ATO water ?

[whatcaneyedo]

Sorry about that, this link should work. Is your ATO managed by a pump, a float valve or some other mechanism. The reason I ask is because I have had problems with float valves (not to be confused with float switches) plugging up with kalkwasser.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-0...ture/index.htm

[mike31154]

I dose baked baking soda, epsom salts & alk thru my top off container occasionally with no visible ill effects. Must admit I don't check these parameters that often & trust my water changes to keep things more or less balanced. I don't have that many valuable sps pieces either though, so I can get away with being less precise with dosing. My top off system is a glass wine carboy pressurized by a small air pump on a timer. You could say this is a closed reservoir & not prone to the CO2 issue described in the reefkeeping article, but by pressurizing it with ambient air I may actually be promoting the process. In any case, instead of trying to mix whatever I'm dosing to the maximum strength, I'll only add a little, so I don't get precipitation, caking, lumping etc. The mechanical float valve on the rim of my tank has been in service for 6+ years & has never clogged. This is probably because I don't add supplements to every top off tank & I reckon one container full of pure RODI water dissolves anything that may clog it on the way through. Every few water changes I do pull the valve & inspect it, since it tends to collect algae which I need to clean off.