Neptune Aquatics

Apex Trident Pros and Cons

Due to my life, I k ew I was going f to want something like Apex gear for piece of mind and as I was getting my setup, a Trident bundle (incorrectly) displayed on one of the sites like BRS and I secured it early. Personally, it gives me more info than I necessarily need at my point having a new tank, but I appreciate the data point. Other than price, my biggest con is that I cannot do less than 4 tests daily. For me, that’s overkill. Way overkill. But with this and the other gear I have, at least I’ve got some piece of mind for times like now where I won’t be home for another three weeks.


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WAR5150 said:
Due to my life, I k ew I was going f to want something like Apex gear for piece of mind and as I was getting my setup, a Trident bundle (incorrectly) displayed on one of the sites like BRS and I secured it early. Personally, it gives me more info than I necessarily need at my point having a new tank, but I appreciate the data point. Other than price, my biggest con is that I cannot do less than 4 tests daily. For me, that’s overkill. Way overkill. But with this and the other gear I have, at least I’ve got some piece of mind for times like now where I won’t be home for another three weeks.


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You can manual test with trident


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ofzakaria said:
Indeed every tank is diffrent. This is the first time I hear of tuning the carx based on ca not alk...even the latest auto carx out there like dastaco control the reactor for alk not ca...
When I want to reduce my ca, while rarly, I simply turn off my CArx and dose alk for a day or so until I have the ratio I seek then turn in carx again. This have occured in the past when I add gfo or po4 remover cause indeed po4 remover tend to suck alk..

You learn something new every day:)
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It makes the most sense to base the carx off whatever uptake is greatest and then dose the lower one separately to keep everything in balance. In your situation you said you have to actually turn off the carx and dose the other to get them back in balance. Even though it may be rare, it wouldn’t be necessary at all the other way. I think people are trying to shoot for those rock solid alk values and so they set the carx based off of alk. I do think alk stability is more important than ca but if you could have both be stable then that’s even better right?
 
Flagg37 said:
It makes the most sense to base the carx off whatever uptake is greatest and then dose the lower one separately to keep everything in balance. In your situation you said you have to actually turn off the carx and dose the other to get them back in balance. Even though it may be rare, it wouldn’t be necessary at all the other way. I think people are trying to shoot for those rock solid alk values and so they set the carx based off of alk. I do think alk stability is more important than ca but if you could have both be stable then that’s even better right?
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Agreed,
I doubt many would tune their carx based of ca. It's the all that you want to tune ur CArx for..
 
Alkalinity is just soooooooooooooooooo much easier to check too. I mean it's literally drip one reagent into water, type of testing. Even the simplest of Ca test kits requires 2 reagents, many also require some color change powder too.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Alkalinity is just soooooooooooooooooo much easier to check too. I mean it's literally drip one reagent into water, type of testing. Even the simplest of Ca test kits requires 2 reagents, many also require some color change powder too.
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Agreed.
I tune my CArx for alk, and have my doser top off alk if my khg showed lower alk than what I want so it's dead solid values.
As mentioned before I do not and cannot care about ca otherwise I would got in to loops of tinkering with CArx and might mess up my alk.
It is also not recomended to turn off the CArx for more than 6 hours btw. What I understood is that if water is not moving inside the reactor bacteria can develop on the stones and I can get in to biological troubles especially since I dose bacteria.
 
Flagg37 said:
It makes the most sense to base the carx off whatever uptake is greatest and then dose the lower one separately to keep everything in balance. In your situation you said you have to actually turn off the carx and dose the other to get them back in balance. Even though it may be rare, it wouldn’t be necessary at all the other way. I think people are trying to shoot for those rock solid alk values and so they set the carx based off of alk. I do think alk stability is more important than ca but if you could have both be stable then that’s even better right?
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I tune off CA because that give me the base rate and is the most stable reading.

If Alk drops from 9.0 to 8.5 and Ca stays at 420. I bump the CaRx up to keep it back to steady at Alk 9.0, now the amount of Ca per ml of effluent has now increased. So Ca rises slowly, 430, 440, 450, 460 etc (no trident so you don't know until you test, which is once a week/month or never). However if I keep the CaRx at its constant rate and bump up the dosing to account for the drop in Alk, then every parameter stays stable. (numbers are an example).

However, if I see Alk and Ca BOTH dropping, I can bump up the CaRx to account for the increase in uptake by the corals. That is why some trace element supplements base their dosing on Ca levels, not Alk levels.

This is why I believe some people have trouble with CaRx tuning. Too little, then too much. Might be because the uptake is not in ratio in their tank.
 
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I love the trident, would get it again, and when the brouhaha calms down more will buy a backup unit. I use it to run my CaRx and it has changed everything - my alk was all over the place before, and is now stable thanks to the Trident. I really only care about the alk and the controlability, and since the reagents are so inexpensive, it is nice to have Mg and Ca tested to help troubleshoot when things go goofy. For instance, I was in Tonga and my salinity dropped - was it a probe issue or did it really drop? Looking at the Mg drop that paralleled the salinity drop help me know that the salinity did indeed drop.

I think being the first to try out some of the new testers that will hit the market is something I am not interested in doing. I want real evidence that they work, and am not that interested in paying to beta test. I am also not interested in getting equipment that doesn't have robust and easy US support, and feel lucky that because Neptune is US based, I don't have to use something that doesn't have a big local presence.

You risk failing accuracy and precision if you use the trident manually without doing the minimum tests - the minimum is 2 alk and 2 combined tests daily. The maintenance on the trident is recommended, and while it is not nailed down yet, somewhere between 18 months and 2 years. The plan is you can do it yourself or send it in, with various options that are not yet nailed down either. I don't find any of this problematic. YMMV.
 
I’ve been using the Trident for about 2 weeks now. Overall I’m happy to have it, and am glad I got it.

Likes:
  • I love the Alkalinity monitoring, that is the one thing that makes it worthwhile, even with everything in the dislike section.
  • I’m planning to set it up to be able to dynamically adjust Triton dosing based on Alk, I like having that option.
  • Easy setup.
  • Easy integration with Apex, and ease of seeing results in Fusion.

Dislikes:
  • Noisy. It’s the noisiest thing on my tank by far when it’s working, and it takes quite a while to measure. A very annoying high-pitched whining noise when working. I don’t like it, and I’ve already fielded a few complaints from the missus.
  • Short tubing. The sample and waste tubing are both only 5 feet, and the directions say about a dozen times that using longer tubing will mess everything up and is strictly forbidden. This is a big problem, since 5 feet is barely enough to have it in the dry compartment of my stand (with limited options), and not enough to have it in the garage on the other side of the wall, where I was planning to put it. If I could have put it where I wanted, the noise issue likely wouldn’t be a problem. I’d love to see an update that allows us to use longer tubing, say 10 feet, with either standard calibration adjustment for standard length, or ability to re-calibrate dynamically with their calibration solution. It doesn’t seem hard...
  • Having to test Ca/Mg twice a day seems silly. The only thing it tells me is what the test precision is as I see it randomly jiggle up and down a tiny bit each time. Testing once a week plus on demand would be much better. I realize they ran into engineering issues, but it’s still worth saying over and over in hopes that they can “fix” this.
  • Design. The swooping design seems wasteful of space. Preference, but I’d rather not have the part sticking up unless it really is important. This thing is so noisy no one is going to want it out where people can see/hear it anyway.
  • Materials. Super cheap thin plastic. The front faceplate with the logo falls off if you bump it. Too early to tell if this will also be a reliability issue.
  • Reagent tray design is awkward. It’s a bit funky to install the reagents, and I anticipate being more so to change them out. Seems like there should be a better way to design it, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe just having the reagent bottles easier to access somehow.
  • Reagents bundled. I haven’t seen a way to buy just Alk reagents for example. So although I’ve heard some people are just testing alk with it, or increase frequency of testing of Alk, I don’t see how you’d be able to support that if you have to buy it bundled.
Overall I’m happy and satisfied. With a few small tweaks (longer tubing options, option to test less frequently, unbundling reagents) this would be a great product. I would recommend it to anyone already invested in the Apex system.
 
So can you simply not set a schedule for the trident at all? Looking at the installation instructions it seems like there is a way to do a manual test (either alk or combo test), but could you literally turn off scheduled tests?
 
JVU said:
[*]Design. The swooping design seems wasteful of space. Preference, but I’d rather not have the part sticking up unless it really is important. This thing is so noisy no one is going to want it out where people can see/hear it anyway.
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Agree - once you realize how awesome Tridents are you want to start stacking them up. (Read: I wish they were stackable/mountable)

I don’t notice the noise but I have two kids and a Vector running around my house (we have banned all pets besides reef tanks and robots)
 
sfsuphysics said:
So can you simply not set a schedule for the trident at all? Looking at the installation instructions it seems like there is a way to do a manual test (either alk or combo test), but could you literally turn off scheduled tests?
Click to expand...

Yes you can manually test


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I've had mine for about a year. Couldn't be happier. There are some provisos however. Finding a source of the six month reagent package is pita, as they are generally out of stock and I've had to purchase the two month package direct from Neptune a couple of times. We don't know about the cost/hassle factor of the routine maintenance thing every 12-18 months yet. That said, the thing I liked least about keeping a tank was the two hours or so weekly required to keep a handle on parameters. The Trident really gives you an in-depth and much more granular view of how your tank in consuming alk/mag/cal and that visibility allows you to adjust dosing to even out swings during the day. I'm not auto dosing with DOS, I use DOS for water change but dose via apex code /BRS doser, and after a couple of months to get things dialed in, the tank is very stable now. That stability allows me to ignore the other not great thing about Trident, namely the wonky reading you get as reagents get low. For me I just ignore those swings as I know the tank didn't suddenly become unstable and in a few days or so when the reagent empty message hits and I calibrate and have full reagents everything settle down. If you don't have sps its probably a nice to have but not necessary, but if your growing sps or anything else that needs a very stable tank, it's a great answer. I'd buy one again.
 
The pointy end is where the measuring cuvette is so yes, that part is needed.

You should not use manual testing. The minimum is 4 alk, 2 ca, 2 mg tests. If you switch to manual and test less, you will most likely run into the issue of 1 or more tubes getting blocked due to deposits.

Please create a support ticket so we can log who has the issue with readings rising when reagents are low. They will ask you to answer some questions so that we can nail down what exactly is causing the issue. Every Trident that has come back due to the CA rising issue has been running flawlessly here. So either it is an environmental/installation issue or ??????

The thin plastic you feel is just the shell. Has no function other than to cover the internals. The skeleton on the inside is much more robust.

You can do additional manual testing by selecting Alk only or combined test. This is on top of the scheduled testing.

Would you rather know there is an issue with any parameters as soon as possible or wait a week? Even with a CaRx (which I run), sometimes things happen. Mg can take a dive causing Ca/Alk to precipitate or Alk drops so you turn up your CaRx but actually its not due to consumption so your Ca rises. You test at the end of the week and now your Ca is 500+. While not catastrophic, you will want to bring it down, but your Alk keeps dropping making you have to up the CaRX. Rather know after a week? Or know after a day?
 
so that sounds like a yes.

That said, what is fundamentally difference between 6 and 2 month sets of reagents, is it simply 3-2month sets stuck together in one box, or is the physical size of the containers bigger or is it more concentrated? In which case I would say it's a huge kick in the nuts that places are "out" of the 6 month but have plenty of 2 month supply which run 35% more expensive for the same quantity.
 
sfsuphysics said:
so that sounds like a yes.

That said, what is fundamentally difference between 6 and 2 month sets of reagents, is it simply 3-2month sets stuck together in one box, or is the physical size of the containers bigger or is it more concentrated? In which case I would say it's a huge kick in the nuts that places are "out" of the 6 month but have plenty of 2 month supply which run 35% more expensive for the same quantity.
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6 month supply is three 2 month boxes strapped together. Lmao

I bought the 6 month pack off the seller of the trident. I was amused.
 
@sfsuphysics hah...

20200304_232839.jpg
 
sfsuphysics said:
I know you can manually test, I'm wondering if you can turn off scheduled tests.
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"You risk failing accuracy and precision if you use the trident manually without doing the minimum tests - the minimum is 2 alk and 2 combined tests daily. The maintenance on the trident is recommended, and while it is not nailed down yet, somewhere between 18 months and 2 years. The plan is you can do it yourself or send it in, with various options that are not yet nailed down either. I don't find any of this problematic. YMMV."
 
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