ShooterRick
Aquarium Advice Freak
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2011
- Messages
- 221
Besides the obvious benefit of not hauling water everyday from my RO, I wanted to dose Kalk to help stabilize Calcium and Ph in my 72 BowFront. After looking at several ATO systems I decided on a simple single float system with failsafes based on my Controllers Software. I have a RKL that I just recently upgraded with a SL1 and second PC4 module.
My Tank today:
My repurposed 20 gal sump is a wet dry filter that has the bio media removed and I run only a poly pad and Pura Pad for particulates and chemical filtration. It is getting crowded! LOL. The float at bottom left of the pic is a Digital Aquatics single float with acrylic mount. It seems to be well made but the mount presented some problems. First; it seems to be designed for very shallow sumps and significant reengineering had to be done to get the float switch high enoeph in my sump. Secondly; the clamp system was not designed for a thin walled plastic sump and I had to shim it to hold snug. I did this with some 1/4 inch thick neoprene that is salt and chemical resistant that I had on hand from a unrelated project and a disassembled clothes pin. It isn't pretty but it works. The wiring harness provided with the float switch is very short so I spliced in 4 ft of wiring that was soldered. It is plugged into my SL1 switch port.
The ATO sump is a rubber made type 18 gal storage bin with lid. I will only fill 15 gal to make measureing Kalk simple. The pump that moves TO water to the sump is a very inexpensive ECO 132. It is quite and I hope reliable. I estimated the flow and set the RKL to shut of the pump at 30 seconds after each event. Once activated it ran my sump to maximum safe level so I decreased the timer to 15 seconds. Besides the timer fail safe I created a PH failsafe alarm that will overide both the float and the timer if PH exceeds 8.35 and shut the system down. The whole system will only activate 5 hours after each event. In other words once a top off is done it can not activate again until 5 hous has elapsed. I set the RKL this way to hopefully prevent large swings in salinity and PH.
I am mixing 10 teaspoons of Kalk to 15 gallons of RO water without vinegar at this time and evaluating the impact on Calcium and Ph in my tank. Any thoughts?
My Tank today:
My repurposed 20 gal sump is a wet dry filter that has the bio media removed and I run only a poly pad and Pura Pad for particulates and chemical filtration. It is getting crowded! LOL. The float at bottom left of the pic is a Digital Aquatics single float with acrylic mount. It seems to be well made but the mount presented some problems. First; it seems to be designed for very shallow sumps and significant reengineering had to be done to get the float switch high enoeph in my sump. Secondly; the clamp system was not designed for a thin walled plastic sump and I had to shim it to hold snug. I did this with some 1/4 inch thick neoprene that is salt and chemical resistant that I had on hand from a unrelated project and a disassembled clothes pin. It isn't pretty but it works. The wiring harness provided with the float switch is very short so I spliced in 4 ft of wiring that was soldered. It is plugged into my SL1 switch port.
The ATO sump is a rubber made type 18 gal storage bin with lid. I will only fill 15 gal to make measureing Kalk simple. The pump that moves TO water to the sump is a very inexpensive ECO 132. It is quite and I hope reliable. I estimated the flow and set the RKL to shut of the pump at 30 seconds after each event. Once activated it ran my sump to maximum safe level so I decreased the timer to 15 seconds. Besides the timer fail safe I created a PH failsafe alarm that will overide both the float and the timer if PH exceeds 8.35 and shut the system down. The whole system will only activate 5 hours after each event. In other words once a top off is done it can not activate again until 5 hous has elapsed. I set the RKL this way to hopefully prevent large swings in salinity and PH.
I am mixing 10 teaspoons of Kalk to 15 gallons of RO water without vinegar at this time and evaluating the impact on Calcium and Ph in my tank. Any thoughts?
