Top off water

[Nate82]

just straight RO/DI water for me

 

[H@rry]

I use straight RO/DI and maintain alk with calcium reactors. My pH runs a little low (7.6 - 8.0) but I have noticed no ill effects.

 

[JR's Reef]

Pure RO/DI

 

[moto826]

i use ro water only

 

[itachi]

Like what I did a month and a half ago. Mine ran on a timer that I'd change as needed to keep my level stable (I had a 30 gallon sump, 200 gallon system that lost 2 gallons per day, so I could play around with the level some) and got great growth out of everything. That is, until the timer got bumped and I put 8 gallons of kalk into the system, raising my pH to close to 10.

Even with that though, I'm back dosing kalk through the same reactor as my ATO, but this time I have the 2 float switches, and run them on a timer, so that even if somehow both switches failed, the reactor would only run for an hour during the evening...after all, my system doesn't evaporate so much water that the dosing pump needs to add 1 gallon every hour to keep my return from sucking air, just need it to run long enough to top off the tank once every day or so. Figure that using the timer in this way is just an additional failsafe, and won't in any way effect the stability of my tank. I also don't want to add kalk during the photoperiod since the pH naturally rises. I want it at 4AM when none of my lights have been on for quite a few hours and the pH is lower.

On a somewhat unrelated note, there are people who believe that kalkwasser has added benefits such as increasing protein skimmer efficiency. A HUGE +1 about not adding anything you don't test for...that's just irresponsible unless you're putting 2 drops of iodine in a month or something...there's too much that can go wrong to hope that you're not overdosing your tank with anything. :squigglemouth:

I haven't noticed that with Kalk ( btw i switched to the Custom Aquatic kalk stirer, the thing is great ) One thing i have noticed with kalk oddly is increased coriline growth , i had good growth with just the calcium reactor.. but with kalk it's growing even faster which is an odd by product. considering my calcium has not ever really flucuated.

 

[Hypertek99]

I use tap. haha i'm poor

 

[Azurel]

I use tap. haha i'm poor

I did that last weekend and to the detriment to my tank.....SPS started to turn white and other things started to look bad. So I tested my Ca and it was 260.....Tap here is high in Phos I found out after testing tap at the LFS....Needles to say 2 gallons of tap might have cost me a softball size Purple Unknown and my colony of Aussie Prism....Up untill that point everything was looking good.....

I add for top off RO/DI only everything else is tested and dosed as needed....

 

[StanD]

RO/DI delivered via aqualifer with DIY float valve. Looking into 2-part solution from BRS.

 

[Suppressivefire]

ro/di here

 

[KingRicky]

Nothing but RO/DI for me.

 

[knockout]

I use ATO run thru a Kalk PM reactor... I think it will be useful to know the size of each tank system and what is being kept in it... how heavily stocked is the system by high demand corals, etc...

My system is 265g total water volume, mixed SPS/LPS/Zoas reef

 

[cloakerpoked]

My current system is 110 gallons of water. I add about 1 gallon of kalkwasser per day. My former system was 220 gallons of water, and added about 1.5 to 2 gallons of water a day. In the 220 system, it took 7 gallons of water to OD the system and jump my pH from 8.2 to 9.9.

 

[moto826]

i use ro water

 

[steri]

I add calcium, iodine, and alk to my RO water before it goes into my tank. It's just an easier way for me to add those suppliments to the water.