How do you fill your ATO?

[Bbio]

Honestly curious how everyone fills their ATO.

Are you bucketing your RODI around every other week? Do you have an elaborate hose setup in your walls that fill it? Something else? Share what you have going on!

We have 2 tanks that are in our living room/dining room. I find myself bucketing water during the weekend, but I'm sure there is a better way...knowing my RODI lives in the basement and probably needs to get about 8-10 feet of head pressure to fill the ATO res under the tanks.

I have the 10.5 gallon RedSea reefcan that has a handle. Once every 15 days or so I pull the hose out of the sump, disconnect the power for the pump and hold the tube/cord in my left hand and carry the container by the handle in my right hand and bring it to the RODI in the laundry room to fill up. Then carry it back to the tank and hook it all back up. Once filled.

 

[exnisstech]

My rodi and fresh saltwater are stored in the basement and I pump both up using a pond pump and a python hose with the pump connected to a $10 remote controlled outlet.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Fill up a 5g bucket and lug it over to my tank.

 

[petcellar]

I might do something similar. When I remodeled to prepare for the new tank I installed a conduit in the wall behind the tank to allow for future upgrades. I could run a long RO tube from the Brute with RODI in the garage up through the attic and down through the conduit to the ATO. How do you control the dos for ATO refill?

Meanwhile I use two 2.5 gallon bottles to fill the ATO manually. It holds 14 gallons so I only have to do it every few weeks and its really not bad.

So right now I use the DOS for both ATO and AWC like @subodhs did in this thread.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/why-do-people-buy-expensive-ato.1090871/

The weakness here is that it depends on the salinity probe. That being said - there is logic to cut it off and alarm if there are large swings, and if there is a slow calibration drift of the probe I should catch it on my own with intermittent hydrometer testing.





But for when I was using the DOS for ATO only I did it like this:

I had two optical sensors in the sump.

My coding was as below:

Fallback OFF
tdata 00:00:00,1,19,6,2,2,148,130,6,62,2,28,11,0
If ATO_1 CLOSED Then OFF
If ATO_2 CLOSED Then OFF
When On > 360:00 Then OFF
Defer 001:00 Then OFF
Min Time 030:00 Then OFF

Basically dosed 5 gallons of RODI a day.... but stopped when either optical sensor was wet.
If it ran more then 6 hours without stopping it should turn off.
I had both sensors at the same level.... more for redundancy than high/low sensors.

My current evaporation rate is about 1.5 gallons a day, so this worked without a hitch.


I guess I should clarify - I'm not using the DOS to refill the ATO - I'm using it as the ATO, with the RODI brute from the mixing station as a water source.

 

[Jimbo327]

My freshwater 55gal barrel in mixing station doubles as my ATO container. My RODI refills barrel once per week.

Tunze osmolator pumps from 55gal freshwater container to my sump.

I don’t touch a thing, it’s all controlled through APEX. I designed it that way.

 

[Mebbid]

My RO reservoir lasts about 3 weeks currently. When I do my water changes I have a hose that I run from my mixing station all connected to a wifi smart plug. Drain the tank, refill with salt water, turn off the pump remotely, flip a few valves for fresh water and then fill up the RO/DI the same way I did the tank.

 

[BeanAnimal]

RO/DI --> Solenoid --> ATO Tank

The ATO tank is equipped with (2) float switches and (1) float valve.

The float switches act as a latching relay setup, the float valve as a fail safe.
This used to be controlled by physical relays, but is now software controlled through the Profilux. The logical mechanism is the same.


Replace the words in the diagram below
SUMP = ATO resevior
TOP OFF PUMP = RO/DI SYSTEM SOLENOID
FILL BLUE TANK TO RIGHT = RO/DI SYSTEM

 

[Impunitus]

Loving all this feedback!

I already use an Osmolator on the 60, and may pick up another for the larger tank. Will just run it from my RO container in the basement.

Right now I pump RO upstairs and mix in the kitchen for water changes. May change that and get a 'proper' mixing station in the basement.

 

[braaap]

55 gallon bin connected to 60ft of tubing run through the walls to the tank. Peristaltic pump sends it to the tank controlled by a Hydros. Bin refills when low and shuts off when full. Water changes are the same way. 2 soles with 60ft of tubing run through the walls. One dumps directly into a drain. 2 gallons a day that way.

 

[asr3510]

i have my RO/DI filter plumbed directly to the sump with a float switch on the sump

 

[Pntbll687]

My two systems in the basement I use a 1in hose to fill them. My water mixing station is vertical with RO on top, so when I open the valves it gravity feeds to the hose and I can fill the ato quickly.

My system on the first floor of the house I still bring buckets, but I think I'm going to setup a dosqd on apex to fill the ato from the basement

 

[X-37B]

275g tote outside under the patio.
5 gal gas can with spout for remote tanks and a hose from the 275 fills my 3 main systems ATO's from just outside the slider.

 

[JTP424]

I've got these green 2 gallon jugs I've cleaned out from cat litter.
The graphic/wrapper slides off and leaves no sticky residue, so it's just an easily moved 2 gallon jug. I use them for both my RO and water changes now, a sharpie label and they're good to go.

 

[56longroof]

I run kalk in my ATO so I fill it by hand with gallon jugs.

 

[Ryan - Serious Reefs]

I’ve done this a few different ways:

• Haul around buckets: This works, but in my experience the splashes usually do more damage to hardwood floors, carpet, or the stand than whatever is saved by avoiding a better solution.
• Use a larger ATO reservoir: At the studio I use 15-gallon ATO reservoirs with these containers. I fill them with a pump and Python hose. They might be a little ugly for a home environment, but build a box around one, throw a plant on top, and no one will ever know. :)
• Run RO tubing through the ceiling or basement/crawl space: You can run a line directly to the tank and use a float valve to keep the reservoir full. I strongly prefer a fixed-arm float valve because the wing nut on adjustable versions is one of the most common failure points. In 20 years, I’ve never personally seen a fixed float valve like this fail, although I’m sure it can happen. You can back it up with a solenoid, but the lifespan of those can be fairly short. The absorbent wad shut valves are cheaper and I've never seen one wear out before.
• Hide RO tubing along the baseboard: Another option is running the RO line inside cord tracks like these. Paint them the same color as the wall before installing them and they nearly disappear.

The automated solutions can be fed directly from the RO system, gravity-fed from a reservoir, or pump-driven. Each approach has different tradeoffs in convenience, TDS creep, and safety.

If you do any of these I'd suggest a watchdog water alarm at the tank. Cheap and 50% of the time someone is probably home to hear it if there is a catastrophic failure.

 

[Chuck_e]

10 g reservoir beside the sump, RODI in the same room. Control by Apex. An optical sensor in the reservoir starts the RODI and two timers at low level. The first timer controls 2 solenoids - it takes about 4 minutes for the TDS meter to read zero, the solenoids direct the product from the RODI to the drain to start, and then after 4.1/2 minutes switch the flow to the reservoir. The second timer turns the RODI off near full. A float switch on the RODI product line is the first backup, a second optical sensor will shut the RODI off at high level.

All this means I don't have to haul bottles or buckets, and I can go away without worrying. Too much...

 

[buzzfin]

I have a line running from my RODI Brute container in my fish room that runs up through the ceiling, across the attic, and down the wall behind the DT in the living room. When the Apex notifies me that my ATO is getting low, I open a valve on the RODI line coming from the wall and turn on the pump in my RODI container using a bluetooth switch. So much easier than pulling out my ATO, filling, and reinstalling every week.

 

[craftycamper]

My RO storage is upstairs so I just siphon it down to where my tanks are.

 

[ShakeyGizzard]

RO/DI --> Solenoid --> ATO Tank

The ATO tank is equipped with (2) float switches and (1) float valve.

The float switches act as a latching relay setup, the float valve as a fail safe.
This used to be controlled by physical relays, but is now software controlled through the Profilux. The logical mechanism is the same.


Replace the words in the diagram below
SUMP = ATO resevior
TOP OFF PUMP = RO/DI SYSTEM SOLENOID
FILL BLUE TANK TO RIGHT = RO/DI SYSTEM

I would put a redundant control for F52, something to break that circuit for instance of failure of F52 stuck off

 

[tzabor10]

i have my RO/DI filter plumbed directly to the sump with a float switch on the sump

I’ve done this a few different ways:

• Haul around buckets: This works, but in my experience the splashes usually do more damage to hardwood floors, carpet, or the stand than whatever is saved by avoiding a better solution.
• Use a larger ATO reservoir: At the studio I use 15-gallon ATO reservoirs with these containers. I fill them with a pump and Python hose. They might be a little ugly for a home environment, but build a box around one, throw a plant on top, and no one will ever know. :)
• Run RO tubing through the ceiling or basement/crawl space: You can run a line directly to the tank and use a float valve to keep the reservoir full. I strongly prefer a fixed-arm float valve because the wing nut on adjustable versions is one of the most common failure points. In 20 years, I’ve never personally seen a fixed float valve like this fail, although I’m sure it can happen. You can back it up with a solenoid, but the lifespan of those can be fairly short. The absorbent wad shut valves are cheaper and I've never seen one wear out before.
• Hide RO tubing along the baseboard: Another option is running the RO line inside cord tracks like these. Paint them the same color as the wall before installing them and they nearly disappear.

The automated solutions can be fed directly from the RO system, gravity-fed from a reservoir, or pump-driven. Each approach has different tradeoffs in convenience, TDS creep, and safety.

If you do any of these I'd suggest a watchdog water alarm at the tank. Cheap and 50% of the time someone is probably home to hear it if there is a catastrophic failure.

• Run RO tubing through the ceiling or basement/crawl space: You can run a line directly to the tank and use a float valve to keep the reservoir full. I strongly prefer a fixed-arm float valve because the wing nut on adjustable versions is one of the most common failure points. In 20 years, I’ve never personally seen a fixed float valve like thisfail, although I’m sure it can happen. You can back it up with a solenoid, but the lifespan of those can be fairly short. The absorbent wad shut valves are cheaper and I've never seen one wear out before.
• I must have got this idea from 52 weeks of reefing. An amazing resource to get started. Thanks SR!