Moving on from the Trident. Alkatronic vs KH director

[Tankkeepers]

This has been a very good read thank you everyone for the time to post info

I was leaning ghl but the wifi is a problem

From what iv read

Seems like no matter what brand you buy they all have flaws and it really depends on what your needs are

I was thinking apex brain with alkatronic stuff but sounds like they need calibrated just like the trident does so may as well get the trident

Apex seems to have build quality issues

Either you get one that lasts years or it's broken in a few months

The power bar failure seems to come from using heaters with it it can't handle the cycles

Most likely a cap problem

Hydro has no testing only reason I want a controller

Does anyone know if hydros has any plan to relese a testing init for alk cal and mg

That's all I really care about or need the rest I can do by biological response

 

[m.kristoff]

Does anyone know if hydros has any plan to relese a testing init for alk cal and mg

The Alkatronic and Mastertronic plug into the Hydros- they are integrated right in. The Apex requires a BNC connection to a PM1 I believe.

I Ended up going with a Alkatronic and couldn't be happier. I have a solid baseline of parameters and was able to verify with my hanna tester. Now I can see the DKH trends.

 

[Tankkeepers]

Has KH director been updated recently? There have been loads of negative reviews threads on this forum about the inconsistencies.

From what I can tell not in over a year even tho they have a ton of really bad software issues

letsnot even mention all the planned features they are soposed to add and have not

Big old red flag right there not fixing known bugs in software

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

Has anyone heard of the new boratronic, due to hit the shelves later this year? @Borat

 

[Tankkeepers]

Has anyone heard of the new boratronic, due to hit the shelves later this year? @Borat

No what is this the diy robo tester hmmmm that's pretty cool

 

[Tankkeepers]

The Alkatronic and Mastertronic plug into the Hydros- they are integrated right in. The Apex requires a BNC connection to a PM1 I believe.

I Ended up going with a Alkatronic and couldn't be happier. I have a solid baseline of parameters and was able to verify with my hanna tester. Now I can see the DKH trends.

Well knowing this you now iv got to go look into hydros lol was not even on my radar untill this thread and your awnser

thank you for your time to awnser this

Uhhhh so hard to choose lol

I really like the ip65 rating on the hydros

But I didn't think you could test with it yet yaaaaaa

Had been dead set on ghl untill I found out what horabke connection issues they have

Was looking at apex and focustronic but know that focustronic stuff goes with hydros I just don't know lol

 

[m.kristoff]

Was looking at apex and focustronic but know that focustronic stuff goes with hydros I just don't know lol

its only money!

I went back and forth between focustronic and GHL for a good month or so. I do like the tech the ION director is using. I think that is probably the future with ION based water testing. I felt the Alkatronic gave the best options to connect to apex and Hydros.

My alkatronic is solid and am really happy with the Decision

As far as Hydros, it looks very promising. I think the interface is way better than GLH and Apex.
Hydros is getting closer to matching all the functions of Apex and once they do, I will probably switch.

 

[R-balljunkie]

ive had both, full GHL - KH director, current Hydros - Alkatronic setups.

Best reefing decision i've made in a very very long time was to sell the GHL setup.


Nothing but problems from the start with getting anything remotely consistent with the KH director. Much easier and intuitive using the Hydros - Alkatronic combination. Been rock solid since initial setup to now.

 

[Tankkeepers]

ive had both, full GHL - KH director, current Hydros - Alkatronic setups.

Best reefing decision i've made in a very very long time was to sell the GHL setup.


Nothing but problems from the start with getting anything remotely consistent with the KH director. Much easier and intuitive using the Hydros - Alkatronic combination. Been rock solid since initial setup to now.

That's really good to hear how often do you calibrate the Alkatronic I'm looking at this to go with the apex vs the trident

I keep seeing good things about the alkatronic

I'm with you pass on ghl

 

[DJF]

Agree that Focustronic is the better direction. I have a kh director and Mastertronic, I never reference the kh director and the mastertronic measures all 5 of the key measurements. Difference between it and the alkatronic for alk is that you can only schedule 1 alk reading per day… you can manually trigger it as many times as you want. What I’ve learned is measuring alk more than 1x daily is a unnecessary.. the mastertronic is the best piece of reef equipment I’ve ever purchased.

 

[Tankkeepers]

Agree that Focustronic is the better direction. I have a kh director and Mastertronic, I never reference the kh director and the mastertronic measures all 5 of the key measurements. Difference between it and the alkatronic for alk is that you can only schedule 1 alk reading per day… you can manually trigger it as many times as you want. What I’ve learned is measuring alk more than 1x daily is a unnecessary.. the mastertronic is the best piece of reef equipment I’ve ever purchased.

This is really good info ty

And everyone iv asked has said the same about focustronic

They are great and they either moved from ghl or trident

 

[Tankkeepers]

I may still go trident tho idk yet lol

so hard to choose between apex and hydros and trident and focustronic lol

I was able to eliminate ghl based on the sheer amount of reviewers saying the same exact thing

I did find bad reviews for every other product but it was alittle of this alittle of that not the same exact one or 2 problems

Either probe is faulty or leaks and or the network wont work

 

[csund]

I have the KHD. I did zero maintenance on it for a year - consistent results. I finally change pump tubes and rollers along with ph probe. I’m getting consistent results until I get a major differential from Hanna. I let it go for awhile and leave dosing the same. I do some research and find Hanna reagents are not so great. Order salifert alk test and it’s spot on with KHD. Promptly discard Hanna checker and remove reform salifert test in under one minute once a week.

I did buy two sets of new reagents from Amazon and one from BRS for Hanna checker and got results across the board so I discarded results.

 

[Tankkeepers]

I have the KHD. I did zero maintenance on it for a year - consistent results. I finally change pump tubes and rollers along with ph probe. I’m getting consistent results until I get a major differential from Hanna. I let it go for awhile and leave dosing the same. I do some research and find Hanna reagents are not so great. Order salifert alk test and it’s spot on with KHD. Promptly discard Hanna checker and remove reform salifert test in under one minute once a week.

I did buy two sets of new reagents from Amazon and one from BRS for Hanna checker and got results across the board so I discarded results.

Glad you got a good one hopefully it'll continue to be good for you for a long time

And yes hanna is all over the place when changing reagents as much as 1dkh difrence between bottles this is pretty common but the results from the same bottle should be constant

The best way to test is take 3 manual tests then 3 hanna tests average each of them out and compare the 2 and the check vs whatever machine your using to test and see if it's accurate or not this gives you a pretty good idea what it's at

Also the test on any one given day enless way off is not all that important maintaining it at that number constainty is what matter

As long as you don't see any trends up or down your fine

Also don't chase magic numbers if everything is happy keep it right where it's at no need to change anything

 

[blaxsun]

I still like my Trident. The parameter drift was about +/-1.25-2.5% off from independent Hanna results. This is over about 3 months and one set of reagents replaced.

 

[R-balljunkie]

That's really good to hear how often do you calibrate the Alkatronic .....

I only calibrate when i change something and spot check against my hanna tester. My reagent container is 5 liters so i go a couple of months between mixing new. I try to calibrate all my ph sensors all at the same time (2 for the tank, 1 for the CaRx, 1 for the Alkatronic) once a month (more than likely stretches to 2 months) so thats a trigger point.

My kh readings control my co2 regulator for my CaRx so i test every two hours to make adjustments. It also controls my Kalkwasser, wont dose if i get a high Kh # back.


Answer your question, maybe every 6 weeks or when a random stranger asks on the internet.

Best part is how intuitive and plain language everything is to setup and the integration with Hydros. GHL was utterly confusing and i work in the controls business. all day i speak AO, AI, DO, DI and Modbus/BacNet MSTP

 

[Gungo]

Kudos to the GHL KHD. I purchased mine in November 2021, calibrated and got it tuned right away and I’m getting consistent results ever since. I trust it a lot and this trust continues to grow every week when I compare results to salifert KH test kit. Connectivity and software are indeed a pain in the butt but once you understand how it works it's not that dificult. Customer support is awesome in case you have any issues.

 

[csund]

Glad you got a good one hopefully it'll continue to be good for you for a long time

And yes hanna is all over the place when changing reagents as much as 1dkh difrence between bottles this is pretty common but the results from the same bottle should be constant

The best way to test is take 3 manual tests then 3 hanna tests average each of them out and compare the 2 and the check vs whatever machine your using to test and see if it's accurate or not this gives you a pretty good idea what it's at

Also the test on any one given day enless way off is not all that important maintaining it at that number constainty is what matter

As long as you don't see any trends up or down your fine

Also don't chase magic numbers if everything is happy keep it right where it's at no need to change anything

That’s exactly why I didn’t change my dosing schedule.

Hanna alk checkers are junk and I’m not going to bother with them moving forward. Salifert alk tests are where it’s at. I do the test in under one minute and it provides accurate consistent results. Throw the alk checkers in the trash.

 

[m.kristoff]

Throw the alk checkers in the trash

That is fact!
My tank is only 5 month old and was struggling to get a baseline. The Trident was off and when I 1st got the Alkatronic, it was reading something totally different. Tested with Salifert and a Hanna using 2 reagent bottles
Trident- 8.7
Alkatronic- 9.8
Salifert- 10+
Hanna 9.5 and used a second bottle of reagent- 9.3
My salt mix is 9dkH and I always believed that my tank was in the low 9's for dkH

What I ended up doing is buying a digital kitchen scale and mixed more reagent for the Alkatronic and then recalibrated it. I was getting low 9's and it matched the Hanna. I retested with the Salifert and that was still in the 10+ range

I used the Hanna numbers to validate the Alkatronic to establish a baseline which is between 9.18 to 9.4 consistently for the last 6 weeks. I test 4 times a day

As long as the reagent is mixed correctly for the alkatronic, I believe it provides the correct value

 

[Betex]

I kept my trident for the other element testing but did buy the Alkatronic. I previously had KHG but the alkatronic is much more refined. The reagents are much cheaper than most as well. Once it was up and running haven't had any major issues, the only thing to take into account is the extra maintenance in replacing the hose lines etc. I would buy it again without hesitation.

Support from CoralVue/Alkatronic directly has been pretty great too.