Auto Top Off Failsafe

[ariellemermaid]

I’m building out a fish room for a new 200g system. The issue here is that the ATO reservoir and the tank are in two separate rooms. As I already have a Tunze Osmolator 3155 I planned to use it with this switched power socket and run some speaker wire between this socket and the Tunze through the ceiling space (along with the water tubing) plus maybe a Sicce Silent 3.5 to account for the head height.

My concern however is that the switched power socket introduces another point of failure. Even if the 3155 is operating perfectly, if the socket failed in the on position it would dump 40 gallons of DI water in the tank. So I’d like to see what ideas everyone has here.

1) I have an Apex but it’ll be on the tank side. If I could plug the socket into the Apex I could use power monitoring (like watts > 5 for more than 15 minutes, off) but the only way to do that would be to run an extension cord through the ceiling and down the wall which isn’t up to code for fire reasons. Another option here would be a power bar in the fish room (with a 50’ USB cable to connect it) but then we’re taking about $340 for a single failsafe and I would only use 1 outlet.

2) Here’s another option from autotopoff.com however I’d have to splice 50’ of wire into the sensor wiring and I have no idea if that would work or not (then the Tunze adapter would plug into this with the sensor being above water level).

3) I suppose I could add on something like a reefpi pi with robotank but also seems like overkill to bring in an entirely new controller just for this, plus a few hundred dollars. And I’d still have to figure out a way to run a sensor 50’.

4) Low tech solutions. Like only keeping 10g in the 40g reservoir unless I’m on vacation, etc. I don’t love this as it does kind of defeat the whole point of automation. And my pump would still burn out.

Any high or low tech options I’m missing?

 

[husemn]

I don't think this will be of much help given your setup but here is what I do and has worked well for 5 years on a 300 gallon plus setup. I have a separate fish room that houses all, sump, filters etc.. I have two 100 gallon mixing tanks, one for salt one for RO water. I have a 10 gallon ATO tank with a pump that feds the sump to top off. The 10 gallon ATO pump is controlled by my Apex with 3 float switches in the sump. A high, a low and an extra high. I also have a separate pump in the 100 gallon RO tank that I use to fill the 10 Gallon ATO tank. I keep all of that manual for the reasons you state above. I wired an outlet with a switch to control the pump that transfers water from the 100 gallon RO tank to the 10 gallon ATO tank. I manually flip the switch to fill the 10 gallon ATO tank whenever I am in the fish room and have only forgotten to turn that switch off a couple of times I usually end up hearing water pouring over the 10 gallon tank but thankfully it is zero TDS absolutely pure water and it gives my floor a good rinse. Solve one problem to create another i suppose.

SO the most RO I can ever dump into the tank is 10 gallons. It happened once when my Skimmer decided to go nuts and I was gone. Everything was fine being it only added 10 gallons.

 

[ariellemermaid]

I don't think this will be of much help given your setup but here is what I do and has worked well for 5 years on a 300 gallon plus setup. I have a separate fish room that houses all, sump, filters etc.. I have two 100 gallon mixing tanks, one for salt one for RO water. I have a 10 gallon ATO tank with a pump that feds the sump to top off. The 10 gallon ATO pump is controlled by my Apex with 3 float switches in the sump. A high, a low and an extra high. I also have a separate pump in the 100 gallon RO tank that I use to fill the 10 Gallon ATO tank. I keep all of that manual for the reasons you state above. I wired an outlet with a switch to control the pump that transfers water from the 100 gallon RO tank to the 10 gallon ATO tank. I manually flip the switch to fill the 10 gallon ATO tank whenever I am in the fish room and have only forgotten to turn that switch off a couple of times I usually end up hearing water pouring over the 10 gallon tank but thankfully it is zero TDS absolutely pure water and it gives my floor a good rinse. Solve one problem to create another i suppose.

SO the most RO I can ever dump into the tank is 10 gallons. It happened once when my Skimmer decided to go nuts and I was gone. Everything was fine being it only added 10 gallons.

Yeah definitely one way to do it. My tank XXL 750 does comes with a 7.5g ATO container I’ve thought about maybe incorporating. So refilling that manually (or via manual switch) is an option but doesn’t help if I’m going out of town for 2 weeks (from what I’ve read it lasts about 3 days).

Paul at autotopoff.com just got back to me that the longwire versions only put out 12v to the sensor and are thus the most suitable for extending. So if I did 2 runs of CL2 speaker wire (or 1 run of 4 conductor) then that should give me a remote high sensor/master switch plus the Osmolator wires I need for their switched socket. So that’s kind of what I’m leaning towards right now while I still have the ceiling open. Also meets fire/electrical code.

Only other idea I’ve had would be to put the switched socket on a smart switch that turns on twice a day for 20 minutes in sync with the Osmolator doing the same thing. So the ATO and the socket would be off most of the time, controlled separately. However smart switch schedules while mostly reliable have their issues sometimes. I guess this would be the cheapest option.

Still open to ideas; I prefer to have 2-3 failsafes on everything but aside from spending a ton of money adding to the Apex this might be about as good as I can do.

 

[ariellemermaid]

I guess another option here is to completely change course and use the Apex for ATO (scrap the Tunze altogether) instead by using an RODI line directly to the 7.5g ATO reservoir the tank comes with, a float valve (backup water off), and an in-line apex solenoid (primary water shut off $20) with at least 2 optical sensors ($50) and the FMM module ($100). The reservoir would only fill when a sensor at the bottom is open so it makes at least 7 gallons of water at a time (TDS creep). One thing I don’t like about what I’m doing now is that the OD of the 3/4” tubing is massive and I also have to deal with a siphon possibility.

 

[jda]

I don't think that those can fail on - their default position is off. You can write roger and ask. If so, then you can trust them... other stuff engineered this way is reliable, like Ranco temp controller.

 

[outhouse]

I use 10g pale as a ato res. That way no harm no foul if failure happens. It's filled automatically by rodi set on timer for 30 minutes a day. I use 2 floats in sump for added protection. Bulletproof

 

[jDoSe]

So this may be overkill for you, but I am in an apartment building and terrified of having an overflow.

I use multiple float switches and a sensor connected to my apex to determine if I need to add water and detect if there are any problems. The relay apex outlet will shut off if it’s been on over x minutes, and I have to manually restart (i get alert). The “pump” i use is an ecotech versa dosing pump. I can easily fine tune and control the flow rate to the tank so that even if it gets stuck on somehow after apex programming, it would not overflow the tank by the time I check the tank 24 hours later. On top of this, a maximum daily dose is programmed into the ecotech versa, so even if the outlet got stuck on, the flow rate somehow increased, and I didn’t monitor the tank for days, it would stop dosing once it believes it hit the max daily dose.

My tolerances arent even close. For example, if you normally add 1gal per day and overflow would be 8gal, I set my maximum daily dose to like 2 gal.

The versa also doesn’t siphon, or gravity dump water back in the reservoir when the pump turns off (if you are dosing kalk, it stirs it all back up).
It also has good head heights, can run dry, and grab water from the very bottom of the reservoir.

 

[ariellemermaid]

I don't think that those can fail on - their default position is off. You can write roger and ask. If so, then you can trust them... other stuff engineered this way is reliable, like Ranco temp controller.

Well technically this logic is true for most solenoids as well. And peristaltic pumps. Default condition is off, but yet there are reports out there of default-off devices getting stuck on and ruining tanks plus or minus houses; that’s my concern.

So this may be overkill for you, but I am in an apartment building and terrified of having an overflow.

I use multiple float switches and a sensor connected to my apex to determine if I need to add water and detect if there are any problems. The relay apex outlet will shut off if it’s been on over x minutes, and I have to manually restart (i get alert). The “pump” i use is an ecotech versa dosing pump. I can easily fine tune and control the flow rate to the tank so that even if it gets stuck on somehow after apex programming, it would not overflow the tank by the time I check the tank 24 hours later. On top of this, a maximum daily dose is programmed into the ecotech versa, so even if the outlet got stuck on, the flow rate somehow increased, and I didn’t monitor the tank for days, it would stop dosing once it believes it hit the max daily dose.

My tolerances arent even close. For example, if you normally add 1gal per day and overflow would be 8gal, I set my maximum daily dose to like 2 gal.

The versa also doesn’t siphon, or gravity dump water back in the reservoir when the pump turns off (if you are dosing kalk, it stirs it all back up).
It also has good head heights, can run dry, and grab water from the very bottom of the reservoir.

Does the Versa accept control (like 0-12V) from the Apex or do you just have the power outlet plugged into an Apex outlet (and control the flow from the pump itself)? I do suppose it might be possible to find a 50’ extension for that 12V (?) power supply, and since it’s low volts that wouldn’t be a problem to run in the ceiling. Also good point about peristaltic pumps; consensus I’ve seen is that if it has at least 3 rollers siphon should be very unlikely or impossible. Either way sounds like I’m running another RO line in the ceiling. Tank gets put in place in 2 weeks so I need to finish running (and ordering) what lines I’m going to run now.

 

[ariellemermaid]

No idea why it took me so long to realize this but with a peristaltic pump there’s no reason it has to go in the fish room! Any peristaltic pump at any price point could be mounted in the cabinet and plugged into the apex for failsafe control. Either with FMM sensors or….

It sounds like the Tunze pump power circuit can be connected to a 12V automotive relay to act as a simple open/close switch for the break out box. The idea being to use the Tunze controller and floats as the sensors (since I already own this and trust it). So Tunze calls for water->switch activated-> Apex turns on the ATO pump. So the first failsafe would be the Tunze itself (high float sensor), and the second backup failsafe would be a time limiter. A third failsafe could be something with the pump itself depending on the pump.