Preventing a flood with an ATO

[Potatohead]

So, I have come to find out my tank has a tempered back, so I'm forced to use a hob overflow. I was going to set it up so the return chamber was small enough that it could not flood the tank in case of siphon loss, but then remembered with an ATO system, that won't work unless you have the water level low in the display which I don't want. That would totally mess up salinity until you actually found the problem anyway.

Is there a workaround? The only thing I can figure is putting a float switch in the backside of the overflow so if the water level drops there, your return pump will shut off. Only issue with that is the return pump is always relying on the switch to work correctly and the switch might affect the operation of the box.

Is there an ATO system that you can program to run a really short max time?

 

[cjmdh]

I am pretty sure the tunze has a pot inside the controller you can dial down so the pump will only run a certain amount of time.


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[keepLearning]

You can do that with a controller like apex, reef angel,...maybe rk but i am not familiar with that yet.

I dont think the tunze AtO has a switch to shorten the max on time of the pump. It only has the switch to control the output strength of the pump.

 

[Potatohead]

Well I feel a little silly. I didn't realize an aqualifter only flows 3.5 gallons per hour.

The return section of my sump is small, 5.5" x 9.5". The Hydor ATO system I want to use looks like it has about .75" between the max and min "tabs." This means the volume it needs to add each time it turns on is only about 1/6 gallon. At 30" head the aqualifter will pump that in about 3 minutes, but by playing with the head height with a loop in the line or returning to the tank instead of the sump or something I'm sure I can get that in the 8 - 9 minute range which is ideal since the Hydor system maxes out at ten minutes. Worst case scenario I could have maybe 1/2 gallon on the floor which I can live with.

 

[JammyBirch]

Tunze Osmolator and SMART ATO have integrated controllers to guard against what you're concerned about. I'm sure there are other also but these seem to be popular. They measure the water level and also track the volume per fill, if your tank for some reason requires more than the normal amount it will stop and sound an alarm.

I have the SMART ATO it cost about $150 and i love it.

 

[Reef Frog]

A primitive control is an old fashioned lamp timer.

If you knew your tank evaporates a gallon per day and your pump delivers 4 gallons per hour, you can set the timer so the pump is only energized 15-20 minutes per day for example. At least this way you limit emptying the resevoir in a "stuck on" scenario.

Not sure if this will work with all of the newer ATO digital controllers out there however.

 

[Mr.Tan]

x2 on the smart ATO. I run one on my tank and so far so good. It keeps track of how long the top off water usually runs to refill the tank so if it goes over too long it automatically shuts off.


I have the smart ATO micro which is very nice and the newer model. paid $90-ish for it new

 

[Potatohead]

The Smart seems like a good system - If any refilling time is three times longer than the previous one, it stops the pump and triggers an alarm. By doing the math I am pretty much doing the same thing in a different way, the aqualifter will take about 3 minutes to normally fill and the hydor system shuts off after ten minutes. I can adjust the tubing height also to make the aqualifter pump even slower, so I think that will work for me the best.

 

[cjmdh]

JBJ ATO has the timer not Tunze.


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[Bent]

Don't need anything fancy.

Put the ATO pump on a timer so it only runs once a day and not all day.
Use a second float switch up a tad higher than the ATO switch so that if the main switch fails, the second switch will shut the pump off.

You can fix it all for under 30 bucks.