Alkatronic mode Overdose

[fushi]

I’m surprised they deleted your post. I would have wanted to give a direct answer to that question. Funny how he mentions it logs everything but yet thinks if you made a change and possibly your “mistake”. Wouldn’t have that been logged well?

I wonder if you just went directly to their website and open a support ticket if you would have someone else look into it? Maybe ping Eric and say their answer isn’t up to a standard a company like that should be giving.
I had Reddie help me before and was a great guy but nonetheless the way it’s been handled is disappointing to see.

I’m sorry for your loss and headache

Yeah, what really ticked me off is them deleting all my logs, you know the ones that show Alkatronic made an adjustment to my dosing.

Reddie was working with higher level support so I don't think going through the website will be any different. I think Reddie is a generally nice guy and doubt the decision to cover up the issue was solely his.

I appreciate you and everyone’s support here. I’m just really upset with Focustronic.

 

[fushi]

While automation has great time savings, it comes with risk of failure which can be catastrophic.

I was lucky on the first mistake, now it sits on a shelf.
It only a matter of time before something goes awry.

It only costs me 15 minutes once a week and 30 minutes once a month to do testing.

I only hold 1 week of product dosed in case of error.

Yeah, it’s not worth trusting your tank’s dosing to some immoral company.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I’m doing the same but I have sodium bicarbonate on mine. I’m at out town for a few days. I’m going to shut this feature off right now.

 

[CoralNewb]

Sorry for your loss OP. This is just sad to read. I work in the controls industry. It is not cheap to implement a safety-critical control loop system. The amount of fail-safes necessary and the proper reviews necessary can not be afforded by ANY, ANY of these reefing companies. Even Aperture... Seriously. There are literally a handful of embedded programmers capable of evaluating safety-critical software, and if a company were to use an embedded OS that was guaranteed for safety-critical applications (such as VXworks), they would go bankrupt. I say this just to say that a properly bounded software-based control system is simply not something I trust any of these companies to design. And then, they throw in design variables like internet connectivity APIs that are probably given out by third-party companies or using open-source platforms. This just adds further paths for system instability.

Furthermore, I would not buy anything that says it utilizes AI. To me AI means black box, which means they have no freaking idea what they have programmed. No controls system engineer in their right mind would incorporate AI for safety critical applications. You have no idea how the statistical algorithm will shift over time, and minute shifts in weighted averages can lead to a completely disastrous situation. In fact, AI is not necessary for control like this...it makes no sense for this controller to have AI. This is not the kind of problem AI algorithms are even good at solving!

Focustronic sounds like a ****** company, and I highly recommend people to be very wary of trusting in the auto-testing/auto-dosing controllers. That is actually not a straightforward problem to solve. Sorry, I just wanted to get this off my chest. To me, this is one of those things in the hobby that's often overlooked, and I feel people don't generally have a clue about the complexity of automated systems, and these companies use that to their advantage. Again, sorry for your loss OP.

 

[Cool tangs]

Wow that's pretty dodgy! Now in arguments against what they are saying. I've had my kamoer pump fail on and dose all my all as well when hitting the manual dosage. I personally think the problem is, is that comms got sent and processed in the cloud, sent back and information got lost. There is probably no local fail safe and all relies on the cloud. This is the down side to cloud and not having local comms. I could be wrong, but that erks me a bit seeing messages deleted. It's almost like hey mate this is the issue, oh wait my boss told me to delete it because we can't let the client know it's "our mistake". Anyway thanks for the post as I was going to go down the automation path, but not anymore lol

 

[Jimbo327]

Wow, pretty ****** response. Deleting the log is next level cringe.

I've learned early on that it is not worth the convenience to autodose anything based on a tester. In my system, the tester is strictly for testing and does not control any kind of dosing. I will make small manual adjustments when necessary. I always assume that the tester will make an incorrect reading at some point whether it is reagent, software, hardware, etc.

 

[~Jay~]

That is absolutely unacceptable what they have done, if they had nothing to hide the logs would still be there, your was a software failure where my doser failed on, both got the same results will total loss.

Surely this screenshot below tells its own story logs or no logs, it's not like you are going to program the doser to dose the entire contents of your alk now is it.

 

[fushi]

I’m doing the same but I have sodium bicarbonate on mine. I’m at out town for a few days. I’m going to shut this feature off right now.

Make sure you shut it off in the dosetronic pump head settings and on the Alkatronic Alkalinity settings.

I just turned it off in on the dosetronic settings and the Alkatronic continued to adjust the dosing schedule. Not that it matters for me as my pumps are disabled and have empty containers now. But just a heads up for you.

 

[fushi]

Sorry for your loss OP. This is just sad to read. I work in the controls industry. It is not cheap to implement a safety-critical control loop system. The amount of fail-safes necessary and the proper reviews necessary can not be afforded by ANY, ANY of these reefing companies. Even Aperture... Seriously. There are literally a handful of embedded programmers capable of evaluating safety-critical software, and if a company were to use an embedded OS that was guaranteed for safety-critical applications (such as VXworks), they would go bankrupt. I say this just to say that a properly bounded software-based control system is simply not something I trust any of these companies to design. And then, they throw in design variables like internet connectivity APIs that are probably given out by third-party companies or using open-source platforms. This just adds further paths for system instability.

Furthermore, I would not buy anything that says it utilizes AI. To me AI means black box, which means they have no freaking idea what they have programmed. No controls system engineer in their right mind would incorporate AI for safety critical applications. You have no idea how the statistical algorithm will shift over time, and minute shifts in weighted averages can lead to a completely disastrous situation. In fact, AI is not necessary for control like this...it makes no sense for this controller to have AI. This is not the kind of problem AI algorithms are even good at solving!

Focustronic sounds like a ****** company, and I highly recommend people to be very wary of trusting in the auto-testing/auto-dosing controllers. That is actually not a straightforward problem to solve. Sorry, I just wanted to get this off my chest. To me, this is one of those things in the hobby that's often overlooked, and I feel people don't generally have a clue about the complexity of automated systems, and these companies use that to their advantage. Again, sorry for your loss OP.

I was so wary of using automated adjustments for the longest time but got comfortable with how well everything was going and put to much trust in this company. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

I appreciate your explanations on the issue from an automation expert point of view.

 

[fushi]

Wow that's pretty dodgy! Now in arguments against what they are saying. I've had my kamoer pump fail on and dose all my all as well when hitting the manual dosage. I personally think the problem is, is that comms got sent and processed in the cloud, sent back and information got lost. There is probably no local fail safe and all relies on the cloud. This is the down side to cloud and not having local comms. I could be wrong, but that erks me a bit seeing messages deleted. It's almost like hey mate this is the issue, oh wait my boss told me to delete it because we can't let the client know it's "our mistake". Anyway thanks for the post as I was going to go down the automation path, but not anymore lol

I agree I’m guessing there was some communication glitch in the amount the Alkatronic told the Dosetronic to dose, which would explain why Focustronic deleted all my log history as it showed the only change was the Alkatronic adjustment.

Yeah, I should have been more wary about Focustronic as i vaguely remember them taking a similar stance of “its a customer mistake” when everyone was having problems with the mastertronic V1 nitrate testing, they only admitted an issue once they had a solution in the works. But that was a while ago so I can’t remember all the details of their response.

 

[fushi]

Wow, pretty ****** response. Deleting the log is next level cringe.

I've learned early on that it is not worth the convenience to autodose anything based on a tester. In my system, the tester is strictly for testing and does not control any kind of dosing. I will make small manual adjustments when necessary. I always assume that the tester will make an incorrect reading at some point whether it is reagent, software, hardware, etc.

That’s how my system was set up for years and the way it will go back to. Auto adjustments are not that convenient as you have to check them anyways.

My mastertronic V1 would have lots of wacky results due to everything from cracked needles to bad dosing head tubes. I got lured in with the accurate and simple testing on the Alkatronic. That will not happen again.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

I have dosetronic mode off and DKH alert off. Which other on this list are you referencing?

Make sure you shut it off in the dosetronic pump head settings and on the Alkatronic Alkalinity settings.

I just turned it off in on the dosetronic settings and the Alkatronic continued to adjust the dosing schedule. Not that it matters for me as my pumps are disabled and have empty containers now. But just a heads up for you.

 

[fushi]

That is absolutely unacceptable what they have done, if they had nothing to hide the logs would still be there, your was a software failure where my doser failed on, both got the same results will total loss.

Surely this screenshot below tells its own story logs or no logs, it's not like you are going to program the doser to dose the entire contents of your alk now is it.

The other thing to keep in mind with that picture is both Pump 1 and Pump 2 were in Alkatronic mode (i dose equal parts Alk & Cal).
You can see the Alkatronic only changed pump 1’s dosing by 300x. Both pump 1 and 2 were dosing equal parts of 34.7ml/day prior to the Alkatronic testing and adjusting the dosage that evening.

Reddie could see that I didn’t make any changes and mentions that in the beginning, he didn’t change his tune until after he deleted my logs.

 

[fushi]

I have dosetronic mode off and DKH alert off. Which other on this list are you referencing?

I’m not an expert in this so make sure you check the manual however

I believe you need to make sure “Alkatronic mode” on the dosetronic dosing head,
and “adjustment mode” , “dosetronic mode” , “action mode” on the Alkatronic > Alkalinity settings.
Are all off

I don’t see “DKH alert” in my app, not sure what that is.

The only “alert” setting I have it to notify the results of testing.
I have a Alkatronic pro and use the app for its settings.

 

[~Jay~]

Reddie could see that I didn’t make any changes and mentions that in the beginning, he didn’t change his tune until after he deleted my logs.

Then surely you have recourse? Towards FT and their underhanded way of deleting the logs without consent.

 

[Reef Yorkie]

Just seen this, so sorry for what has happened but thanks for sharing all this info to help others avoid the same issues.
I hope you have the strength to get back on track and start again, must be very difficult.

 

[fushi]

Then surely you have recourse? Towards FT and their underhanded way of deleting the logs without consent.

Not really sure what the recourse would be other than sharing my experience at this point.

 

[fushi]

Just seen this, so sorry for what has happened but thanks for sharing all this info to help others avoid the same issues.
I hope you have the strength to get back on track and start again, must be very difficult.

Thank you, watching my favorite corals peel and the smell of all the dead snails was tough, it really made me want to call it quits.

Side note if this ever happens to anyone get as many trochus snails out as early as possible, the smell isn’t worth the slim chance they survive. If they can’t turn themselves over or are lethargic they ain’t gonna make it. (Nerite snails all survived)

However quitting sucks and I’m not gonna let some A** Holes ruin the hobby for me.
I found a larger tank for sale locally and am gonna try and take a look at it this week.

My tank is a mess and new tank or not it needs to be broken down and cleaned out.
90% of the SPS are dead, my hammers are extremely pale / closed up, and my favorite NPS are barely hanging on. The whole tank is covered in dinos and hair algae from the extreme nutrient fluctuations. Everything is stable now but with the amount of cleaning this tank needs I’d rather start from scratch.

 

[vdubers]

Sorry for your losses. I hope the new tank works out for you and you find your love for it again. Also hoping the company sees this post and reconsiders their stance. It doesn't look good on them. I currently autodose using a different device (xepta) but your post has made me think twice for sure.

 

[fushi]

Sorry for your losses. I hope the new tank works out for you and you find your love for it again. Also hoping the company sees this post and reconsiders their stance. It doesn't look good on them. I currently autodose using a different device (xepta) but your post has made me think twice for sure.

Thank you, yeah never using auto adjustment again.
Focustronic has lost my future business and I think i may even sell all their equipment and buy an aquawiz and trident np.
I will have to look into xepta as I haven’t heard of it. Do you like it?