6 gallon bucket ATO/Kalk mixer

Eleven days of testing and it's been bumpy. I never burned the tank with sky high pH so that's a plus. LOL
All testing was done at 3pm each day, exactly 1/2 of my daily light cycle.
* pH tests at midnight each night
Results:
5/12
SG 1.0255 (refractometer)
Calc 400ppm
Alk 8 dkH
pH 8.2 *8.0
Mag 1400

5/13
SG 1.0255
Calc 400ppm
Alk 8 dkH
pH 8.2 *8.0

At this point I decided to dose 13ml of Kents Liquid Calcium and drip 100ml of Randy's Recipe part 1

5/14
SG 1.0255
Calc 420ppm
Alk 11dkH
pH 8.3 *8.0-8.1

5/15
SG 1.0255
Calc 420ppm
Alk 10dkH
pH 8.4 *8.1

Here I determined that the current set up wasn't delivering the amount of lime into the resevoir water that I wanted. I took the system down and added pump #2 which is on a timer set to run at 2 minute intervals per hour 20 times per day.

5/16
SG 1.0255
Calc 440ppm
Alk 12dkH
pH 8.4 *8.3

5/17
SG 1.0255
Calc 440ppm
Alk 11-12dkH
pH 8.4 *8.2

Mag tested at 1350. Seemed normal considering my mangroves eat alot of it up. Dripped 3 oz. of Magnesium Chloride mixed in 1 gallon of RO to boost 100ppm.


5/18
SG 1.0255
Calc 420ppm
Alk 11dkH
pH 8.4 *8.1-8.2

Retested mag..discovered either user error in testing or mixing dosage. Results..1600ppm

5/19
No tests

5/20
SG 1.0255
Calc 420ppm
Alk 11dkH
pH 8.4 *8.2

5/20
SG 1.0255
Calc 420ppm
Alk 11dkH
pH 8.4 *8.1-8.2

5/21
SG 1.0255
Calc 420
Alk 10dkH
pH 8.4 *8.1

Dosed 12ml of Kent's Coral-Vite & added 11tsp. lime to mixer

5/22
SG 1.0255
Calc 420
Alk 11dkH
pH 8.4 *8.1

5/23
Overflow on display fuge failed. ATO ran dry trying to keep up with the water flooding out of the fuge onto the floor.
SG 1.0212
Alk 8dkH

Repaired the damage, did a 25% water change. I changed the on times for the mixing pump to 5 minutes each 6 times per day.

Bonus pics of birdnest growth between 5/9 and today.

 

Bumping old thread - any updates here?

 

Sorry Matt.

Update is that it worked like a champ for about 90 days but then slurry began plugging up holes and pumps. I planned on figuring in a filter bag that would fit over the kalk mixing container but instead abandoned the idea and went back to a 24/7 drip into the sump at 63 drips/minute.

 

Ack. Sorry to hear that. Big props for the DIY though. You never know until you try.