How reliable are these valves

[seamonster124]

Thinking about rigging one of these as a powerless gravity fed auto top off, from a RODI Brute straight to the sump. Then I realized this thing fails down goes the tank for good.

 

[seamonster124]

So I got this baby working. Gravity feeding RO water into the tank. Still very much paranoid and wondering how reliable these valves generally are? Anyone?

 

[Pickupman66]

I used one for 3 years with no fails. They are better than a switch imo

 

[Dkuhlmann]

As long as you keep it clean and void of snails it should be just fine

 

[seamonster124]

Thankyou.

 

[skeeter_ca]

You should be paranoid. If you keep it clean and in an area where things can't get into it then you have a better chance with it. You should keep the valve above the water level at all times. All it would take is for a copepod/amphipod to crawl into the valve to make it stick open. Look in your reservoir. Is it perfectly clean and sealed so no particles can get into it. All it takes is a small spec of whatever at just the perfect time to ruin your day.

I would suggest using a smaller reservoir, to provide maybe two weeks of water at the most for the tank, for the ATO and just fill that from the RO/DI Brute maybe once a week or so. That way when it does malfunction(maybe years from now) it won't dump all of the brute can into your tank wiping everything out.

 

[Greybeard]

I use a 5 gallon reserve with a float valve in a gravity feed system, on a ~75 gallon total volume system... and I mounted a battery powered water alarm about 2 inches above the normal water level in my sump.

Plan for equipment failure... it's going to happen.

 

[skeeter_ca]

I was thinking about adding an alarm to my system also. Currently I use two float switches, two relays and a timer that only comes on for 5 minutes twice a day. I feel pretty safe, but I always have that what if in the back of my head.

 

[Bent]

Me personally I would never rely on one point of failure.

Murphy's law dude.

One thing you could do is buy a normally open solenoid and connect it to a float switch placed a little higher than the float valve. Put the solenoid inline with your water line, so when the switch is tripped, it will close the solenoid and stop the water.

Solenoid:
http://autotopoff.com/Solenoids/

Switch:
http://autotopoff.com/Floatswitches/

Brackets:
http://autotopoff.com/Brackets/

 

[Cdodge1]

Me personally I would never rely on one point of failure.

Murphy's law dude.

One thing you could do is buy a normally open solenoid and connect it to a float switch placed a little higher than the float valve. Put the solenoid inline with your water line, so when the switch is tripped, it will close the solenoid and stop the water.

While I would say they are reliable (I use one on my SW mixing station)...

However, ben makes a good point. redundancy is key in this hobby...I usually find that out the hard way.. lol

 

[xmas_one]

I ran one on a system with about 3' elevation difference. Only problem I had was that about every 3 months I had to clean the valve or it would stop flowing.

 

[Greybeard]

That's the downside to float valves... I believe a good float valve is actually more reliable than a float switch, but you can wire 2 float switches in parallel easily. Can't do the same with a float valve.

I work from home, my wife doesn't work outside the home, one of my daughters and her son live with us, there is nearly always someone here... with a float valve and a water alarm, I feel pretty safe. Even if it were to fail on one of the rare occasions where the house is empty, dumping 5 gallons of RO/DI water to my system would lower the salinity a little, might shock some of the critters some, but it wouldn't cause a wipe out, nor would I come home to a wet living room floor.

If I were going to hook up a 50g barrel full of RO/DI as a reserve, I would not feel safe with just a float valve... even with a water alarm.

Mechanical and Electrical devices fail. All of them, eventually. Plan on it.

 

[Bent]

While I would say they are reliable (I use one on my SW mixing station)...

However, ben makes a good point. redundancy is key in this hobby...I usually find that out the hard way.. lol

Agreed. They are reliable, and are more likely to plug up and not flow instead of flowing too much.

But, if your luck is anything like mine....

 

[seamonster124]

Thanks everyone.

the valve has a built in filter and the RO container that feeds it is a sealed brute.

Sounds like having a small top off container would solve the problem. BUT that means my RO filter will now have to feed this small top off AND my RO Brute.....not sure how I can pull that off.