Trident Controlled Dosing

[Dan_of_Earth]

Hi there, I hope im posting in the right place, but I was looking for clarity on the trident-controlled dosing. I understand HOW it works but figuring out the math of range and control makes me feel like I need a degree in astrophysics. Im currently dosing ESV calc/alk and based on their instructions, I calculated that I should be dosing 15ml daily. I have the Neptune recommended default settings for range and control of .4 and 35. I was shooting for 8.5 alk and 400ish calc. After running the controlled dosing for a few weeks now I am currently at a steady 9.6-9.7 alk and around 500 calc.

So based on my (probably wrong) understanding of how it works I'm outside the set range of .4 and my control probably needs adjusting too. I don't have many corals currently as I'm just beginning to add them, so my consumption shouldn't be much, so I'm just confused as to what I should adjust and how much to adjust to dial it in. Hopefully, a more experienced apex user could help! Thanks in advance!

 

[blaxsun]

My understanding of how Trident-controlled dosing works is that if your parameters stray outside the range you've set - it defaults to the standard dosing amount.

For example, I set my target alkalinity to 8.25dKH with a +/-0.75dKH range and +/-50% adjustment. This means that the Trident will only influence dosing down to 7.5dKH or up to 9.0dKH.

It took me a few weeks playing around with it to find a happy medium in terms of the range I was willing to accept vs. not having to tinker with my dosing amounts all the time.

 

[Dan_of_Earth]

My understanding of how Trident-controlled dosing works is that if your parameters stray outside the range you've set - it defaults to the standard dosing amount.

For example, I set my target alkalinity to 8.25dKH with a +/-0.75dKH range and +/-50% adjustment. This means that the Trident will only influence dosing down to 7.5dKH or up to 9.0dKH.

It took me a few weeks playing around with it to find a happy medium in terms of the range I was willing to accept vs. not having to tinker with my dosing amounts all the time.

ok thats what i thought. I guess it will take a little tinkering on my end as well, thanks!

 

[blaxsun]

ok thats what i thought. I guess it will take a little tinkering on my end as well, thanks!

Even though Neptune suggests giving the Trident less control (%), I found it best to max this value out. The closer you are to target levels the less deviation from your standard scheduled dose.

If for any reason the numbers are really off - the Trident helps quickly offset this. Note the following:

* Throw the Trident calibration fluid out (use your tank water and manually calibrate on your test kit results). Otherwise when you manually test the Trident numbers are going to be way off (plus the calibration fluid is unreliable).
* Make a calendar note to clean the cuvette every 6 months (a quick search on R2R or YouTube will bring up instructions).
* There's an option to override the default testing schedule to double (triple, etc.) the life of the ABC Trident reagents (also on R2R).
* Plan to manually test 24-48 hours after you replace any ABC reagent and then recalibrate the Trident.