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How often do you measure Alkalinity?

How often do you measure Alkalinity?


  • Total voters
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Wlachnit

Past President
I've been curious as to how often folks measure alkalinity. Daily, Weekly, monthly, never? So, I thought I would post a poll...just out of curiosity.
 
on an established tank, maybe monthly if i’m bored.
On a new build, a couple times a week until i get the numbers locked in where i want them.
 
Current I am testing 8 times a day and starting to control my Calcium reactor with my Alk readings from the Trident.

Can you program it to test at a schedule you decide? For alkatronic you choose “every X amount of hours” which is a pain in the A**.


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Current I am testing 8 times a day and starting to control my Calcium reactor with my Alk readings from the Trident.
Let’s skip the trident and just make a robotic reef keeper with super intelligence. Immune to paly toxin...would never work on the tank after “A” beer...not tempted by impulse buys... built in Dry side of a magnet cleaner...
 
Anywhere between weekly and less than monthly depending largely on the tank. How much stony coral and how fast is it growing? How mature is the tank?
If I have a good handle on a system that’s been stable awhile and see it often enough I basically check out the corals and verify whatever dosing pump type equipment is working and do my water change and not worry about testing.
Newer tanks sometimes even Dailey to get dosing dialed in. Plenty of Lps/softie tanks never and just do water changes, no dosing.
Every tank (and reefer) is different.
I do believe if I had the trident (someday maybe) I’d be happy with 2-3 times per day...
 
Question for those of you that only check if something looks awry: what if things look normal but the alk is on the low side and not enough to cause death or recession. How would you know without checking. The alk could be low and just cause your corals to grow very slowly. ie it may not cause coral injury but it's not optimal either. If you don't test, you don't really know either.
 
Currently not at all, one of the reasons is that the main tank (200g) that would primarily use alkalinity has about a 1-2 square inches of stony corals only currently, although to be honest I should start now just to have a reference point of what fresh salt water is that I'm making. The second reason is I'm sure any alk kits I have expired years ago so I'd be crap shooting what the numbers mean.

That said when I get back from a vacay, going to get some new kits, and start testing a bit more religiously. Water test Saturday! If anything it'll let me know when I need to start dosing kalk.
 
Let’s skip the trident and just make a robotic reef keeper with super intelligence. Immune to paly toxin...would never work on the tank after “A” beer...not tempted by impulse buys... built in Dry side of a magnet cleaner...
You could just buy a membership at the Cal Academy and go look at their tanks if that's what you wanted :D
... it'd be WAY cheaper than a Trident too :D
 
Can you program it to test at a schedule you decide? For alkatronic you choose “every X amount of hours” which is a pain in the A**.


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I can not not get in to this too much as it is still in Beta Testing and things can change, but there is a drop down with a few different options of how many tests a day you are wanting to do with the minimum being 4 tests (4 Alk and 2 Ca/Mg) and once you choose how many tests a day and it automatically calculates when each of test will be performed.


The Trident has already saved me. When I was testing 4 times a day and this is what I will go back to after I dial in the Ca reactor. and I saw that my ALK was declining. After seeing this I found that my Ca pump stopped working so I was not adding any more Alk in to the tank and the corals were absorbing this in the water. If I did not have the Trident I might not have seen this for a week or two when I used to test my Alk.
 
I can not not get in to this too much as it is still in Beta Testing and things can change, but there is a drop down with a few different options of how many tests a day you are wanting to do with the minimum being 4 tests (4 Alk and 2 Ca/Mg) and once you choose how many tests a day and it automatically calculates when each of test will be performed.


The Trident has already saved me. When I was testing 4 times a day and this is what I will go back to after I dial in the Ca reactor. and I saw that my ALK was declining. After seeing this I found that my Ca pump stopped working so I was not adding any more Alk in to the tank and the corals were absorbing this in the water. If I did not have the Trident I might not have seen this for a week or two when I used to test my Alk.

Ah. Sounds similar to the alkatronic. Issue I’m running into is. You choose how many times a day you want it to test. From 2 to 12. But you can not choose a schedule.

For example, it is extremely loud when running (they released quieter pumps which I don’t have yet) so I want to have it not run between 10 pm - 5am (when I am asleep) but that’s not an option. You just choose how many hours apart. So what I have been doing is. Set it for 4 hours apart. And let it test all day. But when I go to bed I unplug it.


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The terms quite and loud are subjective to each individual, however I will say to me the Trident is not very loud and sounds like R2D2 unit so when you hear it it puts a little smile on my face.
 
The terms quite and loud are subjective to each individual, however I will say to me the Trident is not very loud and sounds like R2D2 unit so when you hear it it puts a little smile on my face.

haha, the alkatronic is LOUD, i have it in another room and in my bed room it keeps me up. i cant close both doors because the cat likes to go into the fish room and look out the window.
 
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