Ato or dosing pump

Rmckoy · Mar 30, 2020

Thinking of using one head of my dosing pump as a ato ..

I can calculate the evap per day .....
but the only thing I’m having a hard time with calculating is I have a dehumidifier running to keep humidity between 55-50

does humidity effect the evaporation rate ?

Tuan’s Reef · Mar 30, 2020

Yes, absolutely by definition. The higher the humidity the less evaporation .I would guess one could get away with using the dosing pump as an ato but it can never be accurate and would need constant adjustment

Copingwithpods · Mar 30, 2020

It is 100%possible to use a doser as an ATO but at the cost of constant adjustment as the climate changes and IMHO piece of mind. Not trying to sway you just my observations from researching the matter. I found some people would dose just under their evaporation rate and manually top off the difference once a week to avoid chasing ever fluctuating numbers. An ATO would just be set and forget.

Rmckoy · Mar 30, 2020

Copingwithpods said:
It is 100%possible to use a doser as an ATO but at the cost of constant adjustment as the climate changes and IMHO piece of mind. Not trying to sway you just my observations from researching the matter. I found some people would dose just under their evaporation rate and manually top off the difference once a week to avoid chasing ever fluctuating numbers. An ATO would just be set and forget.

I’ve also read some ato units do fail
I’ve always manually topped off from a bucket .
Topping off 5 gal every week or 10 days isn’t as stable as I’m looking for

Tuan’s Reef · Mar 30, 2020

Rmckoy said:
I’ve also read some ato units do fail
I’ve always manually topped off from a bucket .
Topping off 5 gal every week or 10 days isn’t as stable as I’m looking for

same failures can be said for dosing pumps vs ATO’s

I had the same reservations before getting an ATO. I can’t ever imagine going back to manual top off. I also had fears on dosing pump failures and that hasn’t happened either.
I have the Aqua Duetto ato. And the Jebao DP4 ... both cheap but works as it should for year and half.

Cwentz758 · Mar 30, 2020

Most ATO have a auto shut off of say the float switch is stuck and it pumps water for a minute without the float turning it off it’ll shut off and not turn on until you reset it. I’m using the 100$ tunze ATO and I love just filling my water chamber once a week and the ATO keeping everything nice. Plus my skimmer works better without the flux in water level

Ultra Aquatics · Mar 30, 2020

A properly designed ATO system will have have failsafes. Evaporation will change based on your environment, using a doser is definitely not ideal.

Sailingeric · Mar 30, 2020

I have had my Tunze ATO running almost two years on my 75 gallon tank with no issues at all.

Copingwithpods · Mar 30, 2020

Rmckoy said:
I’ve also read some ato units do fail
I’ve always manually topped off from a bucket .
Topping off 5 gal every week or 10 days isn’t as stable as I’m looking for

Yes some atos fail, some dosing pumps also fail, an argument can be made that all our equipment will fail, don't let sway your decision. Out of all my equipment I worry about my ato the least. I'm much more scared of my dosing pump dumping all the alk solution at once, yikes knock on wood.

I read one guy using a doser lost 1gal per day to evaporation, he set his doser to add 9/10ths of gallon a day having only to top of 1 gallon every 10 days. He tried to narrow this down but was never able to because of the many veriables in his environment. You can absolutely achieve some level of stability using a doser, it's just going to take alot more work than an ATO.

Slawman · Mar 30, 2020

An ATO is the only thing I would consider. I have tried the peristaltic in and out and it needs constant calibration, particularly if your freshwater reservoir is up or down from your display/sump.