Triton dose seems high?

[rcpalmer1]

An update for anyone else who comes across a similar issue, so far my dose is down over a third and holding at 8dkh, definitely need to have sever turbulence wherever you may be dosing. @rockskimmerflow was spot on, and I appreciate @Tim@Triton for the input as well!

So many people get their issue fixed and never post what the solution was. Thanks, I am thinking of going Triton.
What kind of refugium light are you running?

 

[Whipples]

@rcpalmer1 solution is pending, but I'm enjoying the method all the same. At this point it is just a matter of solving precipitation (or some other currently elusive factor) which we are close to a solution. I use the H380 right now, works well.

 

[rcpalmer1]

@rcpalmer1 solution is pending, but I'm enjoying the method all the same. At this point it is just a matter of solving precipitation (or some other currently elusive factor) which we are close to a solution. I use the H380 right now, works well.

Thanks. That is the same one I am thinking of getting. I have an AP700 on the tank. I am not very impressed with it. I am thinking of replacing it. So I am kind of torn spending another $300 on a Kessil.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Well in a strange turn of events, Alk is still dropping with the powerhead and a daily dose of 24ml.

Give it time to stabilize, you may still have residual precipitation occurring on the fresh surfaces that are accepting the alk and ca deposits. I wouldn't expect things to trend differently in one day alone.

I am curious, before you began using the triton system did you test your alkalinity one day and then wait 2 days without dosing anything and retest? If you did and were able to determine your daily uptake by dividing that 2 day alk drop number in half then you should be able to figure out a starting dose for the triton. You would only need about 20mL of Triton across all channels to account for about 1dkH per day of drop so I think your dose is still quite high for the uptake I'd expect at this stage. I figure you're more likely at most hitting 0.5dkH drop per day at the moment but we won't know unless you've tested it without adding any doses in between.

You can now at least largely eliminate precipitation as a direct cause for any noticeable imbalances in your levels. Could be another cause compounding the issue, but I'm still confident you were having precipitation on every alk dose given your description of the prior dosing input system.

 

[Whipples]

.5-.6DKH daily consumption is about right, from what I calculated when I manually buffed the tank to get back up to the target 8 when it dropped a bit. I also redid the lines and powerhead so that it drops right into a turbulent laminar flow and gets pushed away from the return input at initial dose. I have to go back to patience, was just so excited at the prospect of lowering my dose! Thanks again @rockskimmerflow i'll report back with how it progresses.

 

[Urbanknight]

This thread has been helpful to me. I felt that my dosing was a bit much for my Red Sea 525xl. Added an MJ 900 to area where I'm dosing today and waiting for results! Thanks @rockskimmerflow and @Whipples for sharing this information!

 

[Whipples]

@Urbanknight post back with your results, too. Would love to get these data points out for other users of the method to benefit from

 

[Whipples]

So another full dose of 24ml goes by, I dosed the tank up to 8.3 last night at 8PM, and today at 8PM its 7.7. Aside from moving the dosing lines into the drain area, I am at a loss as to what I can do to make this not precipitate if that is what it is. I have the dose being dripped right at the output of an MJ1200 to get blasted into the wall opposite the powerhead and there is some serious turbulence in that little area. I'll manually buff the tank again right now but it is as if none of it is somehow making it into the water. Will try doing 24 1ml doses instead, see if that helps. I may run the doser speed at its lowest setting for those two parts to see if that helps.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

So another full dose of 24ml goes by, I dosed the tank up to 8.3 last night at 8PM, and today at 8PM its 7.7. Aside from moving the dosing lines into the drain area, I am at a loss as to what I can do to make this not precipitate if that is what it is. I have the dose being dripped right at the output of an MJ1200 to get blasted into the wall opposite the powerhead and there is some serious turbulence in that little area. I'll manually buff the tank again right now but it is as if none of it is somehow making it into the water. Will try doing 24 1ml doses instead, see if that helps. I may run the doser speed at its lowest setting for those two parts to see if that helps.

Yeah that's interesting. Something's definitely not adding up since you mentioned your measured uptake was around .6dkh/day when nothing was dosed. The maxijet sounds like it's doing the trick as far as quickly dispersing the doses. I almost wonder if you have some specific manufactured dry rock or man made rock that is adsorbing the alkalinity faster than normal. I have seen the reverse occur where no alk was being dosed, but the use of some types of manufactured rock was spiking the alk to 11dkh until it finally finished leaching out and stabilized. Hard to know what is going on. Are your calcium and magnesium levels trending upwards?

In any case, I would highly suggest doing the smallest possible dose increments as a rule with high concentration additives like core7 so changing to 24 x 1mL doses is a good move in general. And of course make sure that the part 1 and part 2 are not going in right before or after that alkalinity doses. At least 10 or 15 mins between components is ideal.

 

[Whipples]

I have parts 1 and 2 on the original timetable of every 2 hours, 15 minutes apart. CA and MG were creeping up as expected with the bigger dose, CA went up from 445-450 to 475. I used ReefCleaners dry rock which hasn't leeched anything detectable (nitrates are near zero with salifert, phosphate was .01 via Hanna ULR Phosphorus checker) so unless the rock itself is absorbing carbonate? I poked the sand a bit throughout the tank to see if any calcification was happening there and the sand bed was smooth and not clumpy. Some very slight green spots which from my previous tank indicate the beginning of coraline growth which would make sense given it was on the frag plugs carried over. This is quite bizarre...

That 7.7dkh result was at 8pm, I added half a teaspoon of KH dry buffer left over from a different method to get it up to 8 or so, and it read 8 when I tested just now. Will keep this updated as I go. I did have each component dose into a graduated cylinder and the calibration was near perfect so I can rule that out.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I have parts 1 and 2 on the original timetable of every 2 hours, 15 minutes apart. CA and MG were creeping up as expected with the bigger dose, CA went up from 445-450 to 475. I used ReefCleaners dry rock which hasn't leeched anything detectable (nitrates are near zero with salifert, phosphate was .01 via Hanna ULR Phosphorus checker) so unless the rock itself is absorbing carbonate? I poked the sand a bit throughout the tank to see if any calcification was happening there and the sand bed was smooth and not clumpy. Some very slight green spots which from my previous tank indicate the beginning of coraline growth which would make sense given it was on the frag plugs carried over. This is quite bizarre...

That 7.7dkh result was at 8pm, I added half a teaspoon of KH dry buffer left over from a different method to get it up to 8 or so, and it read 8 when I tested just now. Will keep this updated as I go. I did have each component dose into a graduated cylinder and the calibration was near perfect so I can rule that out.

Ahh, I didn't have a sense of how new your tank and rock were. If the rock and sand are new as of September and we don't even have coralline going strong yet, then I definitely think we are seeing some stabilizing going on in terms of the fresh calcium carbonate surfaces in the tank. Seems fairly common to have some sorts of anomalies in new tanks while every is maturing. I do think the current 24mL dose is still quite high for what it being consumed by the organisms in the tank. I suspect 12mL of each par part day will suffice for the needs of your animals currently. I do think the 24mL dose is ok as long as you are not seeing any rise in CA or Mg. If CA and Mg are rising I'd recommend dropping to the 12mL and buffering with another supplemental carbonate source until things settle down. As long as you are consistent with your testing and tank maintenance I suspect this is just a temporary period of instability. You kH may even be continuing to fall in the short term due to residual precipitation from a relatively elevated calcium level. Once you get back in line across all the numbers with your upgraded flow in the dosing zone I think you will be rock solid with equal doses across all channels. Will likely take some time to settle in.

On another note, I honestly don't even fire up a doser on new systems until they are a few months old. I like to manually dose weekly based on testing until I'm certain everything is stable and corals are growing consistently. Once that's established I will put on a doser and start with a very conservative baseline. This extra stability usually sends the corals into overdrive so the dose is increased weekly until I'm happy with how the levels are holding. Then the dose only needs small incremental increases as corals are added and pieces grow larger.

FWIW I've never seen a new tank crash from lack of a doser, but I've seen many thrown into wild instability and goose chase mode with regard to water parameters simply because a doser was set to add too much supplement for a new system. IME adding too much supplement is always worse for a reef than erring on the low side.

 

[Whipples]

Good points, I can manually buff twice a day anyway to keep in the target ranges. I want to get CA back down to 440 or less so I may shut it off for a few days like you suggested. I had a suspicion the cycle itself was consuming it as I read that it is very common for the new bacteria growth and acid byproducts of that to cause a boosted uptake of carbonate as food. The journey continues...

 

[sweetash0ney]

This thread has been super helpful. My tank is cycling and I plan on doing triton. I could easily see having the same issues, and plan on putting my dosing lines in a very high flow place now after manually getting the dosages all figured out. Thank you! @Whipples and @rockskimmerflow

 

[Jaculus]

Very helpful thread. IN my planning to switch over to Triton I am going to have a pump supplementing my flow since I have a 200DD upstairs and the 200PS pump is likley getting at best 900 to 1100gph so a small pump will be used to add more flow from the return end of the sump back to the Refugium section effectively increasing the flow through the refu section. Based on this I will likley place the dose drip RIGHT at where the return flow is BACK into the Refugium.

 

[birdman1979]

I recently switched from aqua forest 3 part to triton. I combined the 3a and 3b into one dosing container and added 1 liter of ro/di to the other two and dose in equal parts. My tank is young with just frags and mini colonies. The growth I have seen since switching is remarkable. I am going to switch over to "other methods" since I quickly learned my refugium isn't large enough. Along with the explosive growth I am getting a lot of cyano. My 80 gallon tank is consuming 23 ml x 3 of half strength solution and I see growth daily. Pretty impressed with the results, but would like to get the growth without the cyano.

 

[Thomthom329]

Hi, don't mean to hijack this thread but I had a question about using a CO2 scrubber with the Triton Method. It seems the recommendation is to discontinue use of the scrubber but if I do, my ph will drop below 7.8. Which is better, remove the scrubber and have low ph, or keep the scrubber (my ph will maintain 8.2-84) and dose more Core7? Thanks!

 

[Joe Batt]

@rcpalmer1 solution is pending, but I'm enjoying the method all the same. At this point it is just a matter of solving precipitation (or some other currently elusive factor) which we are close to a solution. I use the H380 right now, works welottom of the problem? l.

Did you ever get to the bottom of the problem? I seem to be having a similar issue. My kH dosage is up to 40 of 3a/3b per day (20 ml of each) and still struggling to keep it stable. It was very stable then suddenly over a few days, the Kh dosage kept from 20ml to nearly 40 !

This is a link to my recent thread
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-is-my-alkalinity-suddenly-dropping.520910/#post-5451983

 

[Whipples]

@Joe Batt it was a mixture of precipitation and not enough flow.

 

[Joe Batt]

@Joe Batt it was a mixture of precipitation and not enough flow.

Not enough flow in the tank or where you were dosing?

 

[Whipples]

@Joe Batt where I was dosing. I added a small sicce pump to help increase turbulence in the dosing area and allow it to dissolve better, and I also slowed down my doser speed to the lowest setting and have more frequent doses to prevent it crystallizing/precipitating out of the water.