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Author Topic: Alkatronic  (Read 4440 times)

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Offline erky

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Alkatronic
« on: June 12, 2018, 14:14:21 »
I ordered an Alkatronic, this thread is for discussion on it and how it helps my tank.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2018, 14:45:04 »

Offline Heinbaughb

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2018, 21:35:06 »
Thanks for the video Eric. Looks like a cool piece of equipment. C A B D! Ha, you'll have to let us know what they put them in that order.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2018, 11:03:52 »
Thanks for the video Eric. Looks like a cool piece of equipment. C A B D! Ha, you'll have to let us know what they put them in that order.

no clue why, but im annoyed they didn't include any ph calibration fluid with the unit, they were supposed to, so they are sending me some now.

The Bluetooth interface is annoying so far, if the phone goes to sleep/locks you have to reconnect or restart the alkatronic unit....

I suggested they make a web app and then they don't need the Bluetooth connection at all, and they do not have to support two operating systems.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2018, 15:56:22 »
I have had a really tuff time getting the kh monitor working. Hopefully the alkatronic proves better.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2018, 08:38:53 »
well here are the results from hook up to this morning.




here is the story so far,

Friday - hook up and calibrate (leave out of town)

Saturday no change

Sunday - get home and turn on action mode (alkatronic doses for correction to desired correct alkalinity in tank)

Monday - alkalinity is stable at the higher DKH I asked it to maintain (I turned off action mode also for now)

Future - dialing in my doser so more, so large black dots in the graph do not happen.




unknowns, what is the deal with the two white dot tests, when I pull this info up on my phone I see 20 tests (in 20 minutes) that have 0 results.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2018, 08:40:27 »
I have had a really tuff time getting the kh monitor working. Hopefully the alkatronic proves better.

what seems to b the issue? You turned me off of that unit instantly when yours didn't work out of the box, yes I know things happen, but still...


Offline lazylivin

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2018, 13:28:10 »
All I will say now because I don’t have time to write up all the issues is is avoid it. It has consumed probrably 20 hours of my time and still not working properly.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #8 on: June 18, 2018, 13:30:28 »
All I will say now because I don’t have time to write up all the issues is is avoid it. It has consumed probrably 20 hours of my time and still not working properly.

ouch, I have about 2 hours tinkering with this. The only issue I have had is getting the Bluetooth to stay connected when the phone locks/sleeps, its annoying to keep my screen on when calibrating a ph probe that takes 2 minutes, but that is over with for now. I suggested they make a web app and then there shouldn't be any reason to maintain 2 operating systems applications.

Offline Gary

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #9 on: June 18, 2018, 17:21:43 »
Interesting read so far. May need a little more R&D. I think I'll just watch the technology mature.  Ideally how often should we be testing alkalinity? (acceptable variance / stability)

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #10 on: June 18, 2018, 17:42:59 »
Interesting read so far. May need a little more R&D. I think I'll just watch the technology mature.  Ideally how often should we be testing alkalinity? (acceptable variance / stability)
Testing is up to you, I am doing every 2 hours currently to get a baseline for what I am already dosing 3ml every hour, seems to be keeping it very steady. I am not sure why my tank was so low, i thought it was actually higher than the original ~7dkh it was reporting... Good thing to figure out!

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #11 on: June 19, 2018, 11:03:08 »
in the past 36 hours I have tracked my alk and it seems to have a fluctuation of .17dkh maximum throughout the day. That is 28 ml of fluid that is needed at certain times throughout the day.

From 7 pm my alk was 8.54 but at 9 pm it was down to 8.47 that tells me eiter my doser isnt dosin a constant amount then, or my corals are consuming more than what was estimated for them. Lights are off then, so they are using all the energy from the day to grow.

I think I will put some tighter limits on the alkatronic to dose extra solution, I would like the fluctuation to be less than .1dkh a day.

Is this crazy do corals care about .17 dkh?

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2018, 08:35:56 »
After dosing 3-4 ppm of nitrated the other day, i noticed my alk consumption is down a little bit my alk got over 8.7.

Thoughts on this
1. corals are using the nitrates for energy storage
2. corals are not growing as fast with extra no3's
3. nothing wrong just part of my tank's alk cycle
4. I am out of my mind...

thoughts

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #13 on: June 22, 2018, 08:51:15 »
here is what it is looking like, pretty smooth!

Offline lazylivin

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2018, 13:38:59 »
After dosing 3-4 ppm of nitrated the other day, i noticed my alk consumption is down a little bit my alk got over 8.7.

Thoughts on this
1. corals are using the nitrates for energy storage
2. corals are not growing as fast with extra no3's
3. nothing wrong just part of my tank's alk cycle
4. I am out of my mind...

thoughts
I love this and in time I think we will learn so much regarding what affects corals.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2018, 13:43:07 »
here is what it is looking like, pretty smooth!

Can you zoom in on graph or have any other option to show data. If the entire graph for example could be your lowest number on bottom and highest number on top we could see the variation. Any option to add in time of day and for a smaller period of time like 3 days

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2018, 13:47:02 »
I love this and in time I think we will learn so much regarding what affects corals.

yeah probably not something really investigated in the past.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #17 on: June 25, 2018, 08:22:51 »
yeah probably not something really investigated in the past.

you could take it to excel, there is an option to export all data that way.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #18 on: June 25, 2018, 08:28:10 »
here is a wild stat that i am tracking, I am guessing that my NO3 is probably back to where it was before I doses nitrates or very close as consumption is back on track to prior to the dosing. This is just a guess as I have not tested it yet, but maybe around lunch I will.

for me my goal is growth, so i might start raising my alk to 9.5ish to see if things start showing better growth, that crash I had took a lot away from me.

Offline erky

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Re: Alkatronic
« Reply #19 on: July 03, 2018, 08:51:49 »
well i got a little info from Randy in the chemistry forum on r2r, he stated that when nitrate is used by coral it will create alkalinity, so technically my consumption did not drop, but rather it probably stayed the same or went up.

 

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