DIY ATO from spare parts cheap

[shades_of_blue]

I was out of town this week for work and my girlfriend was looking after my tanks and noticed the a to was broken. It was a broken electric float switch. I needed it working asap and built a simple effective replacement from things I had laying around.
Materials.
5 gal bucket
Aqualifter pump (toms aquatic)
Airline tubing
Airline t fitting
Cheap float valve $10

The pump runs countuinsley attached to the float valve located in my sump. Thus not letting any water into the return section until the float valve drops due to evaporation. The intake of the aqualifter is in the 5 gal bucket and the output attached to the float valve. The t fitting goes in the line between the aqualifter and float valve. Connected to the t fitting is another airline tube that needs to be higher then the rest of that section of tubing so it creates head pressure . while the float valve is raised the water flo is redirected into the 5 gal of reverse osmosis water but when the float drops the path of least resistance finds its way to the sump. Here is a poorly drawn diagram. The setup is hidden behind my sump and it is impossible to see what's going on. Its is working perfectly so far.

 

[lokii_37]

That looks like you came up with a great solution to what could have been a big problem. Sometimes simple is best.

 

[shades_of_blue]

It seems to be much better then the expensive system I had. I also put a pre filter in the intake because I dose kalk at 2tsp per gal in my ato and didn't want a clog. All the parts new would only cost $35 new if you didn't have most of the stuff laying around. Also the return flow slowly stirs my Kali on the bottom of the bucket .