ATO

[Reeflogic]

@cmcoker What part of Texas are you in? I'll be in the Austin area (permanently) in about a month.

 

[cmcoker]

DFW, they have an active club in Austin I believe.. Think they may be having a swap/show in August... Might be wrong on the date.

 

[Reeflogic]

Ahhh, nice, I grew up in North Mesquite! Out near Lake Ray Hubbard.

 

[Waboss]

Avast all the way. I've had the Tunze and it worked well too. I just wanted the 4 slot mag-mount for the Avast to save some room in the sump. Turns out the ATO has worked like a champ with no maintenance. I was using a Tom's aqualifter pump but swapped it for Avast's diaphragm pump. It's smaller and works.

 

[zoomonster]

Tunze 3155 2 years now flawless (and never cleaned) and really nothing else I would consider. That Avast I never used but I had looked at them in the past and walked away when I saw it was using a pressure tube sensor which is literally the same mechanism used by some of the first ATO's. I had one of those that wiped out a tank some years back and that was a no go. IMO no one has come close to the precision/safety of the redundant optical and mechanical sensors on the Tunze and of course the fail safes on its controller. I can literally take a cup of water out of the sump and it will be replaced. Much more precise than the Avast with 1/2" tolerance and my salinity stays near constant (except of course for salt creep loss). Avast might be a 2nd choice, for me, but most anything else and you are risking wiping your tank IMO.

 

[cmcoker]

Well, anything can fail...
I don't recommend using a reservoir large enough to crash your tank... With any ATO.
And that rules out connecting your rodi unit as well..

On my biocube 14 I have a 32oz reservoir hidden on a shelf below the tank, about a weeks water but not enough to flood/crash.

My 120g display I dose kalk, it's set on a timer to run 2 minutes every half hour, so it can't ever dump the entire 10g reservoir.

The only problem I've heard of is if you get a leak in your tubing, so if you have mischievous cats or dogs make sure they don't have access to chew it up.

I don't get a half inch variance, it's usually less than a quarter inch difference. I have my line marked in the sump, and check it daily when I clean the skimmer neck.

 

[Reeflogic]

I've yet to read anyone having an Avast ATO that failed, I'm sure it "could" happen, but the simplicity of it and with Apex programming you can prevent disasters. I too, do not use a large reservoir and I have had 2 Tunze controllers simply stop working. I'm moving to Austin so I will be taking both Tunzes in and see if they can be repaired and try and see why they stopped. I really loved my Tunze products, but for $90 bucks (+ a pump), my money will be going to Avast for any future ATO's. Both are solid products, I may have just had bad luck....

 

[Chriscrna]

Did I already say gravity?

 

[ZIGGY63]

I have had both jbj and tunze never really had a problem with either. On the tunze nano I have one complaint that is the three minute run time. Left for my two weeks and came back to the little tank no being filled right. I'm surprised the return pump lasted.

 

[Brian Mountain]

Did I already say gravity?

Explain this gravity thing you speak of...
Seriously, how do you have it set up?

 

[BlueDevil]

Explain this gravity thing you speak of...
Seriously, how do you have it set up?

I'm sure Chris will provide all the details about his setup, but basically have your FW top off container at a level higher than the sump (assuming you top off into the sump). Then a float switch controls when and how much water is dumped from the FW container into the sump.

I personally wouldn't call this fool proof either as float valves have the potential for failing too. However as long as your sump can hold the quantity of water that the ATO container holds you should be fine assuming you have other failsafes like Apex to shut off the ATO if a certain pH value era triggered.