Silly question but could someone explain to me the physics of why my water pump does this in my ATO as if I am 5?

[chousecat]

Hello,

Something I noticed with my ATO is that when the water level gets lower and lower, at a certain point my ATO pump loses strength and can't pump water as strongly anymore despite the container being still like 2/5ths full and the pump is placed near the bottom of the bucket. I end up having to refill my ATO bucket when it is still 2/5ths full and the pump is able to pump water normally again. Why does this phenomenon happen? Why does my ATO pump not maintain the strength it has when the bucket is full all the way to the top?

I am using a regular Home Depot 5 gallon orange bucket and this is the pump I bought off of Amazon.



Is it cause my tank is too high? I have an AIO aquarium so its about 5 ft of height to get pump into the return chamber.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for an good and cheap ATO pump to use with my JBJ nano ATO? Lookin to also start adding Kalk to my ATO too.

 

[chousecat]

For some reason the Amazon link is not showing on my end but the ATO pump is an Ankway Upgraded Submersible pump on Amazon and its $17.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

The ATO pump can't handle the head pressure of pumping the water 5 feet vertical. If possible, try raising the 5 gallon bucket, place something under it to raise it a foot or two off the ground.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

Or get a better pump. The Tom's aqualifter can handle a five foot head

 

[mdb_talon]

The ATO pump can't handle the head pressure of pumping the water 5 feet vertical. If possible, try raising the 5 gallon bucket, place something under it to raise it a foot or two off the ground.

This above.

Just to clarify though since it can be confusing. The relevant head height is from the top of the water in container you pumping from to the container you are pumping to. As you empty the container the pump has to do more work because the relevant head height increases.

 

[Montiman]

I typically explain this with an analogy. Granted this is not perfect.

As a kid I used to play with my brothers in the pool. We thought it was really cool that we could stand in chest high water and lift each other with one hand when we couldn't do this normally. What we found was the shallower the water we stood in the harder it was to lift each other.

Likewise your ATO has a natural pressure that naturally wants the water level in the pump hose to be the same as the level in the surrounding container. The water level in the container is helping the pump lift the water part of the way. As the water in the ato container lowers the equilibrium point between the container water level and the hose water level lowers and the pump has to work harder, just like lifting my brothers was harder in waist high water than in chest high water.