Alkatronics experience

[newfly]

the tube in the machine didn’t get push in completely , I must have unseat the tube during ph calibration. Fixed it and now it’s consistently getting 8.99-9.00 ( 4 tests over 3 hours period)

All said, I’m happy with it so far. It is noisy (especially at night) . If only I do more test during the day and no test at night.

 

[newfly]

You can try shutting it down and then starting it up an hour before you want to test. And then perform a manual test immediately on startup and it will usually test 12 hours later. I think it’s supposed to do a test within an hour of turning it back on so the manual one may not be necessary but it’s worked for me. It’s a little wonky, but I’ve been able to get mine to go morning/evening pretty reliably. I do 7am/7pm

Didn’t work. Restart the machine, and did a manual test at 7:30pm. The machine promptly woke up everyone at 3’ish am. Arg..

Now I cannot connect via Bluetooth. Still have access via the web / remote access

I confirm I set the interval at 12hours. I will try the steps again this morning

 

[derek_SR]

Didn’t work. Restart the machine, and did a manual test at 7:30pm. The machine promptly woke up everyone at 3’ish am. Arg..

Now I cannot connect via Bluetooth. Still have access via the web / remote access

I confirm I set the interval at 12hours. I will try the steps again this morning

I didn’t even realize a Bluetooth connection was possible. Maybe I should update my app?!

Try shutting it down for a more extended time before turning it on and/or skipping the manual test. Make sure it’s off during the scheduled 3pm test today, then turn on again around 7pm.

I am surprised yours is loud enough to wake people up - mine is noisy but would never wake me up, even if I slept right next to it. Is it in your bedroom? I know it used to be very noisy and they made some updates that reduced the noise quite a bit (not sure if hardware or firmware). Did you but it new? Have you updated the firmware?

 

[newfly]

We are just very light sleepers. It’s not super loud not noticeable enough from the bedroom. The tank is in the living room, bed room is probably 25ft away.

Yeah, it’s a brand new (3rd gen) machine according to the manual. It has an emergency drain tube.

Good idea on turning off the machine . I’ll do that right now and turn back on at 7pm.

As for the results so far , at 7pm 9dkh 8.2ph 4am - 9.47, 7.88ph , 7am - 9.74 7.88ph

assuming the results is reliable, 0.7dkh , 0.3 ph swing at night . My tank is doing well, consuming 4dkh a day. I supposed 0.7dkh swing is not unreasonable?

I supposed I can reduce the alk dosing at night.

 

[newfly]

Another mystery solved. Now the Alkatronic matches Hanna results almost to the points . Turn out my floor is not perfectly level ( what’s new) and the slight tilt prevent the drain pump to suck up all the water. Put some cardboard (2-3mm) under the cabinet and magic happens. Hanna is 8.3 and Alkatronic 8.34 . Close enough.

Still unable to solve the start time issue. Will power cycle again tomorrow morning and keeping the machine off for the night. Not risking it. I might end up sleeping on the couch if it start at 3am again!

 

[derek_SR]

Another mystery solved. Now the Alkatronic matches Hanna results almost to the points . Turn out my floor is not perfectly level ( what’s new) and the slight tilt prevent the drain pump to suck up all the water. Put some cardboard (2-3mm) under the cabinet and magic happens. Hanna is 8.3 and Alkatronic 8.34 . Close enough.

Still unable to solve the start time issue. Will power cycle again tomorrow morning and keeping the machine off for the night. Not risking it. I might end up sleeping on the couch if it start at 3am again!

Good news and bad news. Too bad about the timing - try again tomorrow after it’s been off so long. Have you tried reaching out to them? I think you do it through coralvue. It’s been a while but I remember them being responsive.

 

[newfly]

Good news and bad news. Too bad about the timing - try again tomorrow after it’s been off so long. Have you tried reaching out to them? I think you do it through coralvue. It’s been a while but I remember them being responsive.

I email support and received a response in a few hours. Yeah, told me to do the same thing, power cycle and do a manual test.

 

[newfly]

Another mystery solved. Now the Alkatronic matches Hanna results almost to the points . Turn out my floor is not perfectly level ( what’s new) and the slight tilt prevent the drain pump to suck up all the water. Put some cardboard (2-3mm) under the cabinet and magic happens. Hanna is 8.3 and Alkatronic 8.34 . Close enough.

Still unable to solve the start time issue. Will power cycle again tomorrow morning and keeping the machine off for the night. Not risking it. I might end up sleeping on the couch if it start at 3am again!

well, I jump to conclusions too early. It’s not the tilt. Alkatronic still consistently showing alk 9+dkh. Hanna is 8+dkh. There is a setting in the app I mess with

Baseline: 8
Alkatronic 9

It automatically calibrate the Alkatronic reading based on the baseline number. I remove the setting and sure enough I’m seeing +1 delta.

I supposed this is a common issue that they have an exact solution for it in the app!

Also I think I figure out the start time solution. Restart the machine didn’t work as I described earlier. But I can change the interval. For some reason, it is stuck to 3am. I change the interval to 4 hours at 6am and sure enough at 7am the machine runs. I then change it to 12 hours and the app showing the next run is 7pm.

 

[derek_SR]

well, I jump to conclusions too early. It’s not the tilt. Alkatronic still consistently showing alk 9+dkh. Hanna is 8+dkh. There is a setting in the app I mess with

Baseline: 8
Alkatronic 9

It automatically calibrate the Alkatronic reading based on the baseline number. I remove the setting and sure enough I’m seeing +1 delta.

I supposed this is a common issue that they have an exact solution for it in the app!

Also I think I figure out the start time solution. Restart the machine didn’t work as I described earlier. But I can change the interval. For some reason, it is stuck to 3am. I change the interval to 4 hours at 6am and sure enough at 7am the machine runs. I then change it to 12 hours and the app showing the next run is 7pm.

Smart! I will remember that next time I have the same issue. Note that it doesn’t adjust intuitively for DST. So come fall, your test times will become 6pm/6am then back to 7 in the spring.

 

[newfly]

Happy with the setup so far, except the noise (which is known to me before the purchase). I have been making minor tweak on my dosing pump to flatten the alk curve. Its probably not going to matter much, but this is the downside of too much data and the urge to make things better. My alk now ranges from 7.8 low to 8.0 peak with . PH ranges from 7.9-8.4. Good enough for now. Love to get the PH higher at night. I'm already dosing 1.2L of kalk only at night . My kalk container is too small to accommodated higher dosing per day. I would like to get 1 week worth of kalk before refill.

Planning to enable auto dosing in a week. I think i understand the overall concept. If the alk is lower than the low point, it will automatic dose. There is also a force test interval. I assume this is enabling a retest at user defined interval if the results is outside the range. Is this correct?

Questions:

1. If my low=7.8. Test = 7.5. Force test interval = 2hours. Will alkatronics trigger a dose, then retest in 2 hours? If retest is still low, will it dose again, and retest 2hours later and repeat if alk is still below threadhold? Is this dangerous ? if for whatever reason the results is wrong, it will be continuously adding alk?
2. How do i control how much alk to dose? I see the "test pump" setting dose 10ml. there is no setting to control how much volume to dose. I assuming it will dose 10mil every time t is triggered?
3. Will alkatronic log how often it have to dose? I would think this is useful .

I don't have dosetronic. My questions above is using alkatronics itself to correct for alk.

 

[derek_SR]

Happy with the setup so far, except the noise (which is known to me before the purchase). I have been making minor tweak on my dosing pump to flatten the alk curve. Its probably not going to matter much, but this is the downside of too much data and the urge to make things better. My alk now ranges from 7.8 low to 8.0 peak with . PH ranges from 7.9-8.4. Good enough for now. Love to get the PH higher at night. I'm already dosing 1.2L of kalk only at night . My kalk container is too small to accommodated higher dosing per day. I would like to get 1 week worth of kalk before refill.

Planning to enable auto dosing in a week. I think i understand the overall concept. If the alk is lower than the low point, it will automatic dose. There is also a force test interval. I assume this is enabling a retest at user defined interval if the results is outside the range. Is this correct?

Questions:

1. If my low=7.8. Test = 7.5. Force test interval = 2hours. Will alkatronics trigger a dose, then retest in 2 hours? If retest is still low, will it dose again, and retest 2hours later and repeat if alk is still below threadhold? Is this dangerous ? if for whatever reason the results is wrong, it will be continuously adding alk?
2. How do i control how much alk to dose? I see the "test pump" setting dose 10ml. there is no setting to control how much volume to dose. I assuming it will dose 10mil every time t is triggered?
3. Will alkatronic log how often it have to dose? I would think this is useful .

I don't have dosetronic. My questions above is using alkatronics itself to correct for alk.

I don't know the answer to these questions - which is partly why I never really went this route. It feels needlessly complicated, and I worry about a ton of extra noisy testing and dosing and overcorrecting happening. In my case, I just find it easier to watch alk and adjust my dosing accordingly. All of these automatic adjustments would kind of obfuscate the short term changes in alk that have taught me so much about what happens in my tank when I make changes, and that's too valuable to give up.

Maybe another owner who uses this feature will chime in, but for me it solves a problem that I don't have.

 

[newfly]

I don't know the answer to these questions - which is partly why I never really went this route. It feels needlessly complicated, and I worry about a ton of extra noisy testing and dosing and overcorrecting happening. In my case, I just find it easier to watch alk and adjust my dosing accordingly. All of these automatic adjustments would kind of obfuscate the short term changes in alk that have taught me so much about what happens in my tank when I make changes, and that's too valuable to give up.

Maybe another owner who uses this feature will chime in, but for me it solves a problem that I don't have.

I hear you. I don't have any problem as well, but i always ended up overcomplicate things because i can. Technically i don;t need an automated alk tester. Its a toy.

 

[derek_SR]

I hear you. I don't have any problem as well, but i always ended up overcomplicate things because i can. Technically i don;t need an automated alk tester. Its a toy.

Totally, and I can see myself going down the same road eventually (when the novelty of obsessively checking my alk result twice a day wears off ) so I am for sure interested in your experience and want to hear how it goes for you!

 

[newfly]

I enable auto dosing, but set the low to 8.0. . Have not trigger the dose yet. So far my tank have been very stable ( as expected) . I did make minor adjustment to reduce the alk swing. I also increase kalk to get ph up at night.

Still very happy with the purchase .

 

[Gudhjem]

Chiming in a bit late here. Hope your Alkatronic is working out for you.

I like the Alkatronic. I was an early adopter, and now have 3 of them running with 3 Dosetronics. I also have 2 KH Guardians and a GHL KH Director. I’ve found the Alkatronic to be more reliable and more useful. It’s accurate, inexpensive to run, and reliable.

I use it to autodose alkalinity and calcium (Dosetronic needed to do both). Once you understand it, it’s pretty straightforward. The way I do it is set the AT to dose a set about of alkalinity ever day of the course of the day. On my 225g, about 100ml or soda ash/day, on two other tanks that use much less alk, it’s zero). The testing then adds additional alk if needed. In other words, set the regular dose amount a bit below demand, and the AT will adjust based on testing. You can also let the regular dose get adjusted based on testing, which I do, so additional doses based on testing are rare.

The DT then matches the alk dose with a calcium dose (In a 1:1 ratio if you use a balanced additive like Randy’s formula). You can also do this with the GHL, but not with the KH Guardian.

The Alkatronic app is not great. There are actually two apps, one that can connect via BT, and a wifi-only Focustronic app. The Focustronic app is better, and what they are moving to, but the Alkatronic BT app is still necessary for some things. But the app is inconsistent (sometimes it wont respond to commands), lacks some basic things (like setting test time to avoid testing at night), and connectivity is an issue for some, and was for me. I had to set up a dedicated 2.5Ghz router as a subnetwork on my home network to solve my issues. There is no lan port on the machine, which kills me as that $2 feature would have saved my dozens of hours of network troubleshooting (GHL and KH Guardian both have this).

The machine is loud, especially compared to the GHL or the KH Guardian. The noise can sometimes be reduced by backing off the motor mounts, which are sometimes fastened too tightly.

Also I would not worry about the result being different than the Hanna. If you trust the Hanna, set the calibration to match and then don’t worry about the absolute values, just the trend.