How not to add kalkwasser

[Monkeyrobb]

Since I'm constantly battling to keep my ph up, I decided to use kalkwasser for my top off water. I have a 55 gallon drum in my basement that feeds both of my tanks. I mixed the powder into my drum and went about my business. I was doing a water change on the 56 gallon and forgot to turn off the ATO. Needless to say, while I was changing the water, about 3 gallons of kalkwater poured into my tank. PH was 9.1. Yikes. I ended up spending about 4 hours mixing new water and emptying the high PH water in the tank. Today the PH is 8.3 and everything lived.

 

DOH!

[wav3form]

Put the ato on a timer so it can only be on for a minute or two at a time. That might help prevent future accidents.

[Mr. Fosi]

^--- That's what I plan to do.

[Monkeyrobb]

Put the ato on a timer so it can only be on for a minute or two at a time. That might help prevent future accidents.

 

 

I have one on my big tank but not on the smaller one yet. That would have definately saved me a lot of anguish.

[tinyreef]

Put the ato on a timer so it can only be on for a minute or two at a time. That might help prevent future accidents.

great suggestion!

 

i would just schedule the timer/ato to be on only at night though (easier setup). that way it's combating the night pH and you're unlikely to be doing 3AM waterchanges...usually.

[Blacktone]

To save time after finding out you have a high pH level you can use seltzer water to bring it back down to normal levels. Just sucks making massive amounts of new sw

[ProFlatlander15]

I do the same thing just about every time I do WCs on my tank. I don't use kalk though, but sometimes the RO water gets outta hand.

[dga]

yep same here. i use two float switches now on a digital timer set for two min every 6 hours. if either switch fails it "wont" overflow within that two min time frame...