ATO Refill control

[dR3ws3r]

I have 3 aquariums in one room, all of which have ATO reservoirs that I currently fill manually. I am setting up an RO/DI system in the basement below this room with water storage for eventual automatic water changing. For now I would love to create a system for just filling up the ATO reservoirs when they are low. Each tank has an APEX controller for it. I was thinking about using a dosing pump for each tank and pumping up from the main basement ro/di reservoir when they are low and stopping when each upstairs ATO tank level is met. It would be nice to have some redundancy in case the high level sensor fails. It seems like most shutoff or float valves are made for RO/DI systems where stopping flow just stops all the RO/DI system from running, including the booster pump. I feel like that float valve or even a solenoid won't work very well with a dosing pump. I could use double optical sensors for high level and high/high level, but that is kind of expensive and also could "possibly" fail. Has anyone done this type of thing before and could give me some thoughts on what they did, and how it works?

 

[n2585722]

I have 3 aquariums in one room, all of which have ATO reservoirs that I currently fill manually. I am setting up an RO/DI system in the basement below this room with water storage for eventual automatic water changing. For now I would love to create a system for just filling up the ATO reservoirs when they are low. Each tank has an APEX controller for it. I was thinking about using a dosing pump for each tank and pumping up from the main basement ro/di reservoir when they are low and stopping when each upstairs ATO tank level is met. It would be nice to have some redundancy in case the high level sensor fails. It seems like most shutoff or float valves are made for RO/DI systems where stopping flow just stops all the RO/DI system from running, including the booster pump. I feel like that float valve or even a solenoid won't work very well with a dosing pump. I could use double optical sensors for high level and high/high level, but that is kind of expensive and also could "possibly" fail. Has anyone done this type of thing before and could give me some thoughts on what they did, and how it works?

I do not have an Apex but I pull my ATO from my garage using a dosing pump. So my ATO pulls from my 20 gallon DI reservoir. The controller is also setup to refill it from my RODI unit when it goes low. The Refill has a maximum on time setup and there is a float valve on the RODI input in case the full sensor were to fail. I also have a leak detector there for the pumps, reservoirs and the RODI unit so a leak at any one would shut off all of them and send an alert. My AWC pumps and ATO pumps are also in the garage. The tank is 35ft away from the garage. Not sure how you would setup to do that on an Apex though.

 

[dR3ws3r]

I'm not sure what controller you use really matters much, as long as you can detect a level, time or a leak, you can probably use any controller to shut things down.

I'm not sure I follow your setup though. Where is your controller ... in the garage or by the tank? I think the Auto water changer station logic I can handle particularly since it is easy to put the float valve as a secondary safety feature when directly filling up the main supply ro/di tank.

What I am most worried about is when I refill the local ATO reservoir at each tank. I can shut off the dosing pump when the level sensor says the max level is met, but I'm not sure how to add a secondary safety check. You do mention time though, which might help. Perhaps I can calculate how long it takes the dosing pump to fill the local ATO reservoirs and set the dosing pump "on" time to just less than that. So then when it goes to fill the local ATO I can stop when either time expires or when the max level is met. At least that gives me two options.

I was also wondering about what dosing pump to use. The new DOS is fine, but I want to use that for the auto water changes since it has 2 heads and they are expensive. I have some Ecotech versas, but they don't play nice for this type of operation. Turning them off and on can have unexpected results and sometimes they can "make up" for power outages for scheduled dosing. I'm not sure what a good economical dosing pump would be to use to pull water up say 12 feet from the basement to the room above it. And they would be pumping 10+ gallons at a time.

 

[gms1234]

I mine with a solenoid on the RODI lines from my RODI filter. Works great.no reason you couldn't split it over 3. Might be a bit slow if all 3 running at once. Otherwise the atk Neptune pump works well. I was pumping RODI 100ft though john guest tubing no issue.

 

[implusebuy]

I use a small tunze pump in my freshwater reservoir that is connected to rigid RODI tubing that goes in my 40 gallon ATO reservoir. inline with the RODI line i installed the auto aqua RODI guardian solenoid with water level sensor. My apex turns RODI guardian 2 minutes before the tunze pump turns on so the solenoid is open. APEX then turns on the small pump for 1 hour which is enough time to SLOWLY fill my ATO. If the reservoir is filled before the hour is up, then the water level sensor senses the water level and closes the solenoid to stop the fill. Then the pump will eventually turn off. 1) slow small pump trickles water in. 2) only pumps for 1 hour at a slow rate so if it did overflow its not going to a be a ton of water 3) ato aqua is the 2nd level of redundacy to shut off water. been solid for over 4 years now. no more lugging buckets.

 

[n2585722]

I'm not sure what controller you use really matters much, as long as you can detect a level, time or a leak, you can probably use any controller to shut things down.

I'm not sure I follow your setup though. Where is your controller ... in the garage or by the tank? I think the Auto water changer station logic I can handle particularly since it is easy to put the float valve as a secondary safety feature when directly filling up the main supply ro/di tank.

What I am most worried about is when I refill the local ATO reservoir at each tank. I can shut off the dosing pump when the level sensor says the max level is met, but I'm not sure how to add a secondary safety check. You do mention time though, which might help. Perhaps I can calculate how long it takes the dosing pump to fill the local ATO reservoirs and set the dosing pump "on" time to just less than that. So then when it goes to fill the local ATO I can stop when either time expires or when the max level is met. At least that gives me two options.

I was also wondering about what dosing pump to use. The new DOS is fine, but I want to use that for the auto water changes since it has 2 heads and they are expensive. I have some Ecotech versas, but they don't play nice for this type of operation. Turning them off and on can have unexpected results and sometimes they can "make up" for power outages for scheduled dosing. I'm not sure what a good economical dosing pump would be to use to pull water up say 12 feet from the basement to the room above it. And they would be pumping 10+ gallons at a time.

I use a Hydros system and have controllers in the garage and at the tank but they are in the same collective. I have a lot of info in my tank build thread which you can get to by clicking on "My Tank Thread" banner in one of my post. It will take you to my build thread here on R2R. The Hydros info starts when I got my first Hydros controller on page 6 post # 119. I did use the Digital Aquatics Archon but all control has been moved to the Hydros now. I was using the Hydros to control the RODI, ATO and AWC with it only in the garage to begin with. I was sending signals between the Archon and the Hydros system using relays. So even with the sump water level on the Archon I still controlled the ATO pump with the Hydros Control 4.

 

[firechild]

I use Home Assistant for my ATO. I did previously have 2 tanks with the reservoir in the garage. I I actually ran power parallel to the RO line and powered the pump in conjunction with solenoids. I made this simple controller that provided power from only side at a time. power was sent by the tank that needed water, it opened the solenoid and ran the pump, while the other solenoid was closed (NC state). You could run the pump separate and just use something like this to control the solenoids, but this ensures the pump and a solenoid are powered at the same time, reducing risk of the pump running with nowhere to push the water.

In addition, I use an automation that locks the switch after running for 20 minutes. I then get a Whatsapp message and I can unlock the ATO in the HA app.