Top off water

I just ordered the Tunze Osmolator and am planning out how I will be installing it. While I had my head in my stand I starting thinking that I could dose the top-off water w/ calcium, iodine, trace minerals, and what not. That way every time the pump kicks on My tank is dosed. If I add everything to the top-off water water as if it was a 75 gallon SW tank, would this work?

 

Why not just run a kalk reactor? I run my osmolator through a reactor and it works great.

 

It sounds like a good idea to me. You will just need to know what your evaporation rate is and adjust the dose for the top off water. Do remember that your evaporation rate will change will the weather.

 

Because I don't have the money for one and I was just hoping I could kill 2 birds w/ 1 stone.

 

You can run pickling lime in the top off water. I do that ion my ATO.

Osmolators are not cheap, you probably could have gotten a reef fanatic ATO like mine and a kalkwasser reactor for the same amount of $$ as the osmolator.

A DIY kalkwasser reactor is a fairly cheap thing to make. You could DIY one while you are simply running kalkwasser in the top off reservoir.

A guy on my local reef club's site made one from PVC, and made a sight window in the 3" PVC body with acrylic. The pump is the most expensive thing on a DIY kalkwasser reactor. Quiet ones are good for this as they are threaded inlet and outlet, but a MJ can be rigged to work with nipples and hose clamps.

 

I Like the stir bar type, no timers to deal with but many people love their pump style.
Greyseasaquatics has their k1 For $169.00 including a bag of kalk.

 

That is a nice one. But I don't think the OP was looking to spend more $$ now.

I have one that a friend had used for years. It uses the QO little pump, and a timer, is made of clear acrylic. The base needs to be re sealed though. It leaks from a couple spots. I am thinking that it needs some weldon or similar glue.

I will put up a separate thread on the DIY section for it, and possible fixes.

 

For me, it isn't about the money, but about the reliability. I think the water level sensor is great. I have also read a number of great reviews for it.

 

Read the manual.... only DI water to keep the pump running good. Tunze has a bottle you put inside your resivoir to hold kalk water. Then the pump pumps fresh water through it.

Not even sure Ca and Alk would not precipitate in fresh water. Mg is a small dose so to keep the two in solution you might have to add Mg... which makes it harder. Personally Ihave not heard anyone dosing with top off.

Any way.... don't see how you would possibly keep things straight..... using 2 part requires some adjustment from time to time. Of one or the other. For me with BRS 2 pt... one gallon last about 3 months so I would have to do the math to work out daily dose and water evaporation rate and current levels ect..... a bit more complicated than just figuring out a daily dose. You would have to adjust the dose with how much you are evaporating at any given time.

 

The reef fanatic one and the ones from autotopoff.com work as well as the much more expensive tunze unit, IME. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice unit, but even with the optical sensor, I don't see how any other unit with a secondary shut off float switch (like the ATO,com and reef fanatic) has any less reliability/ precision. The money that tunze asks for them is a bit much, considering that the autotopoff.com ones with an optical sensor for the primary switch costs much less than the tunze. That and the tunze is still not foolproof. If it was foolproof, I could understand 200 dollars for it. For over 2x the money for the tunze, it's not any more reliable than say my reef fanatic. In our local club there are a few that use the tunze's, and one had a big flood in his house due to the tunze. You could easily put the osmolator on a timer, just like any other ATO for added security. Also, I have never had any gunk build up on my reef fanatic's regular float switches. They have not needed cleaning in over 2 years. That is the main reason people say the optical sensors are better, but it is not justified because at some point the optical sensors go bad, or need cleaning.

The JBJ ATO, has reliability issues.

JM 2 pennies......