Since this is a thread is about our experience with the KHG, I thought I would add mine and what I have learned over the last few months of running it. Now, by no means I am telling you how to run the KHG. You can run it as you see fit. I respect everybody’s decision making and I hope that that you can extend the same courtesy back.
Before the KHG, I used to keep my Alk (in the form of Soda Ash) and Calcium using 2-part. I had pretty good luck keeping it somewhat stable at 8dKH and 450 Calcium. I was testing dKH on a daily basis and it would swing 1dKH every few days.
I was using Aquaforest program and dosing Soda Ash and Calcium solutions at the same rate.
During the first month of using the KHG, I thought I needed to make sure that the KHG was not only monitoring but also dosing Sodium Bicarbonate. I thought that in order to use the KHG to full capacity, it HAD to monitor and dose at the same time. I adjusted my balling setup to under supplement by a little bit. I adjusted so the balling setup would keep my dKH around 7.5 and then having the KHG dose on a regular basis to maintain my dKH at 8.
As the days went by, I found myself constantly making 3 solutions to keep up. Soda Ash and Calcium Hydroxide for balling and then Sodium Bicarbonate for the KHG.
Then started thinking, why am I killing myself constantly making three solutions. Why do I have to dose both Soda Ash and Sodium Bicarbonate. So I started looking at the data and noticed that my KHG kept testing my tank at 7.8-7.9 dKH so just a little short of the target level of 8. As it tested low dKH, it kept adding Sodium Bicarbonate to the tank to bring the dKH up to 8. My tank would consume it and then the dKH would test low again. I decided to up my Soda Ash AND Calcium Hydroxide dosing enough to bring my dKH up by 0.1dKH. A day later, I noticed that my KHG was testing Alk at 8.0 – 8.1 and it did not have to dose any Sodium Bicarbonate. So technically, the KHG had helped me get my balling setup tuned perfectly!
A week or so later, as my coralline algae and corals grew, I noticed that my KHG was once again testing at 7.9 constantly. I then upped my Soda Ash AND Calcium by enough to raise my dKH by 0.1 and my KHG tested again 8 dKH. So I again had my balling setup perfectly tuned for my system and the KHG is just keeping an eye on my dKH and letting me know when I have to do adjustments. The added bonus is that when my tank consumes more than what I am dosing, the KHG comes to my rescue and adds Sodium Bicarbonate to ensure that my tank is always at 8 dKH and stable.
Trying to have my balling setup AND KHG dose just did not work for me. I really did not want to have three things dosing at the same time so by me realizing that the KHG DOES NOT have to monitor and dose to help my tank, it made my life easier.
Ever since I made that adjustment and use the KHG to keep me notified of my tank’s consumption, my tank has been incredibly stable with only .1dKH swings and my corals are showing it! Also, the adjustment allows me to add equal amounts of Soda Ash and Calcium Hydroxide which is needed when using the Aquaforest program.
Full disclosure, I work for CoralVue and I have been testing the KHG for many months so my comments above are just my experience.
For those people that are asking about Calcium Reactors, you could think of the KHG as a means to help you tune the Calcium Reactor. If you look at your KHG data, you can then assess if your reactor needs to be dialed. If the KHG shows that your dKH is low, then adjust your Calcium reactor and then keep an eye on the KHG data to see if your adjustment helped. You now have constant real data that can make tuning the Calcium Reactor much easier.
I'm still WAY ahead of where I was before with low alkalinity and test kits lying too me
