

[Tim@Triton]

no problem..

15202 user
B-KXdMgK

I don't know my actual alk drop, as it's been dialed in since day one.
100 gal total volume, 4 ml brs saturated carbonate spread over 5 dosings per day. If I didn't dose for a day I doubt I'd see 1/10ml drop in the Salifert syrenge. Each line is worth .3? So less then that. Probably between .1 and .3 daily drop.

Ok so the reason we do not display a salinity reading is because the calculations are based on some presumptions of elements that currently cannot be tested accurately enough with conventional ICP testing. We will only provide data that we can be sure is accurate and relevant to the aquarist. That being said it is easy to derive an approximation for the purposes of fault finding, for example if all of your macro elements are either low or high then it would be fair to say that your salinity would follow. However in your case with perhaps some being high and some being low it would be more of a balance issue. Jim Welsh has a good calculator that you can use as a tool with the before mentioned presumptions that can be used to give you a bit more of an indication.

The rest of your results are not looking too bad with the exception of a bit of Al and Fe.

For your starting dose based on a 0.1-0.3dKH drop per day you would be looking at a daily dose of 2-6ml for each solution. I would perhaps go for 4ml and test daily and adjust up or down as necessary until you dial it in. A little hint for you, we see systems that have traditionally suffered with low pH have a temporary increase in dosage whilst the system pH is raised to around 8.2-8.4, once there the dose often settle back down.

One other thing.. if it's a month or two before I get a dosing pump, doing such a small amount, would manually dosing 2 of the 4 components until a get a second pump be a problem?

Sure you can manually dose, however to obtain a more stable system you should try to spread the dose out throughout the day. Also there needs to be a few minutes between each solution going in to prevent unwanted reactions (3A and 3B both react when in contact with seawater).

 

[Tim@Triton]

I'm doing the full method (for about 7 months... using 2 part before) and am highly satisfied that Triton improved my reef. SPS, in a mixed 65 gallon tank, which I had problems with (not living) before Triton ( Dkh 7.4) are now nice & colorful but I think the growth is rather slow. Everything seemed to grow a lot faster (not SPS because, without Triton, I could not keep them alive) before Triton. Plenty of food for the fish, lots of light (2 Radions) and also feed the corals. Maybe the 'frug is taking most of the nutrients before the corals. I dose Iodine .26ml, Manganese .42ml and Zinc .10ml per day. I send a sample in about every month and a half. Dosing the Zinc & Manganese daily has me worried even though my tank has no ill effects. The 2 week turn around for the sample results is an issue with the Triton method even if the expense is not. Last test had copper in my tank which I think was from using Fuel for a month and high aluminum from using the Marine Pure blocks (which I sure). Stop using both (even though had good results with Fuel and the blocks) and aluminum went down to a safe level with a water change and will see if the copper (with test results coming next week) is gone when stopping Fuel. Google both and these are know issues. Not blaming Triton for anything but do be aware that Triton will change your tank. When going Triton you will be kind of "talk into" buying all the jars of chemicals for fine tuning because without the water changes these will get used up and somehow dosing the 4 bottles of Core 7 is only in the "ballpark". I also don't understand the numbers for Na. It would be nice if these numbers were totaled up or converted to ppm or Pt. I follow Triton to the letter but I sweat it out waiting for my results... like now to see if my zinc levels are sky high because I add .10ml daily. Just rambling on so that I have something to add to the forum instead of being a lurker. Will be spending a couple of hundred on SPS coral at the NY show because, with Triton, I finally found success with them.

If you are finding that your LPS are suffering but your SPS are not then I would suggest that you are approaching ULNS and they may benefit from some target feeding, also you can reduce the photoperiod over the algae bed.

We don't force anyone into buying all the individual trace elements, they are purely there to give you the opportunity to fine tune as you say, if you find that adding a particular element does not make any obvious difference to you system then don't dose it anymore and allow the Base Elements or Core7 to provide the basic amounts. A "problem" Triton customers have is they become obsessed with getting the perfect report! Allow you tank to tell you when it is happy, if we have learned anything, especially with US water, corals will often thrive in parameters quite different to the natural seawater parameters! Take Lithium for example, with a set point of 200µg/l we have seen very successful US reef with Li number up in their 1000s!

One final point if I may, as I can sympathise with the frustrations of sometimes slow analysis turnaround times, we have greatly improved this recently and are this week completing the order for the US based ICP lab. You will soon be having much improved turnaround times!

 

[Scott.h]

I'm doing the full method (for about 7 months... using 2 part before) and am highly satisfied that Triton improved my reef. SPS, in a mixed 65 gallon tank, which I had problems with (not living) before Triton ( Dkh 7.4) are now nice & colorful but I think the growth is rather slow. Everything seemed to grow a lot faster (not SPS because, without Triton, I could not keep them alive) before Triton. Plenty of food for the fish, lots of light (2 Radions) and also feed the corals. Maybe the 'frug is taking most of the nutrients before the corals. I dose Iodine .26ml, Manganese .42ml and Zinc .10ml per day. I send a sample in about every month and a half. Dosing the Zinc & Manganese daily has me worried even though my tank has no ill effects. The 2 week turn around for the sample results is an issue with the Triton method even if the expense is not. Last test had copper in my tank which I think was from using Fuel for a month and high aluminum from using the Marine Pure blocks (which I sure). Stop using both (even though had good results with Fuel and the blocks) and aluminum went down to a safe level with a water change and will see if the copper (with test results coming next week) is gone when stopping Fuel. Google both and these are know issues. Not blaming Triton for anything but do be aware that Triton will change your tank. When going Triton you will be kind of "talk into" buying all the jars of chemicals for fine tuning because without the water changes these will get used up and somehow dosing the 4 bottles of Core 7 is only in the "ballpark". I also don't understand the numbers for Na. It would be nice if these numbers were totaled up or converted to ppm or Pt. I follow Triton to the letter but I sweat it out waiting for my results... like now to see if my zinc levels are sky high because I add .10ml daily. Just rambling on so that I have something to add to the forum instead of being a lurker. Will be spending a couple of hundred on SPS coral at the NY show because, with Triton, I finally found success with them.

That makes sense and it sounds like you are on the right track. The reason I didn't start my tank with this is to get all the dry rock cured and Al leached from marine pure, exported out with water changes. If they continue to raise after 7 months by not doing water changes I'll probably pull the blocks. Hopefully they stop leaching, as they do play a roll in my ecosystem.

Personally I wouldn't use fuel. I have, but quit. It's throwing all sorts of unnecessary stuff in the water that you don't need at unknown levels, such as copper. Which you already figured out. For growth, depending on nutrients, maybe increase nutrients, flow, and then lighting? All slowly of course. But the more of those things elevated in balance the better they will grow. Standard of any meathod. You're getting good color so that's good. Changing spectrum might be a give and take. More growth but less coloration.

I only use coral food because my no3/po4 levels won't stay up on their own. And the fishes bellies look like they are going to explode.

I appreciate the non bised information. I am a litte worried about the several little bottles. If it gets to be much more costly and hassle then a 10% weekly water change I may stop. I keep the same salt around for my other two systems anyway. Like Tim said.. I'm not having problems, so chasing every little parameter might be a little to OCD and an expense that isn't necessarily needed.

 

[Scott.h]

Ok so the reason we do not display a salinity reading is because the calculations are based on some presumptions of elements that currently cannot be tested accurately enough with conventional ICP testing. We will only provide data that we can be sure is accurate and relevant to the aquarist. That being said it is easy to derive an approximation for the purposes of fault finding, for example if all of your macro elements are either low or high then it would be fair to say that your salinity would follow. However in your case with perhaps some being high and some being low it would be more of a balance issue. Jim Welsh has a good calculator that you can use as a tool with the before mentioned presumptions that can be used to give you a bit more of an indication.

The rest of your results are not looking too bad with the exception of a bit of Al and Fe.

For your starting dose based on a 0.1-0.3dKH drop per day you would be looking at a daily dose of 2-6ml for each solution. I would perhaps go for 4ml and test daily and adjust up or down as necessary until you dial it in. A little hint for you, we see systems that have traditionally suffered with low pH have a temporary increase in dosage whilst the system pH is raised to around 8.2-8.4, once there the dose often settle back down.



Sure you can manually dose, however to obtain a more stable system you should try to spread the dose out throughout the day. Also there needs to be a few minutes between each solution going in to prevent unwanted reactions (3A and 3B both react when in contact with seawater).

Ok, I'm understanding everything pretty clear now. My Al is definitely coming from marine pure and will be handed if it becomes necessary.

One last thing. In your opinion what's up with my iron? I don't believe I have contaminated ro, or anything in the tank leaching- external pumps and powerheads, no clamps etc. could this level be a salt issue? Maybe a contaminate of calcium chloride? And is this common and something needs to be addressed?

Over the next month I'll work on getting a dosing pump and some core products. Thanks for the help!

 

[Oberst Oswald]

To Tim... sorry for my word "talked into" where I should of used the word suggest. You are absolutely correct that I fit that Triton customer who wants the perfect water report.

Scott.h... I my case the expense of the trace elements & Triton is worth it as it saved me money in the long run by not doing water changes weekly (I didn't mind doing the WC) with Tropic Marin Pro (15%) at @ $95.00 a bucket), making RO/DI water, the loss of @ $750+ of SPS corals even using BRS 2- part and I just like getting the test results bi- monthly. It all works out in the end. Word of advice ... get the best dosing pumps (I use DOS) you can afford.

 

[Scott.h]

To Tim... sorry for my word "talked into" where I should of used the word suggest. You are absolutely correct that I fit that Triton customer who wants the perfect water report.

Scott.h... I my case the expense of the trace elements & Triton is worth it as it saved me money in the long run by not doing water changes weekly (I didn't mind doing the WC) with Tropic Marin Pro (15%) at @ $95.00 a bucket), making RO/DI water, the loss of @ $750+ of SPS corals even using BRS 2- part and I just like getting the test results bi- monthly. It all works out in the end. Word of advice ... get the best dosing pumps (I use DOS) you can afford.

I use a dos now for the two part. I may get a 4 head ghl wifi instead of a second dos, and move the dos to another tank. $300 for 2 more heads or $450 for 4 heads. We'll see either way it will sting a bit to get set up.

 

[BDubs74]

good morning everyone. I am very excited to try out this Triton method on my new tank. It is a 90g brand new tank still in the middle of its cycle. Ammonia is finally dropping significantly, while Nitrites are beginning to maximize. Im also starting to get some nitrates so I know the cycle is churning right on along. I have a 40g sump with a turf scrubber built in. Not running the scrubber quite yet, but planning on tuning it on soon. pH seems to be doing ok, balncing out around 8.05 and 8.2ish but my dkh is much higher than the 8 that is recommended. The salt that I am using is Reef Crystals, which is where I think the high dkh is coming from in the first place. How could I go about getting my dosage dialed in if I'm ABOVE the 8 that we should be shooting for?

 

[Scott.h]

So I'm ordering another dos and core 7 kit. Because I have a fuge and don't plan on doing water changes, I would buy the full triton core 7 correct? I don't have the need for anything else such as their carbon, carbon dosing elements, or gfo. Just wanted to make sure there is no carbon dosing elements in with he bottles, or I'm not missing anything else before I order the wrong line.

 

[Oberst Oswald]

Scott.h... A DOS and the Core 7 is all you need to get started. After you get it "dialed in" send your test and Triton will recommend what can be done to improve the water of your reef. Up to you if you want to do it (I do) or not. I use ESV charcoal in a reactor and don't use any GFO (I find GFO to be more trouble than its worth) works best for me. I'm not a "Triton fanatic " and my tank is set up different than the perfect Triton Method because of my Eshopps R200 sump which I made into a sort of a Triton/Berlin hybrid. If you feel like looking at the few posts I made you can see I had my issues being a saltwater beginner which Triton seem to solve at the moment.