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Ato question

Anyone think I'll run into problems if I try to feed my kalk stirrer and ATO off the same line. I was thinking about putting a T on my ATO feed line and running one line to my ATO pump and one line to my kalk stirrer to eliminate the need to have a separate reservoir for my stirrer. One thing I was wondering about is when my ATO turns on if it will try to pull water from my kalk stirrer and the ATO feed line. I think if I put check valves on each end of the T It should not let it pull water from my stirrer. Anyone think it will work.
 
With a check valve and versa pump, its really unlikely that the water will go backwards in the tubing. Unless the gear breaks along with the check valve.
 
The only concern I can see atm is if you chose to go with a bigger resevoir, its just more fresh/lime water for your ato to dump into your tank if theres a failure.

If both lines are running, the ato will just take longer to fill, but its a sensor that tells the ato to stop, so it doesn't really matter how fast or slow its filled.

The versa pump is on a timer so that shouldn't affect it too.

You could just have the 2 lines seperated and share the same resevoir, the risk is prob the same.
 
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I have fails safes setup with my apex so if for some reason my ATO were to get stuck on my apex would shut power off to it. The versa is set to run continuously at .5 mls a minute so its always running. So I'm not really worried about something getting stuck on. Plus my ATO pump is a brs 50ml dosing pump so it would take a really long time to flood the tank if my fail safes were to fail.

I would run two separate lines but my ATO reservoir is in my laundry room on the other side of my house about 20 feet away from my tank. So I would have to run it up the wall through the ceiling and down the wall again in my laundry room. Its a good amount of work to run another line again.
 
I'm on vacation so I think I'm going to give it a try and see how it goes. I'll mount T and check valve where I can see them.
 

Mark_C

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Under impression that Bernoulli/Venturi effect will pull water from both when either one is running. As water moves it creates negative pressure behind it. The check valves will stop backflow but wont prevent water from either line from filling that negative pressure space.
At least thats what I recall from my physics classes, though i could be wrong. Someone like Paul could probably weigh in on this with authority.
An option is just to run a check. Drop the kalk line into a glass of water with a few drops of food coloring then run the ato pump. If the water in the feed line tints, or even if the tinted water starts making its way up the tubing, you know they're mixing.
 
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You bring up a good point, the versa shouldn't back siphon but with the short amount of time its working, it might not pull any water when the ato is on, depends on the strength of the motor. If it was drip system, this wouldn't be possible.

The dye test is def worth doing just incase.
 
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