Low pH question

Dumping kalk via an ATO is an accident waiting to happen.....

If you're gonna spend the cash for monitors and shutoffs and whatnot, just drip the stuff and you got no worries. To suggest using an ATO for kalk is reckless....
 
No disrespect, but Randy is the reef chemist here. If hes been using it for 14 years, I think ill take my changes to have the results it has to offer. Yes there are horror stories, but that could be from neglect, not checking pumps regularly, having your ATO able to siphon into tank, etc. my ATO pump is on a timer, it is only allowed to run a certain amount of time, before it shuts off, etc. Have your equipment setup correctly, you can help avoid some accidents.
 
jlinzmaier said:
Whoadat.
Ok??? Best of luck with your endeavors of using reef buffer in your ATO. If you think an accidental dump of the resevoir won't raise you alk then your sadly mistaken. Yes the OP's question was about pH, but the reef buffer, builder, and kalk will all increase total alkalinity.

I never said it wouldn't raise alk, heck I mentioned 1 teaspoon in 40 gallons would raise alk 1.4 But your wrong if you think dumping 5 gallons of saturated limewater into a 40 gallon tank isn't gonna kill every fish in there. The rise in PH is gonna be catastrophic....

I'll dump 5 gallons of buffered mix into my 40 and won't worry one bit.....I've done it on accident with no apparent ill effects.

Mixing up the total volume of tank water or mixing a small amount doesn't make a difference (if the concentration is the same). It's the total amount that gets dumped from your top off bin which will determine the pH or alk increase.

Well you're making my point because the concentrations are not the same, what is the recipe for a limewater mix to steady the PH level of a 40 gallon tank at 8.3 ???? The recipe for the buffer are clear calling for 1 teaspoon in 1 cup of water, dumped into a 40 gallon tank this mix will raise PH to 8.3 and raise alk by 1.4 per 40 gallons.

Again, what is the recipe for similar numbers using pickling lime ??

If 1 teaspoon of pickling lime will "saturate" one gallon of water. This limewater mix will have a PH of over 12 Now if you dump this one gallon of limewater into a 40 gallon tank how much will PH go up ??

If you tell people to add 1 teaspoon of pickling lime to one gallon of water, and they have a 5 gallon reservoir and mistakenly mix 5 teaspoons into the 5 gallons of water in their ATO reservoir, they now have the potential of dumping 5 times as much limewater into that same 40 gallon tank should a problem occur.

Obviously others have gizmos and gadgets that they trust to protect their investment and aquatic life and use kalk in their ATO with impunity, but to suggest such a method without knowing the system of the OP or providing a clear recipe mix is reckless!! A much better answer would be to suggest a drip method for kalk dosing....or frankly, what I stated which assumed the OP's only concern was keeping PH levels up and using Seachem is safer due to its clear prescription and obviously its a buffer rather than a base. Simple.....


I'm content to agree to disagree with your indication of pH management.

You don't even know MY means of PH management, me....I don't play mad scientist chasing numbers anymore and my guys seem as happy as ducks on a Junebug.

Jeremy
Click to expand...
 
whowadat said:
Dumping kalk via an ATO is an accident waiting to happen.....

If you're gonna spend the cash for monitors and shutoffs and whatnot, just drip the stuff and you got no worries. To suggest using an ATO for kalk is reckless....
Click to expand...

Drop it already and stop being a troll. Half if not more of the people on RC dose kalk in this manner. And you are so very wrong about how your "magical" buffer works its ridiculous. Now please allow the thread to get on topic, thank you. Some of us are actually interested in hearing what more knowledgable people have to tell use, and not try to tell them they are wrong.
 
luther1200 said:
That looks good. About how much are you dripping, on what size system?
Click to expand...

Not dripping, just through my aqualifter pump from my ATO on my 50 gallon breeder with 20 gallon sump. the ATO turns on often (every hour or so), but not for long, maybe a minute or 2 at a time.
 
Shock130 said:
Not dripping, just through my aqualifter pump from my ATO on my 50 gallon breeder with 20 gallon sump. the ATO turns on often (every hour or so), but not for long, maybe a minute or 2 at a time.
Click to expand...



Thats similar to the frequency of how often my kalk gets dosed as well. Granted, I run a single system to dose kalk and then a separate system to pick up any additional needed FW top off, but it all doses very similar to what you've got going on. I set my controller to dose from my peristaltic pump for 6 minutes on then 9 minutes off. It's actually set so perfect that it matches my top off nearly right on and keeps my alk level rock solid.

Do keep in mind that evaporation rates may change throughout the year depending on the weather, season, windows open vs windows closed with AC on, etc.... If evaporation rates change then the amount of kalk dosed to the system will change as well (if you always mix the same amount of kalk in your ATO solution). Closely monitoring your alk will keep you in tune to whether you need to increase or decrease the concentration of the kalk. If the weather changes from very humid to hot and dry then your evap rate will increase thus requiring a less concentrated kalk solution - with the same in reverse.

Jeremy
 
Thanks for your help! Im planning on setting up another bucket with just RO/DI in it, so if pH gets too high, or I noticed my ALK getting high, the controller will automatically pull from the RO/DI, Or I can manually switch it over.
 
If you like, you can also take this a step further for elemental stability as well as partially further preventing a disastrous malfunction. Once you get a feel for kalk dosing, determine how much kalk you tank demands on a daily basis to maintain your alk level. Maintaining your alk level with kalk will also keep your ca stable while maintaining a very nice pH (pretty unlikely that the pH will get too high when dosing kalk in the average tank if the kalk is dosed in increments throughout the day).

Once you determine the amount of daily kalk demand your tank requires the next step will require a bit of calculating (simple math). Let me give an example:

Let's imagine your daily top off kalk is being mixed at 1tablespoon per gallon and your tank requires a daily top off of 1.5 gallons maximum (there is on average 3,800ml per gallon). For simplicity sake, in this example, lets say your FW top off regimen of 1.5 gallons FW (with 1.5 tablespoons kalk) per day keeps your salinity steady as well as you alk level steady.

Kalk is fully saturated at 2 tablespoons per gallon (without the use of vinegar). Now you can calculate the amount of daily "saturated" kalk solution your tank would require. With the numbers above, your tank would require a daily dosage of 2,850 ml of fully saturated kalk solution "or" a solution at a concentration of 1.5 tablespoons of kalk per gallon (whichever dosing regimen you prefer). The amount of kalk needed to maintain your alk level as well as the amount of daily FW top off required will determine what set up is best for your situation.

The next step is to determine how much your pump pumps per minute. Most digital timers don't go down to smaller increments than 1 min so you need to determine how much your pump will pump in one minute.

Another example: If you using an aqualifter pump then the advertised flow rate is 3 gallons per hour (11,400 ml per hour). Every pump is different and you'll need to test your pump. To test your pump, simply turn it on and see how many ml it will pump in exactly one minute. If it works exaclty as advertised it will pump 190ml per minute (190ml per minute equals 11,400 ml per hour - three gallons per hour). Do the one minute test a few times to get an average amount that your pump will pump per minute.

The next step is to determine how many times your pump needs to turn on throughout a 24 hour period to dose the correct amount of kalk solution in a 24 hour period.

Lets say your aqualifter pump is exactly right on and pumps exaclty 190 ml/min (3 gallons per hour). Now lets refer back to your kalk requirements and concentration options. If you want to dose a fully saturated kalk mix then we said you'll need to dose 2,850 ml of kalk solution in a 24 hour period. This would mean that your pump would need to turn on 15 times in one day (2,850ml divided by 190ml/min). Thats a pretty concentrated kalk solution to be dosing at one time so lets look at the other kalk option I mentioned. The other option I mentioned was mixing 1.5 tablespoons in 1 gallon of water. If you mix 1.5 tablespoons of kalk in one gallon and dose that over a 24 hr period then the total amount of kalk dosed is exactly the same as dosing 2,850 ml of fully saturated kalk solution. So if you mix 1.5 tablespoons of kalk in 1 gallon (3,800 ml) then your aqualifter pump would need to turn on 20 times in a 24 hour period (3,800 ml of 1.5 tablespoon conc kalk solution divided by 190 ml/min). Splitting the kalk dosing from 15 dosing increments to 20 increments may cause less of an alk shift during each dose, but neither dosing regimen should be a problem. If the regimen you set up doses too much kalk at each increment you can solve that issue through a few different methods. 1) dilute the kalk further - all the way up to the maximum volume of FW top off. From our example that would be 1.5 tbsp kalk in 1.5 gallons of water. That would mean your aqualifter would turn on 30 times in a 24 hr period - 5700 ml divided by 190 ml/min , or 2) use a different dosing pump which doses less per minute (for example if you got a pump that dosed 80ml per minute (half as much as the aqualifter) then your 1.5tsp/gal saturation solution would be distributed over a total of 40 doses throughout the day.

Don't be overwhelmed. Read through that a few times before you give up on it and say it's too complicated. It's really not tough and you'll see that after you get a feel for kalk dosing.

The benefit that this process affords, as opposed to just using kalk in your ATO, is to prevent kalk dosing fluctuations as evap rates change as well as preventing any overdose due to float switch malfuctions. In this scenario you'll also need another FW resevoir for your ATO to dose the FW top off that the kalk dosing doesn't manage. You are essentially calculating your kalk dosing based on your alk demand as opposed to dosing kalk based on your FW top off demand. Keep in mind your FW top off will now be far less since your dosing the majority of the FW with your kalk dosing.

Regardless of which method you choose, it's important to monitor alk levels to be sure there isn't too much fluctuation. Stoney corals are particularly sensitive to alk fluctuations. As your corals grow or there is increased coralline algae growth, the alk demand will also increase thus requiring an adjustment in your kalk dosing. IMO it's best to monitor kalk dosing by monitoring alk levels as opposed to pH levels. If your alk is stable then kalk dosing will keep your pH within the preferred limits 99% of the time. I have two pH probes but rarely ever look at the reading. Since my alk is stable the pH isn't of great concern to me.

If in the future you do decide to try calculating kalk dosing in addition to a separate ATO of FW then feel free to get back to us with your information and we can help you calculate a daily kalk dosing regimen with what you've got to work with.

Jeremy
 
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Thanks alot for all your help Jeremy, I saved your post to be able to read it later on (as im sure it will get lost here in the next few days. But what youre saying definitly makes since, I will keep an eye on my alk, and make sure everything is fine, then in the coming weeks ill start looking into your recommendations!
 
jlinzmaier said:
Whoadat.

Your comments make it very clear that you don't understand the concept of kalk dosing and how it's utilized in reefkeeping. Maybe you should read this article before you make any more silly comments.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php

Jeremy
Click to expand...


Your kidding me right....did you read it ????

Dude, its right here in the article.....


"The fact that limewater is very basic (the pH is typically above 12) demands that the limewater be added slowly to an aquarium unless very small additions are made. The reason for this is two-fold: to prevent the local pH in the area of the addition from rising too high (slow addition permits more rapid mixing with tank water to reduce the pH), and to prevent the overall tank pH from rising too high (slow addition allows the tank to pull in CO2 from the atmosphere during the slow addition, mitigating the pH rise). Some aquarists advocate rapid addition, and that is fine for small additions that would add less than 0.2 meq/L of alkalinity to the aquarium, but larger additions will drive the pH too high, as detailed below."



If you're dosing out of a single gallon container that too helps keep things in check because you can't dump anymore than a gallon of limewater into the tank. But that's not often the case, MANY folks new to the hobby use an ATO method which utilizes a powerhead and adding limewater via that way isn't wise for the reasons I pointed out previously. Again, its right here in the article.....


"Some aquarists have tried to use powerheads as part of such a limewater delivery system. Frequently, these add too much limewater at once before a float switch turns them back off. Aquarists designing such systems should keep in mind the dosage limitations described below."



The OP didn't originally state he had certain devices/pumps and frankly inquiring about the lack of a constant PH reading in the first place implies a certain newness to the hobby. A newness that can often lead to catastrophic events when suggestions are made that aren't clearly spelled out. And again I reiterate, you should consider a buffer like Seachem (or baking soda) to maintain PH if your situation is such that your only means of a delivery system is via a powerhead placed in an ATO reservoir. The article completely supports what I have stated all along - drip limewater don't use it solely in a top off system....


"The suitable delivery methods for lime and limewater are:

1. Slow dosing clear, settled limewater to replace evaporated water. This can be attained with drippers (homemade or commercial) or slow pumps (including diaphragm pumps like the Reef Filler or peristaltic pumps like the Litermeter). The delivery can be controlled by float switches or valves, or matched to the evaporation rate by controlling pump speeds. Using pumps and float switches raises the costs considerably, but also reduces the time spent dealing with limewater. I spend only five minutes once every three weeks to replenish my limewater delivery system. Sophisticated float switches and slow pumps also lessen the likelihood of overdosing that can come with other methods."



There are numerous other means of raising Alk or Calcium that don't use limewater. Limewater is not the suggested means of raising Alk or Ca because it raises both at the same time.
 
luther1200 said:
Drop it already and stop being a troll. Half if not more of the people on RC dose kalk in this manner. And you are so very wrong about how your "magical" buffer works its ridiculous. Now please allow the thread to get on topic, thank you. Some of us are actually interested in hearing what more knowledgable people have to tell use, and not try to tell them they are wrong.
Click to expand...


Troll huh.....its amazing how folks never bother to read the first post.

Troll this..... :blown: <p>:wavehand:
 
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Here at Reef Central, we believe that dialogs between participants should be conducted in a friendly and helpful manner. If you disagree with a posting, please express yourself in a way that is conducive to further constructive dialog. Conversely, when you post on any given subject, you must be willing to accept constructive criticism without posting a hostile or inflammatory response. Personal attacks of any kind will not be tolerated. Please work to insure that Reef Central remains a friendly and flame free site where everyone, especially newcomers, can feel free to post questions without fear of being unfairly criticized. Thank you for your cooperation.
 
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There is no doubt that one can have problems if limewater is dosed too fast or most especially, if you dose the solid mud on the bottom of limewater.

Aquarists will optimally set up systems to prevent such errors, but they can and do happen even to the very most advanced aquarists.

Most often such overdoses and cloudy precipitation events pass with no apparent problems, but if the pH gets too high and stays too high for long, you can lose livestock.

Setting up the system to try to eliminate such concerns is certainly appropriate, IMO.

That said, the benefits may outweigh the detriments, even in the minds of folks who have had such loses. :)
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
There is no doubt that one can have problems if limewater is dosed too fast or most especially, if you dose the solid mud on the bottom of limewater.

Aquarists will optimally set up systems to prevent such errors, but they can and do happen even to the very most advanced aquarists.

Most often such overdoses and cloudy precipitation events pass with no apparent problems, but if the pH gets too high and stays too high for long, you can lose livestock.

Setting up the system to try to eliminate such concerns is certainly appropriate, IMO.

That said, the benefits may outweigh the detriments, even in the minds of folks who have had such loses. :)
Click to expand...
Agreed Randy. Most commercially available ATO systems have one or two fail-safe systems in place. Mine wont pump for more then a set amount of time (even if there is a stuck float) and also uses redundant float switches. I really have no possibility of overdosing kalk or pumping the slurry on the bottom of the top-off container.
I have been topping off with kalk for many years and have had no problems. It's the easiest and cheapest way to supplement that I have found.
If I may, whowadat you really need to learn how to participate in a discussion, not impose yourself and your views on others. You also need to read up on kalk and not just cut/paste other people's information.
 
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Shock130 said:
Not dripping, just through my aqualifter pump from my ATO on my 50 gallon breeder with 20 gallon sump. the ATO turns on often (every hour or so), but not for long, maybe a minute or 2 at a time.
Click to expand...

Thats about the same as I am dosing. I have my ATO on a timer to run for 1.15 minutes once every 2 hours. And I am also using an Aqualifter. Its on my 65 with 10g sump. The only difference is that I'm using a kalk reactor instead of a settled resivour.
 
LM3 with two top off control modules (one redundant), 5 gallon container, and RKE (RKL would work) timer to dose alternate to lights on and shuts down LM3 when pH over set level. LM3 own controller doses in small increments over period of time. It is a bit more pricey than the other cheaper alternative dosing pumps but worth its wait in gold when combined with RKE pH control to prevent nightmares others mention with ATO Kalk.

My only issues is if the LM3 top off control modules trips as sump area water level too high (evaporation rate changes) then ATO stops and pH drops. The reverse would occur with no real pH spikes but I typically can tell when the sump area is low by increased water noise from pump I have which stirs the Kalk dosing chamber to help limit precipitation in chamber.
 
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jlinzmaier said:
Kalk is fully saturated at 2 tablespoons per gallon (without the use of vinegar). Now you can calculate the amount of daily "saturated" kalk solution your tank would require. With the numbers above, your tank would require a daily dosage of 2,850 ml of fully saturated kalk solution "or" a solution at a concentration of 1.5 tablespoons of kalk per gallon (whichever dosing regimen you prefer). The amount of kalk needed to maintain your alk level as well as the amount of daily FW top off required will determine what set up is best for your situation.

Jeremy
Click to expand...

Is it teaspoons or tablespoons?
 
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