Auto Filling Your ATO Water Top Off Fresh Water Containers

[lapin]

I use my apex to refill my 15 gallon container.
The tank uses 5 gallons a day
Every day the apex turns on the solenoid for the rodi unit, for 45 min, along with the booster pump.
Puts 5 gallons back in the container.

 

[takitaj]

Mostly automated. I have a line from the RoDi in the laundry room going to my ATO reservoir with a valve on the back. There's a float valve in the reservoir that cuts it off when full.

So it's automated but initiated by my hands.

 

[Billldg]

I use a Ecotech Versa pump to push water up a floor and into my ATO. I programmed it for 2 gals a day. It’s not full proof yet as I not installed photo sensors, but it makes life so much easier. I will eventually add photo sensors to turn on and off the outlet that the Versa is plugged into.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

No, and I wouldn’t want an auto refill on my ATO reservoir. I have a 2-1/2 gallon jug, my ATO Pump is in. If something goes wrong and it pumps till empty, it won’t kill off my 65 gallon. When I go on vacation, I hook two of the reservoirs together. I clean my Sensor, and test it by lifting it. Also where my sensor is in the Sump, it would be next to impossible for it to move either up or down.

 

[Mical]

I contemplated automating my ATO refills but I prefer to see & know how much each tank uses so I manually refill them weekly.

 

[agame2021]

I have a auto top off tank(15-20g) next to sump(lasts about 6-9 days) to fill it up I put RO/DI from my trash can set up with a pump(a 1/6 hp pump to move a ton of water! Takes like 1-3 minutes). When I get into the new house I plan on a giant system. I am gonna start with the equipments and finish with the tank! The first thing on my list is a controller and then 2 large tanks 1 for top off(fresh water) 1 for auto water changes. My 150 gallon tank is going to be way over engineered before I get the big 10x2x2 acrylic tank.

 

[Spicy Reef]

My 150 has multiple lids, so top off is maybe 1 gallon a week, not worth ATO ATM. Take care of it during water changes, makes me focus on salinity

 

[n2585722]

Manual refill. If something fails, you can make a mess or kill a tank.

If you do it like I do you need redundacy to keep that from happening. On my current tank I hafe never had my ATO over fill my sump. On the ATO everything is timed as a backup to the float switchs. I have three float switches also. One triggers the ATO. There s one to shut off the ATO for a overfill and another to alert if the level goes too low. On top of that I use a dosing pump that delivers around 75ml a minute. when it is turned on it will run for at least 2 minutes and 26 seconds. If it runs over 5.5 minutes it is turned off and an alert is sent. It will not turn back on again until I have intervened either on site or remotely. There has to be at least 26 minutes between each top off event. If it goes over 6 hours between top offs then there is an alert sent. I had this happen a couple of days ago. The issue was the float switch to start the ATO was stuck in the up position. I guess a critter or some debris was caught in it It cleared by shaking the mount and has ran ok since. Below is a screenshot of my ATO setup. The only setting that is not showing at the bottom is the Notification Level. It is set to the orange level. The 42g OK output that this output depends on will shut off the ATO if the sump is overfull, DI storage is low, there is a leak detected or the return pump is off. The last two screenshots are for that output setup.

 

[jcates]

I have an Aquatic Life smart buddie plugged into a smart outlet so that it doesn't run daily to fill my 15 RODI holding container. And use the booster pump that I had previously to pump rodi from that to ato reservoir. So not fully automated, really just a step back from that, but I'm not hauling buckets either.

 

[n2585722]

My 150 has multiple lids, so top off is maybe 1 gallon a week, not worth ATO ATM. Take care of it during water changes, makes me focus on salinity

That is a low evaporation rate. My tank is a 42 gallon tank and I go through a 20 gallon storage tank in about 4 weeks. I do use evaporative cooling to cool the tank. It runs most of the year. My heaters only come on occasionally in the months of November through March.

 

[richarddeweerd]

I have a 15 gallon container in my garage. I automated it myself with some custom electronics. It has some level sensors and even a scale under need it so I can see on a display how much is left.

 

[rhostam]

I automate using:

1. Water [low] level sensor on ATO reservoir
2. Water sensor opens when approaching empty
3. Solenoid valve opens to RODI
4. RODI flows into ATO
5. Water [full] level sensor on ATO reservoir closes
6. Solenoid valve closes to RODI
7. Physical float valve on RODI input to ATO reservoir in case solenoid fails

 

[LPS Bum]

I think that's serious overkill. I live in Colorado, so my tank evaporates anywhere between half a gallon and three quarters of a gallon each day (it's dry out here).

But a 5 gallon reservoir gives me a full week of coverage, and unless I'm going out of town for more than a week (unlikely) I don't need automation on top of automation. And if I did go away for more than a week, I'd have a neighbor fill it up.

 

[DaneGer21]

I use my Apex…I have a float switch at the bottom and top of my 5gal ATO bucket. When it gets low, a PMup fills the bucket using a timer around 20mins. The high level float cuts the flow if needed as a safety, as well as a float valve for backup safety.

I usually have around 100gals of RODI on hand so my supply comes from those barrels and not straight from the RODI system.

 

[Buckster]

I use a 5 gallon bucket outside my 180 cabinet with RODI for the ATO. I check that once a week. I don't want to that fill up by some other means because I would rather have the 5 gallon not keep adding in the sump in case the ATO malfunctioned.

 

[305Reefer]

This is my method of doing it:

I have two systems with two tanks on each system. My ATO containers are the glass Innovative Marine 15G containers (the ones with the pull out drawer for filling). They last me about 5 days which is just a bit short for me but I had no space to get bigger reservoirs.

So what I did was drill a hole in the side of each ATO container and installed float valves. I attached these to my RODI output with a two Tees. Two tees go to each ATO reservoir with the last line going to my mixing stations RODI container. When I turn on my ATO it will automatically fill both reservoirs to the top, once the float valves are triggered on both containers, the water then bypasses to my mixing station barrel until that float valve is triggered and the whole system stops. So far its worked perfectly, but due to fears of the system failing and letting a never ending flow of water on to my floors, I turn it on only to fill the systems overnight, and next next morning, purely to be overly cautious I turn of the RODI. I also installed a bleed off in my RODI so I can let go those first few gallons of crap water that come out of the RODI when you first turn it on.

All that said, I dont think it will actually ever fail. The float valves would have to be stuck open and since they securely attached the top off containers I dont see that ever happening.. But just in case, I always turn off the RODI when Im not home.. I only leave it on if I go on vacation for more than 5 days and I will need it to automatically fill up while Im gone.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

This is not a discussion on an ATO. This is a discussion about automatically refilling your ATO fresh water containers.

I saw a thread on automatically keeping your auto top off fresh water container filled and I thought it would make a good discussion. Normally people use a 5 gallon bucket or some other container to hold the extra fresh water but they can run out pretty quickly or you can forget to refill them. Also if you take a long trip you will either need to get a bigger container, have someone else manually top it off, or have a way to auto top off your container! Let's discuss it!

1. Do you have an automated way that you replace the water from your freshwater ATO containers? (NOT to your aquarium)

2. What have you found to work the best for keeping your ATO fresh water containers filled?


Tunze RO Water Controller

No auto fill ATO here. My ATO reservoirs all last about 4-5 days between needing refills, and the alarm is loud enough to wake the dead and the dog.. If I'm going to be away from the house on vacay/business I'll bring up some huge rubbermaid totes and use that for several weeks worth. I always get a little nervous doing that though in case of ATO malfunction.

I originally bought a ton of "redundant safety checks" when I first started the tank, but backed away from the ledge when I realized I might be introducing more points of failure than I was solving for..

 

[MichaelClark55]

I’m doing this with my apex. I have several solenoids on my RODI filter that are controlled by the apex and float switches on my ATO reservoir. When the reservoir runs low the apex turns on the RODI and fills it, then it turns the RODI back off when it’s full. I have a number of safeguards in place to prevent a flood and the whole thing is in the garage, so even if there was a flood it wouldn’t be catastrophic. I have a lot more details about how my safeguards work and how I accomplished this on my build thread.

Brett, can you explain in greater detail your setup? I have run 1/4" tubing from the garage RODI supply in the garage to the ATO next to my display but didn't think through it and did run wiring for the apex! I have solenoids and sensors but haven't set any of it up as of yet.

 

[Maxcmo]

This is not a discussion on an ATO. This is a discussion about automatically refilling your ATO fresh water containers.

I saw a thread on automatically keeping your auto top off fresh water container filled and I thought it would make a good discussion. Normally people use a 5 gallon bucket or some other container to hold the extra fresh water but they can run out pretty quickly or you can forget to refill them. Also if you take a long trip you will either need to get a bigger container, have someone else manually top it off, or have a way to auto top off your container! Let's discuss it!

1. Do you have an automated way that you replace the water from your freshwater ATO containers? (NOT to your aquarium)

2. What have you found to work the best for keeping your ATO fresh water containers filled?


Tunze RO Water Controller

My ATO lasts 4 days if I am lucky so I have a 40 gallon tank that I fill in one shot and then shut down my RODI system to avoid TDS creep this gives me 35 days or so. The water tank is plumbed gravity fed into my sump thru this Tunze 8555 system plusI have a float valve for an additional layer of protection. The tank is in the garage on a 4' tall stand. I also purchased a water alarm for like 9 bucks you just place behind the cabinet and if it touches water it goes off. This float valve is available on Amazon. I clean off the float valve and the tunze emergency float switches with fresh water every-time I do maintenance to avoid salt creep. You can get the flat valve up pretty high and it will still work which also avoids salt creep. Mount it as high as you can while making sure it will still work if your sump floods.

 

[KC's CNC Creations]

two optical sensors via Apex controlling a booster pump fills my ATO reservoir from an RO/DI holding container (they're about 50' apart in different locations in the house) also use two optical sensors to have Apex control the RO/DI filter/RO Buddy to fill the holding container when it gets low. both have warning systems and a float valve as backup