How to Build a Carlson Surge Bucket, Part 1

[P-Dub]

I actually don't have that large of a sump, but yes, you have to adjust the switches slightly. Essentially instead of having a static line that you keep filled to, you have an upper and lower range, and the ato keeps it in that range for you. In the end, you always have the same amount of water in the system, it's just that the line moves.

Unfortunately, there is no upper and lower range on my Tunze 3155. There is a primary and an overfill float switch. The salinity swings and the added water during the periods of low water would overfill my sump if there is a power outage. At least that would be the case with my 30 gal sump. If only I could fit a larger sump under my DT... Definitely a doable system with the right system and configuration.

 

[garbled]

There shouldn't be any salinity swings, even with that setup. Lets assume you have a 5 gallon surge:

1. 5 gallons of water is pumped up into the bucket
2. ATO refills with fresh water (this is where you moved the ATO down so it doesn't muck your salinity up on the first go)
3. 5 gallons comes out of bucket, sump gains about 5 gallons of extra water, so level rises up above the float switch.
4. 5 gallons of water is pumped into the bucket
5. the ATO does nothing because now the water line is at the primary level
6. Process continues until evaporation causes loss of water, at which point the ato will refill when the water is all in the bucket. (but only the amount of evaporation!)

As for the power outage, my solution for that was simple. The pump that feeds the bucket does not have any kind of anti-drainback or check valve. When you remove power to the pump, the bucket just drains back out of the pump into the sump. In this way, you are never storing water in the bucket during a power outage. Again, in this case, your system does not flood due to the ATO.

The sump sizing comes in where we adjust the ATO level downwards slightly to compensate for the bucket. If this downward adjustment brings the water level too low for the pump to operate properly, then yes, this will not work. In my case I only needed to move it an inch or so on my Ruby 36 sump. Essentially, you are not raising the amount of water in the system, what you are doing is lowering the operating level of water in the sump by 5 gallons. Obviously if 5 gallons is too much you could go smaller, and in my case, what I actually did was basically add a gallon or so to the system, and only moved the ATO down halfway to 50/50 the difference. (I did a full powerfail check to make sure my sump could handle the extra water)

 

[Colin E Matthews]

Well done it works fine
But I built a similar unit but was divided down the middle with 2 siphons,one in each side ,I filled one side to nearly full and the other was empty when I turned on the pump which had 2 outlets into the bucket ,I ran the return pipes to opposite sides of the tank ,giving a true pulsating wave effect when each side filled and then released at different times