How much limewater?

Cory

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If i want to minimize a fully saturated limewater disaster, what size container would be okay if it went in over a few hours? Tank volume is approximately 230gallons, and delivery is 100ml per minute throuhh ato.

Im thinking 5 liters or less?
 

jsker

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If i want to minimize a fully saturated limewater disaster, what size container would be okay if it went in over a few hours? Tank volume is approximately 230gallons, and delivery is 100ml per minute throuhh ato.

Im thinking 5 liters or less?
10 gallons/ 27 liters
 

jason2459

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I've dumped close to 29 gallons into my 180. pH hit over 8.6 and Alk jumped from around 10-11 to 16 or more. Salinity was also low. Softies were ok, anemones were ok, gogonian looked horrible, lps looked like death, sps burnt to crisp. Amazingly all recovered though some much more slowly then others. I swore some lps and sps were dead but I didn't touch them and many months later started to grow again. I do not know how long it took for all that limewater to dump into the tank. I was of course out of town when it happened.
 

jason2459

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FYI,

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/rhf/index.php

from it you could calculate
Delivering a small amount of limewater all at once. Adding 1.25% of the aquarium’s volume (1.25 gallons of limewater per 100 gallons of aquarium water) as saturated limewater all at once raises the pH by 0.6 to 0.7 pH units. Such an increase is clearly too large. Adding a smaller portion all at once can, however, be acceptable. Adding, for example, 0.25% of the aquarium volume (0.25 gallons or 1 L of limewater per 100 gallons of aquarium water) will raise the pH by only 0.1 to 0.2 pH units. Unless the pH is high (>8.4) before the addition, that amount is likely acceptable. The other concern with all-at-once dosing is that the local pH in the area of the addition will rise considerably higher than the values above. So dosing must be done far from living organisms, and in high flow areas that will facilitate fast mixture. In some aquaria, such restrictions make all-at-once dosing of limewater prohibitively risky to living organisms.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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FWIW, I liked my ATO with limewater and used it for 20 years. I was not nearly so concerned about exact dosing every day as many folks are now. The pump was set to deliver a bit more an the daily evaporation rate, so there was little chance of a huge overdose.

I did have some overdoses over the years, usually when the reservoir ran down and it sucked in the solid mud. Never lost anything significant. but the tank was milky white several times. lol
 

jsker

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You sure ph wouldn't get very high?
What I used to do is drop 2 table spoons into my ATO that is 10 Gallons.
 
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