Vinegar/kalkwasser dosing

[danh]

Does anyone have any experience carbon dosing through the use of ATO with vinegar and kalkwasser? My 140g demand is a little higher than 2 tsp/g of top off water can handle to bring it up after not adding kalk to my ato for a few days and also after having the windows open for the last week or so. I understand I could just use 2 part. Which I may at some point but right now I've got a lot of kalk and I also want to start carbon dosing. I believe I'll continue using kalk even after I'm using 2 part anyway and I also want to carbon dose with the ATO.

My NO3 is 1.5 and PO4 .08 so I'm not hurting to carbon dose just yet I guess.

BRS Says I need these 2 part doses to get my 140g up from 350ppm ca. Alk is almost 8 so it's not bad but I'd like it a little higher too.

50 oz of CA

4 oz of Alk

 

[danh]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong with mixing my kalkwasser. How much precipitate should I expect in my container? I generally have a bit that's left in the bottom even when I'm only at 5 or 6 tsp per 5g of ATO water. I just put the kalk in to the 5g water jug and shake it for 10 seconds or so.

 

[Adam]

I tried vinegar dosing with Kalk and it does increase the saturation and I was using it independent of the ato. I had other issues doing it so I stopped and am just using 2part now. The problem with carbon dosing is you need to start with very small amounts and step it up over time to get to your ideal dose then step it back slightly. Doing it in your ato water doesn't let you get even dosed amounts and you'll have a hard time finding what the ideal dose is.

To hit 100% saturation with no vinegar you need 2 teaspoons per gallon. So to hit that you'd need 10 teaspoons in your 5 gallon container. I've found there will always be residue on the bottom of the container even if you're not at 100%. I know you swap out the 5gal jugs so rinsing them out at refill would be a good idea. I was swishing some vinegar around in my containers every 3rd or 4th refill to clean buildup on the container walls then rinsing them. I've been thinking about switching back to Kalk with no vinegar and using the DOS to dose it. I have the luxury of having a lot of evaporation with a 22oDT & 120 sump so  I can add a gallon or two of Kalk water to my system every day and still need the ato to keep up the water level.

Try seeing what 100% saturation does for you're system before adding vinegar. In the mean time you can start vinegar dosing separately if you want to but your NO3 isn't high at all. I have my system at 3-8 and PO4 at .01-.04, the ATS has been working very well for me and I'm not trying to run a ULNS. In fact Triton told me to feed more to bring my PO4 up some because the test I did at the end of August was .009.

 

[danh]

The current jug is at 100% saturation. Prior 5g jugs (with a little more than 5g I guess) have been 8-9 tsp. I'll try rinsing the jugs out better too.



Are you saying that if you mix vinegar well in to your ATO container than it will come out of solution and one ATO does might not = the next?



2+ gallons per day??! That's a lot. I assume I've got around 140g of water in my tank and I think I do about 1g per day of top off.

 

[Adam]

If there's a little more than 5 gallons I'd mix in 11 tsp per jug.

No, not saying that at all. It's not going to come out of solution but with or without vinegar there will be a little left over layer of Kalk in the container and there will be buildup on the wall of the container over time. The problem with adding vinegar to the ATO is you don't know what you're dosing carbon wise from day to day and that is not the way to do it. Going that route will only cause you headaches. If you're going to dose it you need to add a specific amount to the system every day and the initial doses are small increasing over time. In the ATO you can hit the system with way to much to start. The whole last sentence of my post above is a link to a good article. (I need to work with Brett to get links to show up better)

My system is approximately 265 gallons and I have an exhaust fan running in the fish room with a floor fan circulating air in there. I go through 2.25 to 3.5 gallons a day. The 32 gallon Brute I use for the ATO holds about 30 gallons. I have to refill it every 9-14 days and it never stays the same.

 

[danh]

Ohhh... I get what you're saying now. Not that each ato "shot" would have a different amount of vinegar in it... but day to day evaporation isn't constant so one day it will get more or less carbon based on how many times the ato turns on, not how much vinegar happens to be in that shot of ato.

I guess the carbon dosing really comes with trying to over saturate with kalk. I'd just end up doing both at the same time, also spreading out my carbon doses across the day rather than just once if I was doing it manually.

 

[Adam]

Yes, that's pretty much it. I just don't think you need to worry about carbon dosing now. If you were struggling to keep your NO3 under 10 then it might be a good avenue but if you're consistently well under 10 you may do more harm than good, believe me, I've been down that road. If you can't supply enough Alk & Cal with fully saturated Kalk in the ATO then start looking to 2-Part.

To be honest with you. Since I got my ATS up and running I have hardly done anything with my system. I've done 2 water changes since June and can count the tests I've done in that time on one hand. Everything is doing great! I'm running 115ml of 2part a day and add a little Iodide, Iron, Potassium and a Strontium/Molybdenum mix every week with no set timing, but well under the recommended doses. My Triton test last month showed very little out of line other than high Lithium, which is common with many reef salts. Like I said they told me to feed more to bring up the PO4 some.

 

[danh]

I haven't done a single water change on my 140g since I set it up. I started it with a very small CUC, pair of spotincus clowns with their fairly large RBTA and a hippo tang. Very low stock. I've since added a yellow tang, sailfin tang, starry blenny and dragon pipefish. The 3 tangs eat a lot now so I am feeding a lot more including trying to feed the nem more to encourage it to split.

My ATS actually seeded and started growing much quicker than I expected it would. 17 hours of light seems to be doing good. It's only been running for about a month. I haven't harvested it yet. I think it's about time I do to do that so the next batch comes in better.

 

[ricky5415]

<p style="text-align: center;">Maybe a couple pics of the ATS will help Daniel.

 

[danh]

It's the same sump I made last year. I'm not sure if you wanted to see how much growth is on it now but this is it. It's actually got a little more algae on it right now than it did in this video last year. I am currently only lighting one side. I've got to clean up another pair of the lights that got damaged when my 93g had issues while I was out of the country last year to light the other side.



<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2EEsyObHqtA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[danh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EEsyObHqtA

 

[danh]

I'm about 2.5g of ATO in to fully saturated kalk water. I'm only evaporating 1g or so a day... I've pointed 2 of the 3 powerheads up and the return is going straight across the top...

 

[Adam]

With that level of evap kalk in the ATO may not be enough. Do you know how much your demand is yet?

 

[danh]

I've got a lot of testing points but I don't know for sure which ones were while I wasn't adding kalk. There was 4-5 days of ATO with no kalk.

 

[Adam]

http://www.reefedition.com/dosing-rules-dosing-101-for-your-reef-aquarium/

Step #4 starts with how you figure out the demand.

You can do it daily as well instead of over a week.

 

[danh]

Yeah, I know how to do it, I just haven't tested without adding kalk since they've been in this tank. The few days I went without kalk were by accident.