ATO will it reduce ALK

[David osborne]

Hi I just wanted to ask if the ATO for evaporation will reduce the ALK in a marine aquarium ?

If so should I add buffer or something to stabilize this

Many thanks

 

[ChrisOFL]

Hi I just wanted to ask if the ATO for evaporation will reduce the ALK in a marine aquarium ?

If so should I add buffer or something to stabilize this

Many thanks

Pure RO/DI is all you need. Elements are left behind from evaporation.

 

[David osborne]

Thanks for replying ,
Yes I'm just using RODI for top up

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As Cronicreefer mentioned, there's no need to add buffer to evaporation replacement water. You are just replacing pure fresh water that evaporated with pure fresh water. That said, if your aquarium needs alkalinity (based on testing), adding it into the ATO is a fine way to add it.

Also, no matter what the pH seems to be in the top off water (which is not accurately read by kits or meters anyway), as long as it is pure fresh water, it won't have a significant impact on the tank water. In fact, adding totally pure water at pH 7 might actually raise the pH of aquarium water at pH 8.2 for complex chemistry reasons.

 

[David osborne]

Thanks Randy and it makes sense, I used to add a little tropic marin triple buffer in my old nano to the top up water but now I have upgraded to my 400 litter system im using the balling method and iv notice the ALK drops about 1dkh every 24 hrs , I was going to add some buffer again to the ATO but I did not want to up set the ionic balance ?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would put the alk part of the Balling product in the ATO if you want to go that route.

 

[David osborne]

Im running ULNS at the min and my plans are

AlK 10
Ca 440
Mg 1450 +
No3 0
PO4 0
SG 35ppt
Temp 25

 

[David osborne]

Yes that would be a great idea but I will have to work out how much to add to the ATO and I don' want to mess this up , I will try and work out the usage of the top up and alk together

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yes that would be a great idea but I will have to work out how much to add to the ATO and I don' want to mess this up , I will try and work out the usage of the top up and alk together

Yes, it does take some understanding of the amount of evaporation each day and the amount of the alk product you want to dose. So track these for a while, then go to ATO from manual dosing, if you want.

 

[David osborne]

Yes that is the plan to buy a dosing pump and have it all automated ! Will be after Xmas now tho

 

[pingzing47]

In my opinion your magnesium goal is higher than needed. 3 times your calcium is good rule of thumb. No need to be higher.

 

[aeras1131]

@David osborne Hello David, I feel like that you worrying about it too much. I run a tank in which I currently do not dose ALK and Ca. I use an ATO. On the whole, ATO is going to stabilize your alk if you maintain a consistent water level in your tank. It has the dual benefits of removing precipitation events from Water level fluctuations. Like @Randy Holmes-Farley stated there are more important things to worry about like what I am going to eat for lunch or take a bathroom break without interrupting my flow at work. Just let it happen. You will love having an ATO with RO/DI water

 

[aeras1131]

@david. If you are going to go through the process of buying a pump and doing all that. I would recommend you get a GHL Doser. It can handle your ATO, and have the trojan purpose of having a doser for alk and Ca. I know they are a little pricy, but I like there easy of use and power user functions. Plus I don't trust, Apex to run my reef. I don't want want a catastrophic failure like some of the horror stories that are circulating the internet. I feel the GHL product line is high quality works on wifi internal access and internet access from iPhone app if you do dynamic dns and port forwarding. a GHL doser 2.1 is my go to system right now it has be 3 months so far and know on wood. I have not run into any game breakers.

 

[aeras1131]

If you are going to get a doser measure 2x and cut 1x or so other people say.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

In my opinion your magnesium goal is higher than needed. 3 times your calcium is good rule of thumb. No need to be higher.

I agree that his target for magnesium is higher than it needs to be, but I see no reason to think one wants to target magnesium level based on the calcium level. My recommendation is 1250-1350 ppm magnesium, regardless of the calcium level.

 

[David osborne]

I was using coral pro by red sea and the big 3 are higher than normal @SG 35ppt , iv never add Mag yet ! The coral pro has elevated levels so it can be used to trigger fast growth for sps frags

I'm going to swap to the basic red sea reef salt which they recommend for a UNLS or sps dominated system which has the normal levels you would expect in NSW

 

[David osborne]

Can i ask what TDS RODI reading is considered dirty water ? Mine is at 0.03 Just now and I'm thinking of replacing the DI resin tonight ! Am I being to fussy ?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Can i ask what TDS RODI reading is considered dirty water ? Mine is at 0.03 Just now and I'm thinking of replacing the DI resin tonight ! Am I being to fussy ?

You generally should replace a DI as soon as it rises to 1 ppm TDS since you cannot know what that 1 ppm TDS is, and some components in that 1 ppm TDS may be higher than in the source water. Things like silicate, for example, which are weakly bound to a DI and can easily be displaced by incoming benign elements such as chloride.

If you have two DI in series, it is OK to run the first nearly to full depletion, then swap the second one into its place and put a new one in the last slot. That way you use DI resin nearly completely and yet never let substantial ions through.

 

[David osborne]

Thanks for the reply great forum BTW

Can I ask about a maintaining dose should be for my system plz using nopox ? I' running 0 for no3 and po4 as far as the salifert test kits tell me ! But how do I work out a maintaining does for my system ? Iv mix up a small bottle with rodi ready @50/50 mix

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the reply great forum BTW

Can I ask about a maintaining dose should be for my system plz using nopox ? I' running 0 for no3 and po4 as far as the salifert test kits tell me ! But how do I work out a maintaining does for my system ? Iv mix up a small bottle with rodi ready @50/50 mix

Thanks. Glad you like it!

You mean the optimal dose of NOPOX for maintaining your system? That can only be obtained by trial and error monitoring the nitrate level (not phosphate).