ato units

[pimpinitup6969]

The jbj ato works really well.

 

[pascal32]

Blurry, don't you find that evaporation levels change often? What do you do to combat this?

I wasn't planning to use the dripper for top off. I've been having problems with my air line hose valve gate not consistently dripping (stops after a while) when manually adding two part to the new tank.

For ATO I use my reef keeper elite:
* RO/DI is run to a 5 gallon bucket with a bobber cut-off
* double float switch for level check
* 50ml/min dosing pump
* set to run 10minutes/hour - max top-off is 3 gallons per day.

if the bucket bobber switch fails, the bucket will drain into the french drain of my basement.

If the first float switch fails, the second one backs it up

If the first and second switch fails, the RKE limits the topoff to 3 gallons/day.

if the RKE fails and the outlet stays on I'm screwed!

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

Blurry, don't you find that evaporation levels change often? What do you do to combat this?

One just makes a small adjustment. That is why I say its "controlled flow" top off, not "auto" top off. Over the course of five days evaporation rates don't change a lot. The drip set is calibrated; its probably not accurate as far as volume (its not far off), but its a reference. I have a line drawn on my sump, if the water level is up I watch it for the day, if it looks like it will keep going up I dial it back a wee bit. In a couple days maybe the level trends lower and another small adjustment is made. Adjustments for me are a handful of mls per hour (there are 3785.4 mls per gallon) I would have to miss by almost 50 mls per hour to over or under shoot the top off by 1/4 gallon. that would change the salinity for ~35 actual volume ~ .250 ppt or about .010 ppt per hour; not much of a roller coaster. Keep in mind my system runs at 49 tv, and evaporates ~1 gal per day. It may be harder dialing in a system 3 or more times the volume; I don't know. Keep in mind also most of my tanks evaporation come from lighting and cooling; the lights and fans come on for the same amount of time everyday there are no thermal switches for the fan.

 

[ibyhousz]

I bought a tsunami ato used and have been using it for a couple months. It works awesome! The one thing I had to do was test it to find the exact on and off level of the float device. I just plugged a tester(or use a lamp) into the outlet of the unit and played around with the water levels in my sump a little to determine when it would turn off and on then marked those levels on my sump getting the float device exactly where I wanted it. It was cheap and it works great for me!

 

[spinoleo]

picked up a tsunami ato and will see how it works