My ATO distribution project

I recently switched to running my top off through a kalk reactor. The reasoning was to try and lessen my 2 part usuage, but it really doesn't seem to be living up to what I had hoped for. My tank is taking it all and I am maintaining Alk and Ca levels at the same 2 part dosing rates. A calcium reactor will probably be in the not to far future, but a couple changes were in order to try and make this system work a little better until I decide to change everything again.

Problem 1 was my pH levels. They were getting up to 8.5-8.6 during the day. I'm dosing recipe 1 which isn't helping things any. So I switched the Alk portion to only dose at night right now. Next order will be recipe 2, but I wanted a way to distribute the water between the kalk reactor when the pH was within desired levels, and adding only fresh water as the pH got high.

Digging through my room of aquarium crap I found the solenoid valves I had aquired. A quick trip to lowes for a T fitting and some 1/4 line and I had everything I needed. An hour later, some APEX programming, and some rearrnaging of my EB8 outlets I had a working system.



I am feeding everything with a 50mL/hr BRS dosing pump. The T splits the ATO to each solenoid. The bottom solenoid goes to the Kalk reactor, and the top solenoid goes strait to the tank. The kalk solenoid only opens with the pH below 8.4 the freshwater solenoid only opens when the pH is higher than 8.35. So far everything seems to be working really well. I need to clean up the mounting solution a little bit, but overall I am happy with my Saturday tank project.

 

One thing I discovered this morning. I need check valves. Apparently the solenoids will allow some backflow the way I have them hooked up. My kalk resevoir had been siphoned down a little bit. Oh well, no harm done and an easy fix. I have some check valve fittings for RO units coming from bulk reef supply that should do the trick.