Triton method question

[anth]

Hi everyone
This question is for people who run full triton method on their tanks.
Basically im sitting in front of my tank and my brain is ticking over, im wondering if my tank is a typical triton tank. I mean this in terms of how much i am dosing of the core 7 solutions, tank size, nutrients, feeding, coral growth and colouration, bad and good experiences, ph, par, daily alk consumption. If theres anyone else out there who is wondering the same thing or would like to share their triton tank details then by all means do so. Pics would be nice too.
Heres mine

core 7 dosage
At the moment 14ml but i am upping this to 17 today as i have had to manually dose extra in the past few days

tank size
636 litres (168 us gallons) actual water volume is 550 litres (145 usg)

po4 and no3
No3 sits steady at 5ppm and po4 drifts between 0.018 and 0.09

feeding
I am working on increasing my feeding hence the phosphate drift but currently i am feeding 5ml’s worth of vitalis marine small pellets in the morning then a mix of mysis, reef feast and live copepods on the afternoon, sometimes the odd dose of phytoplankton.

Coral growth and colouration
In the past 3-4 months my tank has really started to take off. My acros and montis are encrusting and have grown a few new shoots. There is one or two that is doing a lot more growing than the rest but generally i am happy with what i see. In terms of colour i could not ask for more. Although my frags are still small in comparison with their potential, i dont think it is possible for them to colour up more. Cant wait to grow them out!

Bad experiences
I have had 2 bad experiences, first was dinoflagellates it took weeks to beat them and they were very bad! Second was bryopsis which was partially my fault as i thought it was gha and left it alone for my tangs to feed on, big mistake. This was only a few weeks ago and it completely cleared up using fluconazole

Good experiences
My whole journey from the designing of my tank to now has been very enjoyable, even the bad parts as i thrive at problem solving and am constantly on the lookout to learn.

PH
Raising my ph was the eureka moment for me. My ph used to sit at 7.8 ish and i litteraly seen no growth at all. When i had my dino problem i started the counter attack by raising my ph through the use of a co2 scrubber (diy). After doing this my core 7 dose shot up from 2ml a day to 10ml a day and my ph hovers around 8.55 sometimes 8.6 when windows are open. I know this is pretty high but not sure i should bother adjusting as my tank is happy. I am also aware of this causing precipitation but i have seen no evidence of this in my tank.

PAR
500-600 just under the surface
350-430 at top of rocks
200-300 mid
100-150 sand bed

Alk consumption
0.6dkh a day and rising

PS
I know this is a long post so feel free to use bullet points and be straight to the point, or not.
Also feel free to add extra things to the list.

Thanks
Anth

 

[WIReefer]

Bump

 

[Pistondog]

Triton for 12 months, 10 ml per day. 120 gals = 75 plus 11 + fuge.
Nitrate 3, phosphate 0.1 to 0.2
Alk 8, ca 450
Started sps in small cube 6 mos ago, starting to take off.
Happy with results and lack of water changes

 

[Crustaceon]

I’ve done both Triton and balling methods extensively. I’ve had better luck with the balling method simply due to the fact that the more you test and see things out of whack, the more tempted you are to mess with your parameters and cause instability. I also despise refugiums as they often become a nutrient teeter totter. I always felt weird about pumping ridiculous amounts of food through my system just to makes sure I had nitrates and phosphates.

 

[anth]

I’ve done both Triton and balling methods extensively. I’ve had better luck with the balling method simply due to the fact that the more you test and see things out of whack, the more tempted you are to mess with your parameters and cause instability. I also despise refugiums as they often become a nutrient teeter totter. I always felt weird about pumping ridiculous amounts of food through my system just to makes sure I had nitrates and phosphates.

My tank is a bit weird where nutrients are concerned. For the first few months my phosphate was always 0.009-0.02, this was due to me not feeding alot. My nitrate was 0.25. When i had dinos i dosed potassium nitrate once to bring nitrate up to 5ppm. That was months ago and since then no matter how much i do or dont feed it never budges from 5ppm. Phosphate however is a different story, if i feed the amont i do now without the use of a reactor it would rise to 0.1-0.3.
I get what your saying about the testing and adjusting. I however only act on the important things and have only icp tested 3 times in nearly a year. But it was a good job i did as one test showed trace copper which was a near miss and another test showed high iron which i believe led me to beat dinos.

 

[anth]

Triton for 12 months, 10 ml per day. 120 gals = 75 plus 11 + fuge.
Nitrate 3, phosphate 0.1 to 0.2
Alk 8, ca 450
Started sps in small cube 6 mos ago, starting to take off.
Happy with results and lack of water changes

Thanks for the reply
Do you think that running 8dkh alk is better than the recommended 7, if so why?
Also do you experience any negatives from running high phosphates?

 

[Pistondog]

Thanks for the reply
Do you think that running 8dkh alk is better than the recommended 7, if so why?
Also do you experience any negatives from running high phosphates?

Always run at 8dkh, maybe ill try a little lower
Phosphates hi, probably some negatives but tank is fish heavy

 

[anth]

Always run at 8dkh, maybe ill try a little lower
Phosphates hi, probably some negatives but tank is fish heavy

Thanks for that
I never understand how some people struggle to keep phosphates up.

 

[amazongb]

Thanks for that
I never understand how some people struggle to keep phosphates up.

I struggled for a long time.. dinos, chrysophytes etc.. starting dosing P04 via dosing pump, helped fix that. Now, tank is mature and P04 is fine on its own.. every tank is different. From what I've read, many P04 testing deficiencies are dry rock related, which was my case.