The Trident saved my reef today

As many of you know, I highly urge everyone to test their water on Saturdays. I did so that night, and the Elos Alkalinity test kit measured 9.0 dKH. The Trident measured just slightly higher at 9.3 dKH. All is well, everything is running perfectly.

I just opened up Fusion moments ago and noticed that my alkalinity had plummeted to 7.5 dKH, and the graph showed a steady decline since midnight Tuesday morning. Over the past 48 hours, alkalinity dropped 2 full points. I need to create some type of alert in Fusion, apparently.

The next step was to ascertain what had happened, and my first guess was to check the CO2 tank to see if it was empty. It was. Problem quickly corrected, I hooked up a fresh bottle of gas to the calcium reactor that I had at the ready. CO2 resumed flowing into the reactor, the pH controller shows 6.7 again, and the effluent is trickling as it does.

Next, I opened up the Reef Chemistry Calculator to determine how much Soda Ash I needed to raise the dKH back to the proper level right now.

I dosed a mixed cup of solution (6 tsp in a solo cup of RO water), waited about 15 minutes and dosed another cup.  I didn't want to add it all at once, or overshoot the target. 12 tsp (of the 14 tsp recommended) raised the tank's pH from 8.03 to 8.14 in 30 minutes.  No sudden spike to be concerned about.  I went ahead and added the last two teaspoons' worth.

Glad I saw this when I did. After all, I did test last Saturday, but this snuck up on me mid-week between those weekly tests. Thanks Neptune Systems. Having the Trident and its related graphs always at the ready is completely worth it.