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Author Topic: KH Alkalinity Monitor  (Read 6942 times)

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Offline lazylivin

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KH Alkalinity Monitor
« on: April 05, 2018, 10:15:30 »
Neptune Systems announced a delay last week with the Trident. My Alk has been tuff to control lately so I decided to purchase the KH Alkalinity Monitor with the Advanced Interface Module. It connects to the Apex PH port allowing monitoring/alerting. Looking forward to getting it up and running. Anyone else have one setup? How has it been working for you?

Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2018, 13:08:09 »
Neptune Systems announced a delay last week with the Trident. My Alk has been tuff to control lately so I decided to purchase the KH Alkalinity Monitor with the Advanced Interface Module. It connects to the Apex PH port allowing monitoring/alerting. Looking forward to getting it up and running. Anyone else have one setup? How has it been working for you?

very interested in your feedback on it, I was looking at that and the alkatronic.

Offline Heinbaughb

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2018, 14:53:37 »
Toby has the alktronic but I don’t believe he has connected it yet to his system.


120 gallon mixed reef.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2018, 15:30:30 »
I almost bought the kh monitor from Premium but after a search found it much cheaper on coralvue website. The KH Guardian went from $1,269 to $599 and they throw in the Advanced Interface Module. The Monitor is $499 from $649 and they also throw in the Advanced Interface Module.  That is quite a difference in price. All the retailers still have listed at full price. I bet they are pissed off. I wonder if Coralvue is abandoning them. I went with the monitor because it is latest and thought it may have updates being the 2nd version of the Dr Bridge KH products. I dose using BRS and Apex so didn't the guardian to dose for me. Plus I will eventually get the Trident with DOS.

http://www.coralvue.com/dr-bridge

Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2018, 15:45:03 »
I almost bought the kh monitor from Premium but after a search found it much cheaper on coralvue website. The KH Guardian went from $1,269 to $599 and they throw in the Advanced Interface Module. The Monitor is $499 from $649 and they also throw in the Advanced Interface Module.  That is quite a difference in price. All the retailers still have listed at full price. I bet they are pissed off. I wonder if Coralvue is abandoning them. I went with the monitor because it is latest and thought it may have updates being the 2nd version of the Dr Bridge KH products. I dose using BRS and Apex so didn't the guardian to dose for me. Plus I will eventually get the Trident with DOS.

http://www.coralvue.com/dr-bridge

what was your reasoning for going with that product? same idea just a different design of the alkatronic or what are your thinking?

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2018, 16:40:21 »
what was your reasoning for going with that product? same idea just a different design of the alkatronic or what are your thinking?

I am going with the Trident I just wanted something that would fill the gap of alk monitoring until it comes out. It was the cheapest option ($300 less then alkatronic) and been on the market the longest. (2nd version of the product line)

Offline Nbehnken

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #6 on: April 10, 2018, 20:34:55 »
I’m interested to hear how it works out for you. Looks like you got a great deal on it as well.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #7 on: April 10, 2018, 22:27:51 »
It worked for a few days then stopped working. The system won’t power up now. Smells like a bad capacitor. Waiting on a replacement

Offline Nbehnken

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2018, 16:25:29 »
That’s horrible, hopefully customer support handles everything well.

Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2018, 14:25:04 »
any update?

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2018, 17:19:24 »
I haven't had a chance to send it back yet.  Hope to do that this week

Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #11 on: April 20, 2018, 08:51:08 »
I haven't had a chance to send it back yet.  Hope to do that this week

I am struggling to keep my alk stable, since the RTN event started my consumption is down and alk went up a bit. I could really use one of these as I cant test my tank as much as I'd like. I like the alkatronic but they are back ordered, so I don't know what I should do.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #12 on: April 20, 2018, 10:21:54 »
While it worked it was consistent. I didn’t get a chance to integrate with apex so can’t comment on that.

Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2018, 14:26:18 »
did you ever get a new unit?

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #14 on: May 08, 2018, 15:02:02 »
Yes I got it back yesterday. Going to hook it back up sometime this week

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #15 on: June 21, 2018, 01:47:06 »
I finally got it up and running today. (i think)

This evening I noticed the kh level was dropping fast after being fairly consistent today. I thought it was just another problem with the unit and almost blew it off. Curious I went down to test and surprisingly got matching results with sailfert. After a quick inspection  I found the alkalinity dosing tube crusted over a little bit.  After shipping some corals out tonight I added some replacement water back into the sump. I put too much in and the water level reached the alkalinity dosing tube outlet. It precipitated alkalinity back up into the tube and I think it may have affected the dosing rate. I fixed the issue at 11:45pm and it still is going down so not entirely sure if it was actually clogged or this dip in alk happens regularly at this time.  I was going to do a manual dose but decided to leave it and see what it looks like in the morning.

This unit is just a monitor, it can’t dose anything like the kh guardian or alktatronic. My dosing is still done by the apex and set to deliver 11ml per hour regardless of the kh momitor alkalinity level

I haven’t yet integrated this with APEX but I do plan to do that if I continue to get accurate results. Probrably just for alerting and charting at first. Possibly dosing in future if I can figure out how to do the coding to only delivery a pre-set maximum amount over 24 hour period



Offline SweetReefOH

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #16 on: June 21, 2018, 07:38:19 »
Brian, did you manually test throughout the day to see what your alk did in a 24hr period before you hooked this monitor up? What does the daily fluctuation in alk have to be before it starts damaging the corals? I’ve been wondering if that’s not what is causing my problems. Plan on doing alk tests every 2hrs this weekend.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2018, 20:58:46 »
No I never tested like this. Once a day was most often and always around similar time of day. It will be instresting to learn about alk consumption and what affects it. Here is graph now. I bumped up alk by 20% this morning at 9am. I ran out of mag, calcium which probrably invalidates the results to an extent. On a plus the monitor is working good and results are matching Hannah and sailfert. Looks like I may have the bugs worked out. Knocking on wood.




Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2018, 08:13:57 »
quite the swing there brian, what is your plan to stop the 1+dkh a day fluctuation?

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #19 on: June 22, 2018, 12:53:01 »
At some point I will change dosing times/amounts to reduce swing but for now observe and learn for a little bit. Then tweak observe and tweak so more. I wonder how bad swings were when I had display tank plumbed in and consumption was more then double what it is now. I am surprised to see consumption go up after lights are out. Then around 4am it goes down. At least that is trend now but not enough data yet to know if that is anomaly
Lights run 13:00 - 21:00

Offline erky

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2018, 13:08:15 »
what are the other columns in that shot?

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #21 on: June 22, 2018, 13:34:15 »
They are data elements specific to the KH monitor and KH Guardian filter maintenance, dosing etc... All that is applicable here is the prefix column (date/time) and suffix column (KH)

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #22 on: June 27, 2018, 23:49:50 »
Finally mine is fixed and running properly. They released a firmware that fixed the problem.
Since it is working now I am enjoying looking at the numbers and hypothesising. Is that a word?  Anyway; consistently after the lights go out (9pm) the consumption of alkalinity goes up shown by a decrease in dkh level. Then 4am consumption slows and dkh level begins to rise. Then at 9am consumption is steady until 9pm when the pattern starts again.  It’s probably too early to know if it will continue like this but to interesting not to share.


9am-9pm steady consumption (consuming 12ml alkalinity per hour)
9pm-4am increased consumption (consuming greater than 12ml per hour)
4am-9am decreases consumption (consuming less than 12ml per hour)

Note: I have not adjusted how much pumps dose per hour. Regardless of system dkh level dosing 12ml per hour.

Offline SweetReefOH

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #23 on: June 28, 2018, 11:16:57 »
It would be really interesting if you had your pH numbers that coincide with your alk tests.

Offline lazylivin

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Re: KH Alkalinity Monitor
« Reply #24 on: June 28, 2018, 13:39:21 »
I like your thought process and have interest in that as well. I will do a graph sometime to show both PH and KH together. I need to get my PH probe calibrated first

 

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