Auto Filling Your ATO Water Top Off Fresh Water Containers

[Kaboobie]

Unfortunately no ATO for me I can barely keep my child from climbing on top of my aquarium let alone keep her from putting her hands and toys into an ATO reservoir sadly. Such are the challenges of having a young nonverbal autistic child. I exist in manual top-off hell lol.

 

[Clueless_Reefer]

I don't see why more people dont just do a straight feed into the tank with a solenoid and apex via FMM and ATK. Apex even suggests this is safer than alternatives and some of the guys in their office do it. Knock on wood - had no problems with it for five years except for a sensor going bad but the ATK defaults to off anyways...

 

[aurora.k]

I have a pmup scheduled to run 15 minutes twice a day to a float valve on my ATO tank, which is not directly over the sump tank - so that way if the float valve fails it won’t be a big deal because the pump doesn’t run much, if the pump and float valve BOTH fail then I’ll spill a bunch of rodi on the floor, which is cement since the ato tank is not over the sump. Cement because it’s in my equipment room. I am both lazy and spoiled. ALSO I lose a lot of water to evaporation as I use a fan to cool.

 

[srobertb]

I use the auto aqua flood protectors. They connect to a solenoid which is in turn connected to my RO/DI. It turns itself off/on once a week which resets it and kicks on my RO/DI unit. As a fail safe I also have the RO/DI system hooked up to a smartthings switch which is only on when the solenoids are open.

the entire system is plumbed to 2, 50g stacked containers each with their own solenoid. The top is SW for my auto water changer which is closed except for once a month when I refill it and the lower is for freshwater. It’s all plumbed to the tank with peristaltic pumps. The system can run independently (the ATO portion) for 6 months before the 2 DI Resin media canisters are depleted. The peristaltic pump tubing tends to blow about every 8 months.

 

[Corgigirl]

I open a valve. Come back later and close the valve. I have a float valve in the container.

This is what I do as well to avoid the RO TDS creep. Although I’m planning on hooking it up to my Hydros to simplify things .

 

[blaxsun]

I probably could automate it to some extent, but I just don’t trust the technology (at least to that extent).

 

[Sawyer Breslow]

I use my Hydros controller to do this. It is a 20 gallon brute can. It normally takes a little over three hours to refill. If it takes 3 hr and 15 minute to refill It will shut off and I will get a alert. I also have a float valve and leak detectors as a backup for the full sensor.

Is your 20gal brute act as your ato container or do you fill a espérate container in your cabinet?

 

[GuppyHJD]

My RODI comes on at 10am every morning and automatically fills the ATO container above my sump under the aquarium.
The RODI runs for 10 minutes and shuts off. The ATO container has a float valve that shuts the RODI off before the 10 minutes usually.
The ATO then gravity feeds the sump with a float valve to cut it off.
I have two water sensors on the sump water level that text my phone if they go below or above a certain level.
So far the only problem has been the sump float valve stuck closed, and was replaced.
The sump has a Wyse camera so I can check the levels from my sensors on my phone and look at them via the camera.

 

[Jmcg89]

I have a long 1/4 inch tube Nd float I take out from my garage where the ro is and fill the ATO barrels and then roll it up in the garage again when its full

 

[AVVITT]

I have 30 litre containers I get filled with RODI from my lfs so I just swap the almost empty container out, unscrew the lid on the newly filled one and drop the pump into it. That amount lasts me about a week so I'm good until my next water change

 

[reefdiver73]

We have a 100 gallon ATO reservoir with a float sensor/solenoid that is set about 10 gallons down from the top. This is directly tied to our RODI system. The reason for 100 gallons is that it allows us to easily transfer to another 100 gallon tank where we keep salt water for Auto Water Changes. Having 100 gallons of salt allows us to go out of town for about 2 weeks without having to worry too much about our tank (except having someone feed the fish). The AWC is handled by an Apex DOS and changes 5 gallons of water per day. If not for our desire to have 2 weeks of salt in reserve we could go with a smaller RO water tank. The RO stays full +/- 10 gallons except when we transfer 50+ gallons over to top off the 100 gallon salt container.

These containers are across the house from the display tank. We have fresh in, salt in, waste out all piped using 1/4" mur-lock tubing that is inside PVC conduit for added protection.

 

[ReluctantIM]

I have a 40 gallon Rubbermaid garbage bin I keep in the basement and run a line up through the wall to my sump using an Apex Dos. I use a high and low optical sensor from Apex to manage when to turn on and off the water.

 

[ADAM]

ATO Fresh for me too. Figure with the tunze ato the pump will only run the max time anyway. Plus a high sump switch on my BOB to cut off Main ATO and a water sensor beside the reservoir will alarm if the water feed valve doesn’t close and starts to over flow.

 

[BrandonS]

I have a 25 gallon container on a float valve connected to my ro unit. Most of the time I just turn it on once a week to avoid tds creep. The trick is I am using a 100ml a minute dosing pump for my ato. So I have my ato res in another room from my tank.

 

[bobyboy]

I use a Avast Barrel Tender connected to my Apex to keep my fresh DI storage filled.
I highly recommend it to any one.

 

[Daniel]

I'm manually filling mine at the moment - I would love to set-up an automatic top off to the auto-top off but I just don't have the connection points close enough to where my reef setup is! Otherwise, this would be ideal... at least now I'm getting a mini-workout in while I haul buckets of water

 

[mylertitchell]

Remove ato res from sump and put ato pump in rodi bin. Rodi and fresh saltwater bin all plumbed into rodi unit with float valves and manual on/off valves. I turn these on and off weekly (containers greater than weekly consumption) to minimise tds creep. Did plan on changing the valves over to automate this for me. But so far been no issue maintaining and not sure if will.
My ato and awc is same but ato is smaller pump and awc has relays on wiring for pump on/off power consumption.
300l net with 20l weekly water change. All done semi automatically with 4 button pushes. Equipment off. Dirty water drain. Clean water in. Equipment on. Using the high and low float switches. Could automate it more But I do maintenance during this. So like the control.
But the awc is basically a pump connected to a float switch. I have 2 of them. They are controlled by WiFi plugs. Once on they can drain or fill depending on how the float switch is set up. So one is set at high level (fill to here) one at low level (drain to here) one pump in sump which drains into my washing machine drain and other pump in garage in saltwater bin pumping into sump to hits the high level float switch. Pumps are just like 24v caravan pumps.
My build thread has this in better detail if any interest

 

[Phistergosh]

Refilling my ATO reservoir does get annoying. I'm doing it every 4 days at this point. I am considering drilling a hole from my basement up to the sump on the first floor. I have a shelving unit that I could use to elevate a 20 gallon brute tote so the ATO pump doesn't need to push the water more than a few feet of head. Maybe one day...

 

[DaveWrasse]

Fully automated now. I use a RO/DI Flood Guardian from XP Aqua to fill my 5 gallon RO/DI reservoir next to my tank, this in turn is connected to a timer that kicks it on/off twice per day. If the reservoir is below the sensor the solenoid opens and RO/DI is produced from a smart booster pump via a long 1/4" hose from the garage to where my tank is via the attic. The booster pump activates when the solenoid opens. I also have a Flood Guardian on my main RO/DI container in the garage. Has worked flawlessly for a 20 months now.

 

[inetjnky]

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.

Check out my build thread.