I am done with the Trident

[Ippyroy]

I calling it quits with Trident. I found it so much easier to dose by hand. I switched to the Trident and use it to control the DOS. For the past 6 months all I get are alarms that Alk or Ca is out of range. My Mg is even rising. I don't dose Mg and haven't done a WC in 4 weeks. This thing is a huge point of sale. What a waste of money. This contraption is making me loose my mind. I got it to help automate things because I work 2 full time jobs in the summer, but all I do is work on fixing the automation. Dosing by hand is simple and testing once a week is easy and reliable. Why did I ever buy into the whole automation BS. The Apex itself is rock solid. It does everything I need and makes my life so much easier. Time to go back to dosing by hand. Sorry but I had to vent.

 

[Unheardreefer]

I’m so stuck and leaning on not buying one. I really want one because of how lazy the I am but I hear of way too many issues. $600 up front, $200 annually for reagents, and $150–$200 (I think) for maintenance every 18-24 months? $1200 in the first 2 years? I’m thinking about an alkatronic

 

[ReefBeta]

DOS itself is fine. Trident to auto test alk is fine too, but just not reliable enough to have this automation to automate the other automation. You will save a lot more headache to manually set the dosage, and adjust it manually according to Trident reading. That way if Trident hiccup, which it does from time to time, it won't put real affect to your dosage or the tank. Manually test when Trident reading seem untrustworthy.

 

[Ippyroy]

DOS itself is fine. Trident to auto test alk is fine too, but just not reliable enough to have this automation to automate the other automation. You will save a lot more headache to manually set the dosage, and adjust it manually according to Trident reading. That way if Trident hiccup, which it does from time to time, it won't put real affect to your dosage or the tank. Manually test when Trident reading seem untrustworthy.

The whole concept in my mind for getting an automated tester is so I don't have to test. I understand testing every once in a while, but thing has been off from the beginning. It is totally untrustworthy. The biggest problem with the DOS is air in the lines. I have replaced lines, added JG Fittings, still have to replace the lines. The test results are bogus. Mg can't go up. All of my levels have been all over the place. Now my corals are loosing color and even my corraline is looking like it's about to die. This thing is going away and I am going FOWLR.

 

[ReefBeta]

The whole concept in my mind for getting an automated tester is so I don't have to test. I understand testing every once in a while, but thing has been off from the beginning. It is totally untrustworthy. The biggest problem with the DOS is air in the lines. I have replaced lines, added JG Fittings, still have to replace the lines. The test results are bogus. Mg can't go up. All of my levels have been all over the place. Now my corals are loosing color and even my corraline is looking like it's about to die. This thing is going away and I am going FOWLR.

My Trident is basically just an Alk only tester. I stopped trust or care about the ca and Mg reading long ago. But as an Alk tester it's still useful, just doing the same job as the Alkatronic on my other tank. Just forgot about ca and mg, only focus on stabilize Alk, regardless auto testing or manual testing.

 

[aurora.k]

um. I love my trident.... I calibrate it each time I change reagents and do Red Sea tests from time to time and they always match... And I use it with the DOS.

 

[Ippyroy]

um. I love my trident.... I calibrate it each time I change reagents and do Red Sea tests from time to time and they always match... And I use it with the DOS.

I calibrate it as well. I also test regularly because the numbers are off and not stable. I was doing great before I got this thing. My parameters were all stable. I work a lot in the summer so I wanted to figure something out over the winter. I made a mistake and now I have to almost start over and figure it all out with in the next month before I am back to working 80 hours a week. Live and learn I guess.

 

[WDKegge]

Calc reactor and once a week test with hannah on alk takes all of 30 seconds.

 

[Jon's Reef]

No problems here with Alk, Ca or Mg on the trident. I use a GHL 2.1 for dosing and make slight adjustments if I see it trending in the wrong direction over many days. Been running it for ~8 months. ICP results tend to come back pretty close.

I like the premixed reagent way of things because it only takes a few minutes to change and also like the idea that I could either refurbish it myself every 2 years for less than $100 (includes all major wear items) or send it in and get a basically new unit for $200.

 

[stanleo]

I’ve been saving up money to buy an Apex with Trident but I’ve been hesitant because of stories like this. And frankly, my tank is doing so great I worry abiut changing anything. But I’m going away this summer for 9 days and in two years we are going to Europe for six weeks. I don’t know what to do.

 

[robbyg]

I’ve been saving up money to buy an Apex with Trident but I’ve been hesitant because of stories like this. And frankly, my tank is doing so great I worry abiut changing anything. But I’m going away this summer for 9 days and in two years we are going to Europe for six weeks. I don’t know what to do.

I was involved in one of the initial complaints about the drift issues with the readings.
It's really not that bad for most of us. The ALK is always spot on, the Ca and Mg rise over the two month period on mine. I am not even sure what to make of the Mg but the Ca has not been as bad on mine.

Overall I don't regret the investment in this AWT. I never had illusions about it being able to control my dosing pumps. While it is possible it's just way to risky for my taste.
I will stick to manually dialing in my Dosing pumps until the tech matures.

 

[Jon's Reef]

There was some thought that there may be an issue with it sucking air as it got low. I bought the cone shaped tube holders for the reagent intakes to keep them vertical... maybe that's why it has just worked.

 

[RMS18]

I calling it quits with Trident. I found it so much easier to dose by hand. I switched to the Trident and use it to control the DOS. For the past 6 months all I get are alarms that Alk or Ca is out of range. My Mg is even rising. I don't dose Mg and haven't done a WC in 4 weeks. This thing is a huge point of sale. What a waste of money. This contraption is making me loose my mind. I got it to help automate things because I work 2 full time jobs in the summer, but all I do is work on fixing the automation. Dosing by hand is simple and testing once a week is easy and reliable. Why did I ever buy into the whole automation BS. The Apex itself is rock solid. It does everything I need and makes my life so much easier. Time to go back to dosing by hand. Sorry but I had to vent.

Have you cleaned the cuvette? I was having some issues recently with all 3 tests, the reading would drop and raise. I placed a ticket, they walked me through cleaning the cuvette. I found a dead amphipod, and the glass had a white ish film on it. After the cleaning it took 2-3 days but levels returned to normal stable levels.

 

[nano_ryan]

um. I love my trident.... I calibrate it each time I change reagents and do Red Sea tests from time to time and they always match... And I use it with the DOS.

Same here. I love tridents. Do people here not know that you can send your trident back to neptune apex, and get it fixed? Obviously they aren’t using it correctly. Perimeters always match the manual tests.

 

[Doctorgori]

I just cop’d one and so far lovin it ... I’d stick with it if for a i’ll while longer

 

[SuncrestReef]

I'm really sorry to hear about your Trident frustrations. Just curious, did you work with Neptune Support about the problems you experienced? Perhaps your Trident is bad and needs a replacement.

For what it's worth, my Trident has worked perfectly for nearly 2 years now. As for the DOS air bubble problems, I found the best method is to use the stock DOS connectors and stock tubing, but heat the tubing in near-boiling water to soften it right before making the connection. This allows the tube to conform to the DOS fitting for an air-tight seal.

Hope this helps.

 

[kenchilada]

This thing is going away and I am going FOWLR.

Don’t bail over the Trident! Just chuck that thing and get a calcium reactor. I know they aren’t cool anymore, but once you’re over a small learning curve it’s really the way to go. Just hide it in the back of the cabinet, nobody needs to know. ;Spiderman

 

[litlsea]

The whole concept in my mind for getting an automated tester is so I don't have to test. I understand testing every once in a while, but thing has been off from the beginning. It is totally untrustworthy. The biggest problem with the DOS is air in the lines. I have replaced lines, added JG Fittings, still have to replace the lines. The test results are bogus. Mg can't go up. All of my levels have been all over the place. Now my corals are loosing color and even my corraline is looking like it's about to die. This thing is going away and I am going FOWLR.

I calling it quits with Trident. I found it so much easier to dose by hand. I switched to the Trident and use it to control the DOS. For the past 6 months all I get are alarms that Alk or Ca is out of range. My Mg is even rising. I don't dose Mg and haven't done a WC in 4 weeks. This thing is a huge point of sale. What a waste of money. This contraption is making me loose my mind. I got it to help automate things because I work 2 full time jobs in the summer, but all I do is work on fixing the automation. Dosing by hand is simple and testing once a week is easy and reliable. Why did I ever buy into the whole automation BS. The Apex itself is rock solid. It does everything I need and makes my life so much easier. Time to go back to dosing by hand. Sorry but I had to vent.

Your Trident may have an issue but I'm no expert. Have you sent Neptune a request for help. Perhaps they can nail down the problem. I would switch to manual dose adjustment until then rather than right off a chunk of change. Personally the Trident is a game changer for most users but a few problems always get all the press. I don't auto dose but will try it in the future. I took a months vacation to Ecuador last year and there were no issues with my Trident test results and when I got back the test results manually tested with Hanna checkers and Red Sea Mg tests were very close. I calibrate every change as you should. It only takes a minute to start the calibration and a minute after its done. I dose TM 3 part Balling and manually adjust dose amounts every few days. That takes about 2 minutes. Even sitting on a beach in Ecuador I have that much time available. Any full manual test regime for an sps reef is going to take way more time than that. And if you cost out reagents per test as I did you'll see that it is more expensive manually. I did manual testing for a long time. The Trident has given me a lot more free time to enjoy my reef.

 

[zukihara]

Seems like a lot of headache for a lot of money and time spent to me.

 

[trmiv]

Have you worked with support at all? Maybe you have a bad unit or something that they can assist with?

personally I haven’t had any issues with the alk on mine. Sometimes I’m not sure about the calcium and mag towards the end of bottles, but I only bought it to test alk anyway so I don’t worry about it. My last reagent set was rock solid until the end of the bottles so maybe I ironed that out.

Anyway I just have it dose calcium based on my alk reading so the two part is dosed in equal parts. Trident controlled dosing has been great for me, since I got it dialed in my alk hasn’t varied by more than .1 dkh.