Forums / TEAM Marine Depot / Pulse on the Hobby – by Steven Pro / Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info? / Latest Posts

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

salTasos — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:24:56 GMT

thank you Bruce
very helpful info’s !!

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:15:40 GMT

I owed an answer about The Filter Guys statement from several weeks ago and I'll respond to some more current posts.

I tried to obtain a more detailed answer from The Filter Guys about his statement, but I was not successful. I did touch base with Germany about this topic and they confirmed my understanding. Carbonate hardness (KH) is one of the hardnesses included in the General hardness (GH) measurement. The GH level directly affects how long the Kati Ani resins will last between regenerations. The statement about high CO2 levels I believe refers to high KH levels which can result in CO2 off gassing. High KH will contribute to high GH which will reduce the life of the Kati Ani between regenerations. However, in parts of Switzerland where the TDS is over 900, the only system which works efficiently is the Kati Ani even with frequent regenerations. An RO system is just too costly in this environment.

To some of the more recent posts: 1) Yes, you should either aerate or use a power head pointed towards of surface of freshly purified water (either RO or RO/DI or DI-Kati Ani) for several hours before adding calcium and/or alkalinity, then salt. 2) Air build up in the unit is from air in the water and CO2 off gassing. Simply fill the unit back up through the center hole to purge the air. Remember to always use Kati water going into the Ani (to purge the air in the Ani). If you use a very slow flow to purge, it will help to not churn up the resins.

To Reefski's questions and Steve's answers: 1) The flow must be set to 1 liter per minute. I use two valves - the first as an on/off and the second is always set at the proper flow rate. I fill my 40 gallon Kalk tote in about 45 minutes as well. 2) Prefilters are not necessary, but certainly can be used based on your water conditions. Some municipalities are using Chloramine which is tough for RO and Kati Ani. It requires at least two carbon blocks to break down the strong synthetic chemical bond. 3) The sun will start algae inside the units very quickly. I use an Ani unit (regenerated differently) as a pH reactor in circulation with my tanks and the aquarium light caused algae. I do not believe the outside temperature (assuming over 32 and under 100 degrees F) would be an issue.

Bruce

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:26:03 GMT

Reefski (7/7/2008)

i love the high rate of production which seems like much more than 60l per hour. i think it just about filled my 44g Rubbermaid in an hour. is that normal?

The unit does not self-adjust the flow rate like a RO does. You must manually adjust the flow to maintain the proper contact time to allow the resin time to extract the junk from the water.

Reefski (7/7/2008)

do you recommend a prefilter for particulates? are there prefilters with the same size hoses so it would not decrease the input to the unit?

I use big 20" prefilter canisters, a 1 micron particulate filter followed by a 0.5 micron carbon block filter. But, you cna use commonly available water filters canisters available at most any hardware store. You just screw in adapters to make the input and output the sizes you need.

Reefski (7/7/2008)

lastly for now, my unit is outside in the sun for now. it will be moving in the garage in a couple of weeks. how bad is it to be outside? will it grow algae in the unit like my ro/di unit does? i can cover it with a big towel which i will do today anyway.

Sun could make algae grow, but I would also be concerned about heat buildup in the unit as well. I would image that the sun could heat up the water in the unit and this could interfer with operation. What did you do about the RO? Warm water interfers with the RO membranes performance too.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Reefski — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:33:48 GMT

I love my unit!

first, i just set up my unit and wish i had earlier, but my ro/di unit was dribbling along. but now it is exhausted so rather than buy new membranes i set up the Kati/Ani.

a couple questions-

i love the high rate of production which seems like much more than 60l per hour. i think it just about filled my 44g Rubbermaid in an hour. is that normal?

do you recommend a prefilter for particulates? are there prefilters with the same size hoses so it would not decrease the input to the unit?

lastly for now, my unit is outside in the sun for now. it will be moving in the garage in a couple of weeks. how bad is it to be outside? will it grow algae in the unit like my ro/di unit does? i can cover it with a big towel which i will do today anyway.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:38:00 GMT

salTasos (7/3/2008)

hello again

I have a pair of resins and my main problem is the air ( co2 ?) in the kati-ani after mormal use
my inlet water is 340 ppm TDS
when the air inside touch the ani resin I put the tubes like < before starting to work > step so the air comes out , but I can not see any more the color indicator of kati resin ..
is it a problem because I overuse a small type of 1 ltr resins ?

I get air building up in my unit as well. I think it is from the tapwater. There could be some dissolved air in the water when it is under pressure in the pipes, but starts to come out once the pressure subsidies in the Kati-Ani. I just let the air vent out.

The Ani resin does not change color, so no trouble there.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

salTasos — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:51:14 GMT

photo

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

salTasos — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:42:23 GMT

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

salTasos — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:08:40 GMT

very nice instructions !

I think is something about the carbonate hardness of the water .
I am not chemist
so maybe we have to leave the fresh clean water for 1-2 hours with circulation before add the salt

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

CTReefer — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:11:05 GMT

Thanks Harley Dude!

Very nice instructions & I am sure that they will come in handy for anyone who owns & operates one of these units.

Steve

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

HarleyDude — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 17:29:06 GMT

Here are the instructions I put together for these units a year, or so, ago. My instructions show only using the Kati/Ani units for making water and use a close conversion. I passed these on to the supplier I received the units from and he has been using them when selling these units in the US.

http://www.allensaquariums.com/AquaTechnic Kati Ani Instructions.pdf

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:28:18 GMT

I will write to the manufacturer in Germany for clarification. Becasue of the language barrier, it usually takes a couple back and forth e-mails until their responses are clear. Please give me until early next week and I will post the manufacturer's answer.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:08:54 GMT

salTasos (6/11/2008)

hello
'the filter guys' who sell this product says
''This system is not for everyone if you have CO2 issues it will also be a problem with the KATI ANI system.''
what they mean by that?

I don't know.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

salTasos — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:32:36 GMT

hello
'the filter guys' who sell this product says
''This system is not for everyone if you have CO2 issues it will also be a problem with the KATI ANI system.''

what they mean by that ?

thank you

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

salTasos — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:28:03 GMT

hello
<> who sell this product says
<>

what they mean by that ?

thank you

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

malulu — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:03:59 GMT

[quote]Pure Reefs (10/14/2007)

gaijin, I am going to take an educated guess here about the units lasting longer or shorter with a water softener. As Steven said, it works the same as the kati ani but exchanges Na+ and Cl- instead of the H+ and OH-. My guess is going to be that the water softener and the kati ani would be both pulling out the same ions. So, while there may be more Na+ in the water now, there is less of the other ions. In short, they are all positive ions and so it is a wash. Same with the Cl-. It isn't reducing the number of ions, just changing what they are so my guess is tap water vs. softened water should be the same. Again, just an educated guess.

As for how long the resins last, not sure. As Steven said, you had one for years before it was done. The question is, how many recharges were you doing in a year Steven?

Todd[/quote]

Todd,
your guess are very good, i tried the cati-ani unit that hookup BEFORE or AFTER the water softener, they end up with the same amount of water usage (200g for the Cati-Ani-5 unit)...
the only problem i have right now is - my water is very hard (GH=33 before softener, GH=3 after softener).
and the Cati-Ani-5 can generate ~6000g (for GH=1), so getting a 200g per charge is very time consuming for me...

anyone have any suggestion(s) on how to make my unit last longer per charge?

thx in advance for your help with this matter.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:18:48 GMT

I have been told by Aquatechnic that some customers have not needed to change their resins after 25 years of usage. They may not regenerate very often due to oversizing the unit or they may have very low GH. Also, like Steve said they may not last quite as long between regenerations as they did 25 years ago. The bottom line is that these resins last a very, very long time, which is one reason they are the leader. As a last resort, I can provide replacement resins.

Bruce

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:21:02 GMT

Pure Reefs (10/14/2007)

As for how long the resins last, not sure. As Steven said, you had one for years before it was done. The question is, how many recharges were you doing in a year Steven?

I seem to recall recharging the units every 2-4 months depending on the season and my usage.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Pure Reefs — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:05:33 GMT

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:53:24 GMT

Reefski (10/14/2007)

how many times can the resins be recharged?

I had my #2 set for about 8 years before it didn't seem to hold a recharge as well as originally.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

CTReefer — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:17:54 GMT

I am also interested in finding this out. I would guess that, since the resin works via a simple ion exchange mechanism, it should last for at least a few hundred "re-charges". Perhaps Bruce can fill us in with the details??

Steve

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Reefski — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 06:11:13 GMT

how many times can the resins be recharged?

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:00:12 GMT

Your water softener is not much different than a Kati-Ani. Both are ion exchange resins. The difference is your water softener is charged to replace ions in the tapwater with Na+ and Cl- while the Kati-Ani is charged to replace with H+ and OH-. Whether or not the Kati-Ani will last longer treating the tapwater or the softener water, I am unsure.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

gaijin — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:01:29 GMT

Steve: Thanks! I've been looking for English instructions for a while. French was tough mad impossible with LFS instructions (something to do with using di water in the recharge) that corrected several errors in the orginial instructions.

Now a basic question: I have a household salt regenerated water softener (HWS). Should I try doing the processing using the softened water? Right now I do it before but only get about 800l out of a medium size kati ani setup. I guess my concern is that water post HWS is pretty salty (shoud do an sg test) and that either a) kati/ani will have to be regenerated as often bcs its taking out so much salt or b) it doesn't take out the salt (not so good for my discus).

What do you think?

Thanks,

J

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:31:06 GMT

And finally, regeneration of the Ani column.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:28:50 GMT

Here is how to recharge the Kati portion.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:26:52 GMT

For those that need them, here are the Kati-Ani instructions.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

DennisBergeron — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:01:12 GMT

Artisan Corals (9/11/2007)

The Kati Ani units have been manufactured in Germany for over 30 years by Aquatechnic. They have been difficult to aquire and find information about in the US, which is why I decided to become their North American distributor. I can send you a sales flyer if you contact me directly. I do not want to post it because it may be viewed as a sales promotion. This flyer should answer most of your question including the model prices.

The only question you raised which isn't covered in the flyer is the cost to regenerate the resins. The cost for the smallest model is about $3.00 in chemicals up to $30.00 for the largest model. The flyer will show you a cost comparison for the Kati Ani units versus an RO system. The regeneration process is fairly simple, but it uses dangerous chemicals (hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide), which are available at Lowes, etc.

Bruce

Steven & Bruce, thank you for the info. I apologize for not responding sooner. I thought I had this website setup to notify me via e-mail of any activity on this thread.

Bruce, I would be interested in that flyer whenever you get a chance. I will send a PM with the info.

Thanks,

Dennis

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

redsonja — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:13:16 GMT

Thanks Bruce, it sounds like we have about the same water usage needs as I use about 300g a week of RO right now. I will look for the GH test and go from there but it does sound like the 10 is the way to go for us. Sorry to hear about your car problems, it seems a few people had that happen. I heard Raaden had to spend about $300 on his vehicle on the road on the way up from Raleigh.

-Sonja

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:30:12 GMT

Sonja,

Since I'm bored here at the hotel, I did look up the information to help guide you in your decision to determine the size of your Kati Ani. Let me preface this by saying there is no wrong size, it all comes down to how often you will need to regenerate. If you don't mind regenerating often, you can step down a model or two and vice versa. The flow through rate (375 gallons) and the amount of time to regenerate is the same no matter what sized model.

Having said that, the model 1 will process 4500 "hardness" liters before regeneration is required. The model 2 is 9000, model 5 is 22,500 and the model 10 is 45,000 hardness liters. To determine how many liters it will process with your water, you need to determine your General Hardness (GH) of the water. This is not a common measurement, but API sells a cheap Alk & GH test combo. You would divide the hardness liters for the appropriate model above by the GH reading.

For example, using my own set-up, I have the model 10 and a GH of 4. That gives me over 11,000 liters or about 3000 gallons (my recollection is that one gallon is about 3.75 liters). I use about 300 gallons a week, so I get about ten weeks between regenerations. I have no idea of the size of your operation or your general hardness level, but many of the commercial people who were interested in the Kati Ani units at the show plan to use multiples of the model 10 to extend the time between regeneration or to increase the flow to say 750 gallons per day with two units.

Let me know if you have any further questions. I have followed your progress and forum participation and congratulate you on your success.

Bruce

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 17:06:07 GMT

Thanks for the offer Steve, but you need some time to relax after this past weekend! I'm just waiting for a $3400 check to come overnight to me tomorrow (some repair bill for a 2006 basic Chevy pick-up huh). Then the dealer should have all the parts by tomorrow afternoon. With any luck, I'll be home late tomorrow night.

Bruce

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:59:02 GMT

Artisan Corals (9/17/2007)

I am still stuck at the MACNA show after exhibiting (due to major car issues). I will provide you information that will answer many of your Kati Ani sizing questions when I finally get home on Wednesday. Sorry for the delay.

Bruce, if there is something I can do to help, don't hesitate to call me.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:58:08 GMT

emora (9/17/2007)

Hi All.

Mi Kati Ani unit just arrived from Germany.
Thanks to the instructions in English form Artisan Corals its already up and running.

The TDS comming out is 3. The flow rate if awsome. I love it.

Just to make sure i've done it right:

I've connected the unit as per section 3.b in the english manual. The input goes into the outer port of the Kati canister. The purifed water is coming out of the inner port on the Ani canister.

I did not regenerate the resins prior to use. Just primed the unit following the instructions (3.a) and then ran for about a half hour before collecting water.

Does that sound right?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers
Enrique

Sounds perfect.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

emora — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:17:33 GMT

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:29:09 GMT

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:24:06 GMT

My incoming TDS is between 100 and 180.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

redsonja — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:32:49 GMT

Steven I hope to catch you before we leave MACNA tomorrow but if I don't, and for others that might have the same questions... you say your output TDS is in the single digits but what is the input TDS before DI treatment? We are looking at buying a Kati/Ani setup either here at the show or order soon after we get home and are waffling on what size to get. How often do you recharge the media, or I suppose a better question is about how many gallons do you get and from how much media before you have to recharge? I know the water hardness will be different for NC than PA but some ballpark figure would be good to know.

Thanks! And thanks for all the hard work to put on such an awesome MACNA.

-Sonja

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:31:56 GMT

Bruce

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Steven Pro — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:19:56 GMT

Much has been written by myself and Anthony Calfo on the merits of the Kati-Ani system. A lot of it is here or on www.WetWebMedia.com

My unit is consistently in the single digits when I test TDS.

After I add salt and allow it to mix for 24 hours to the desired salinity, I then check pH, alkalinity, and calcium and adjust as needed.

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

DennisBergeron — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:01:35 GMT

I was reading the newest C...The Journal (volume 1 number 4) by Anthony Calfo when I came across an ad on page 89 for the Kati Ani De-Ionizer that caught my interest.

Does anyone have any additional information on the Kati Ani De-ionizer for water purification as compared to RO/DI water? I saw that it mentioned no water waste which is unlike RO/DI filters which waste a great deal of water. I see that Artisan Corals carries them but I can't seem to find any other websites or additional info either through Google or Yahoo.

Any additional info on how it works, its effectiveness, price, and concerns would be greatly appreciated. I read that the resins need to be recharged periodically. Any idea how often and the cost involved? This thread was all the info I was able to find thus far.

Steven Pro, what kind of TDS is coming out of your system? Do you have to add anything to the water prior to mixing it with salt?

Thanks,

Dennis

RE: Kati/Ani Function & Hookup Info?

Artisan Corals — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:41:18 GMT

If you are buying new, I recommend looking into the Kent Aquadosers. The advantage of the Aquadoser is that they include the hosing and precise flow controls. They also have a seperate filling cap from the bulkhead/hose fitting which allows for easy refilling without having to take things apart to refill. The retail price is in the high $20's and the wholesale price is in the low $20's