Trident Controlled dosing AFR episode 3

[Doctorgori]

I don’t know exactly how long AFR and Tridents have been on the market, but controlled dosing using a single product seems like a Holy Grail …Perhaps enough time has passed to re-examine the data

Pardon the re-hash but I did go here first:
Trident controlled dosing with all for reef
To AFR or Not to AFR with trident

here is a quote that mirrors my concern

Dosing TM AFR here with a Trident. I do not use the feature with TM AFR due to the ALK lag.

I have used it when dosing ESV 2 part and it worked great. It is a nice feature. Bug how the AFR works and ALK lag I do not.

also these threads
Trident dosing warning!

Dynamic Dosing

Anyway, it’s RHF’s post in the latter thread that has brought me here for a update as his option has the most weight and I’m wondering if anyone’s experience using controlled dosing with AFR has been successful given that perhaps enough time has passed for enough AFR users to chime in with data
….any sample data/opinion appreciated
edited 3x ,,, sheez

 

[Troylee]

I’ve seen a few people around here doing it with success, so they say… I use all for reef on a dos with my apex but I’m happier with mine being on my manual set up! I don’t find it hard to dial in at all.. I will say honestly also it’s not that critical to keep your alk within .1 or what ever daily lol.. mine jumps around 1ppm daily and my sticks are flourishing..

 

[Doctorgori]

I wanted to display my alk chart but unfortunately my ipad seems incapable of screen print…
Anyway, my alk swings about .5 daily which is a lil uncomfortable for me …
trying to sift through threads on this and gather data
@Troylee … 1ppm daily scares the bejeezuz outta me, I’ve heard this is OK but I’vehad bad experiences with alk swings … I have a tank now struggling with establishing sticks

 

[Troylee]

I wanted to display my alk chart but unfortunately my ipad seems incapable of screen print…
Anyway, my alk swings about .5 daily which is a lil uncomfortable for me …
trying to sift through threads on this and gather data
@Troylee … 1ppm daily scares the bejeezuz outta me, I’ve heard this is OK but I’vehad bad experiences with alk swings … I have a tank now struggling with establishing sticks

I think that’s fine myself… I still haven’t got an answer of what a true alk spike is… I like to keep my acros guessing haha!

 

[Troylee]

That was last week above.. this current today.

 

[areefer01]

I’ve seen a few people around here doing it with success, so they say… I use all for reef on a dos with my apex but I’m happier with mine being on my manual set up! I don’t find it hard to dial in at all.. I will say honestly also it’s not that critical to keep your alk within .1 or what ever daily lol.. mine jumps around 1ppm daily and my sticks are flourishing..

This is more or less what I see. In fact in the graph below we can see on 4/14 my alk was dipping down into the low 7's. I wasn't sure if I was actually low or test anomaly so brought out a left over calibration solution, ran a manual test, and it matched the number on the bottle of 8.21 so I knew I was actually low on alk. I adjusted with left over ESV 2 part over a couple days. Once satisfied adjusted my AFR daily dose and that was it.

In my case as long as I'm consistent and do not make any sudden changes I feel like small change is fine. At least how my display works. I'm not trying to have a constant number if that makes sense.

Note: there are a couple drops in data as the process I use to collect failed during that poll window.

Alk:

Dose example:

 

[Troylee]

This is more or less what I see. In fact in the graph below we can see on 4/14 my alk was dipping down into the low 7's. I wasn't sure if I was actually low or test anomaly so brought out a left over calibration solution, ran a manual test, and it matched the number on the bottle of 8.21 so I knew I was actually low on alk. I adjusted with left over ESV 2 part over a couple days. Once satisfied adjusted my AFR daily dose and that was it.

In my case as long as I'm consistent and do not make any sudden changes I feel like small change is fine. At least how my display works. I'm not trying to have a constant number if that makes sense.

Note: there are a couple drops in data as the process I use to collect failed during that poll window.

Alk:

Dose example:

Mines jumping all over the place cause I’m playing with kalk and ph… I’m trying keep my ph elevated to see if it’s worth all the hype! Seems to be now that I’m on my 3rd week of keeping it elevated and seeing good results! After 20 years I’m beginning to think a stable alk isn’t as important as a stable ph like people are saying..I’ve kept my alk within .5 for years with great results and now I don’t even pay attention to it! It’s all over the place and I haven’t seen any ill effects..

 

[Doctorgori]

Mines jumping all over the place cause I’m playing with kalk and ph… I’m trying keep my ph elevated to see if it’s worth all the hype! Seems to be now that I’m on my 3rd week of keeping it elevated and seeing good results! After 20 years I’m beginning to think a stable alk isn’t as important as a stable ph like people are saying..I’ve kept my alk within .5 for years with great results and now I don’t even pay attention to it! It’s all over the place and I haven’t seen any ill effects..

I tried the kalk and AFR combo as it seemed to be a good pairing for pH, trace and simplicity but that Alkalinity latency with AFR complicated things, esp with the normal 24hr swings, I could never nail down a consistent dosage rate…

As for chasing Alkalinity vs pH …I’m starting to question this also @Troylee … yeah I get it that pH might not be important per se, but could it be a reasonable metric to try and stabilize even if it has no direct metabolic impact?

 

[Troylee]

I tried the kalk and AFR combo as it seemed to be a good pairing for pH, trace and simplicity but that Alkalinity latency with AFR complicated things, esp with the normal 24hr swings, I could never nail down a consistent dosage rate

It’s honestly not that important as you can see in my charts… my sticks will back me lol.. I know that’s always been the golden rule! I’ve learnt it isn’t..

 

[Troylee]

I’d like to hear from more people who are actually doing what you said thou.. I wanna say I’ve seen 2 people so far saying it works.. I’m sure Randy while chime in at some point and he advises against it.

 

[Doctorgori]

It’s honestly not that important as you can see in my charts… my sticks will back me lol..

Indeed …
That teal colony is impressive
Not to deviate from my own thread but I’m headed over to your tank thread, I might have more questions later if you don’t mind

 

[Doctorgori]

I’d like to hear from more people who are actually doing what you said thou.. I wanna say I’ve seen 2 people so far saying it works.. I’m sure Randy while chime in at some point and he advises against it.

Randy may have converted me to a few of his operational mantras like small H2O changes which to me never made any sense ….After explaining the math, makes sense…

I also used to argue/advocate that pH is a near meaningless (esp with freshwater) but I’ve been questioning that for a few years now but admittedly without a clear understanding of the chemistry ( other than it measures hydroxide molecules err sumthin err other)
anyway I have remained mum more or less …

With the latest dosing chems, esp with the new high pH formulas and AFR, could chasing pH become a “thing” anymore? I thought BRS Ryan had some vids on it …

 

[Troylee]

Randy may have converted me to a few of his operational mantras like small H2O changes which to me never made any sense ….After explaining the math, makes sense…

I also used to argue/advocate that pH is a near meaningless (esp with freshwater) but I’ve been questioning that for a few years now but admittedly without a clear understanding of the chemistry ( other than it measures hydroxide molecules err sumthin err other)
anyway I have remained mum more or less …

With the latest dosing chems, esp with the new high pH formulas and AFR, could chasing pH become a “thing” anymore? I thought BRS Ryan had some vids on it …

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know crap about chemistry haha! But I under stand the needs of my tank from years of experience and what numbers are good enough and what products to achieve said numbers… aci started doing the ph thing as have a few others I highly respect such as epic aquaculture and sister with his huge kalk reactor and running their tanks based off ph alone and letting alk do what ever it wants! It’s risky without a doubt but it’s looking very promising and I’m always down to gamble! Im A Vegas native

 

[Doctorgori]

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know crap about chemistry haha! But I under stand the needs of my tank from years of experience and what numbers are good enough and what products to achieve said numbers… aci started doing the ph thing as have a few others I highly respect such as epic aquaculture and sister with his huge kalk reactor and running their tanks based off ph alone and letting alk do what ever it wants! It’s risky without a doubt but it’s looking very promising and I’m always down to gamble! Im A Vegas native

I think the oft parroted “stability stability stability” is misused/misunderstood
for instance while the ocean temp is more or less stable over the reef, I’ve never found the value of nailing temperature within a degree or two…heck I doubt a 5F daily swing stresses anything…
whereas Alk, I’ve had stn/rtn or whatever it is proceeding a kalk dump and a 2 point swing, but could be other extenuating factors…dunno
This new thing with pegging pH is intriguing me admittedly

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I would not be a fan of auto controlled dosing of AFR. It seems like an inherently unstable system to me.

If alk is low, the controller will add AFR. Alk will still be low and it adds AFR. There’s no stopping that unless you have more complex controls or use AFR at a fixed rate and something else on auto control.

 

[Doctorgori]

I would not be a fan of auto controlled dosing of AFR. It seems like an inherently unstable system to me.

If alk is low, the controller will add AFR. Alk will still be low and it adds AFR. There’s no stopping that unless you have more complex controls or use AFR at a fixed rate and something else on auto control.

appreciate the patients with that, you must get tired repeating yourself LOL.
added. No single head dosing and DOS controlled then
…question abound on that Red Sea calcium based trace dosing I’m seeing, did I just waste four heads?

 

[Troylee]

appreciate the patients with that, you must get tired repeating yourself LOL.
added. No single head dosing and DOS controlled then
…question abound on that Red Sea calcium based trace dosing I’m seeing, did I just waste four heads?

I’d trust the redsea calcium based dosing as much as the silicone on their tanks.