Trident FAQ (official)
- Thread starter Terence
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)
We all are, we’re reefers! Neptune seriously needs to come out with an update to allow users to select the first test time of the day. Every 6 hours is fine as long as you can decide when they are. Who runs their lighting to 6:00pm or 12:00am??
MnFish1
10K Club member
I kind of agree - but 'why' as long as the times are the same each day - thats whats important no? Who cares if it starts at 8am or 10am or 6 am. you're getting 4 measures/day. most people do one measurement less than once a day.... In other words - I'm not criticizing your request - just wondering - why you care?
OP
OP
@Terence it looks like there are still leaking issues. I ordered a reagent kit from Neptune that was shipped on the 11th and just arrived today. The reagent bags were dry, but the calibration solution had a lot of drips in the bag.
We believe we have the reagent issue solved. Calibration solution bottles still have an issue but we are working through it. We appreciate everyone’s patience on this one. It’s our first product ever with liquids and this issue did not pop up in NSI. If too much care out, contact our support team.
I totally disagree. Let's say your alk has a daily swing with a high peak at 9:00 AM and a low extreme at 9:00 PM, with either a sinusoidal or sawtooth waveform. If you could align the tests with your diurnal alk schedule, then that would give you much more and better information than the current mandatory scheduling. I'm on my phone right now, and so can't provide supporting images, etc.
Last edited:
MnFish1
10K Club member
It depends - I guess. First - you could make up any scenario but without measuring alk every hour for 24 hours for at least a couple days - you would never know that pattern. Second - if you're talking about a sinusoidal pattern with a low of lets say 8 and a high of 9 - thats different than a sinusoidal pattern of 8 on the low end and 8.2 on the high end. In any case - any adjustments made at any time of day - (assuming one is using Trident to dose) will mitigate those levels as well. Perhaps part of my answer relates to my feeling (opinion) that keeping the alk between 8 and 8.01 does not matter. (or 8-8.1) (or 8-8.whatever) - ie I dont think its as important as multiple other factors. (I COULD CERTAINLY BE WRONG)....
I - for example start my alk at 8PM - and dose every hour until 8 AM - Its common sense (I dont need a trident) to decide to dose more alk at night...
But - you @JimWelsh (seriously) are a far better expert than I... I dont know when the trident decides to start testing. Is it based on when the machine is first installed? or an initial setting ? or something else? I do as I said up front - think that the very first test shoudl be able to be set (whether thats when you turn on the trident (i.e. turn it off - and turn it back on when you want it to start testing) - or a setting on the machine....
Brett S
Valuable Member
Actually, I think people are finding that just the opposite is true. The corals use alkalinity during the day while the lights are on, so that’s when the big alkalinity demand is. If you are dosing at night you’re creating much more of a swing than you would be doing most of your dosing during the day when the high demand is happening.
MnFish1
10K Club member
Thanks. this is really useful information. So - do you think - best to start at 8AM - by 8PM the alk will be 'higher' than average - and will mitigate the overnight drop? BTW - im dosing soda ash - so it was in part to mitigate pH - but still... Thanks
Would love to engage/respond, but this is veering out of "Official FAQ" scope.
Brett S
Valuable Member
Neptune suggests dosing 2/3 of your daily dose during the time that the lights are on and 1/3 during the time the lights are off. Obviously it can be tweaked from there as necessary, but that seems to follow the alkalinity demand which should keep your alkalinity value pretty stable from hour to hour.
MnFish1
10K Club member
Curious - what is the goal of that recommendation? Coral growth, alkalinity stability (have we proven that that makes a difference) some other reason. Its very interesting - which is more important alkalinity stability - or pH? Does anyone know? (Am I completely remembering wrong - I thought dosing alk at night helps mitigate pH swings..... This is totally interesting. PS - I wonder what happens when its dark in the ocean.....? Does pH Alk change (I think I know the answer to this one)
Brett S
Valuable Member
The goal is alkalinity stability. Dosing more alkalinity at night can help with pH, but there are other ways to help pH as well (such as a fuge on an opposite photo period) But it’s my understanding that the corals use more alkalinity during the day when the lights are on, so there is a bigger demand then, therefore you need to dose more alkalinity then to keep it stable.
Now, whether that will make a noticeable difference in coral health or coral growth I don’t know if anyone knows yet, or whether keeping your alkalinity morestable at the expense of keeping your pH more stable is a good trade off or not. But hopefully more experiments and more data will come, especially as tools like the trident can help to track things like alkalinity on an hour by hour basis instead of a day by day or even week by week basis.
Brett S
Valuable Member
Hopefully I’ll be able to produce such a graph in the reasonably near future. Since I got the trident I discovered that my alkalinity was a bit lower than I thought it was, so my plan is to bring it up slowly over a week or two. I have been dosing alkalinity evenly over 24 hours and so far I haven’t changed how I’m dosing (other than to increase it a bit to bring up the level)
Once I get it where I want it I’m thinking that I may go ahead and and set the trident to test once an hour for a day or two just to see exactly how the alkalinity changes throughout the day. Since my alkalinity dose is constant I should be able to see the natural peaks and valleys.
Once I get that data I’ll try to change the dosing to increase the dosage during the high demand times and decrease during the low demand times and then I’ll run the trident once an hour for another day or two to see how I did.
The apex already constantly records my pH levels, so we can look at that graph and see how changing the alkalinity dose affects the pH swing.
Because corals consume different amounts of Calcium and Alk when the lights are on than when the lights are off. If you test in the middle of the light on or off period it doesn’t tell you anything. But if you can measure at the start and at the end, you can dial in your dosing pumps to be stable day and night.
MnFish1
10K Club member
I have a comment to @Terence. There are at least a couple threads here which (rightly or wrongly) are comparing you guys to others. Since this is the official thread - I as an apex user - and a potential trident customer - would appreciate you putting more time into answering the questions in this thread. Note:
Im taking into account - there are lots of questions.
It doesnt need to be immediate.
You guys are extremely busy.
Yet - this is (IDK) the premier reefing site in the US - if its not its in the top 3. If you devoted an employee to answering the questions here - and on the other sites - I think you'd probably do ok. IN the meantime - Others are saying basically your products are poorly made, unnecessary and multiple other things (which with I dont agree). It seems a more visible presence on the FAQ official page would be beneficial....... JMO
I mean you have a rocking product - but even here -the GHL guys have me thinking - about changing.... why?
Im taking into account - there are lots of questions.
It doesnt need to be immediate.
You guys are extremely busy.
Yet - this is (IDK) the premier reefing site in the US - if its not its in the top 3. If you devoted an employee to answering the questions here - and on the other sites - I think you'd probably do ok. IN the meantime - Others are saying basically your products are poorly made, unnecessary and multiple other things (which with I dont agree). It seems a more visible presence on the FAQ official page would be beneficial....... JMO
I mean you have a rocking product - but even here -the GHL guys have me thinking - about changing.... why?
