Can I dose my ATO reservoir?

[Ryengoth]

No. You generally don't use the much Mg unless, don't quote me on this, you have a massive load of corals.

Unless you have a a total sps dominated tank with just large mature coals sucking up Ca & Alk. Running kalk in your ato will work just fine.

I like the thought processes. Don't over think it. Just test Mg once a week and dose appropriately.

Test ca & alk for 3 days to see what your tank needs are. Sometimes it's just not a lot.

Ps there's nothing cheap in this hobby. Save now..pay later. No 2 ways about it.

And yet reefers are cheap about all of their hardware... Go figure.

 

[DMan]

Kalk is crack for corals. For the little bit of precipitation that occurs on the pumps and hoses, it's well worth it. Once you've got your kalk dialed in your tank will be stable like never before.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I use up alk faster than anything else. I dose carbon (vodka) which uses it up faster than the rest. So, I do put the alk part of a two-part in my ATO reservoir. Then just add calc to the sump as needed. So if your tank uses one part more than the other, you can add it to your ATO. Just not both.

Alkalinity is always used faster than calcium (on a percentage basis) and is the bellwether for over or under dosing of both calcium and alkalinity if used proportionally.

That said, using vodka doesn't increase (or decrease) the consumption of alkalinity, except as it alters the levels of nutrients like nitrate which may, in turn, impact calcification rates (and hence, consumption of calcium and alkalinity). .

 

[FlyinBryan]

And yet reefers are cheap about all of their hardware... Go figure.

And especially used hardware!

 

[briancarterkc]

Alkalinity is always used faster than calcium (on a percentage basis) and is the bellwether for over or under dosing of both calcium and alkalinity if used proportionally.

That said, using vodka doesn't increase (or decrease) the consumption of alkalinity, except as it alters the levels of nutrients like nitrate which may, in turn, impact calcification rates (and hence, consumption of calcium and alkalinity). .

Am I doing it wrong? If calc stays around 480 (actually higher than I want but doesn't drop) and Mg around 1320, but alk goes down, I always assumed I should just be dosing alk...should I do something different?

 

[iTread]

Any reason why I can increase my Calcium buy putting in my ATO reservoir...ie, raise more slowly? I need to raise calc from 380 to 410. I was going to put in about 280 ml of EVO 2 part calcium and let it slowly increase calc? I use Kalk to maintain, but that is dosed seperately.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Any reason why I can increase my Calcium buy putting in my ATO reservoir...ie, raise more slowly? I need to raise calc from 380 to 410. I was going to put in about 280 ml of EVO 2 part calcium and let it slowly increase calc? I use Kalk to maintain, but that is dosed seperately.

I personally do not like dosing anything in my ATO. I don't even dose limewater in my ATO. I dose it via a dedicated dosing pump. ATOs are pretty good at keeping water levels stable. They're certainly not perfect and can fail. They also are not always precise. They don't dose the same amount per day, nor do they dose at the same time of day. If you need a one-time increase in your calcium by 30 ppm. I would split the dose up in two. Dose one half one day, and the other half the next day.