Hydros remote ATO & AWC

[Flowology]

I do not currently have a hydros system but will be purchasing soon and need to plan out what I need. My mixing station is in the basement and I ran water lines up to the 1st floor through a 1” chase tube I installed. Looking to do ATO and automatic water changes. I’m trying to eliminate the need to run power/ cords with water lines in the same tube. I have a pump hard lined into a drain behind the tank for water change waste water.

If you have a control X4 under the tank will it connect to a separate controller like a control X2 via WiFi in a basement or do they have to be connected with the command bus cable? I know the WiFi power strips and plugs are an option but would like to connect all 3 pumps and heater. Trying to wrap my head around all the cool tech in the reefing world and only want to spend the money once haha. I’m currently doing everything manually and it’s a pain.

 

[n2585722]

I do not currently have a hydros system but will be purchasing soon and need to plan out what I need. My mixing station is in the basement and I ran water lines up to the 1st floor through a 1” chase tube I installed. Looking to do ATO and automatic water changes. I’m trying to eliminate the need to run power/ cords with water lines in the same tube. I have a pump hard lined into a drain behind the tank for water change waste water.

If you have a control X4 under the tank will it connect to a separate controller like a control X2 via WiFi in a basement or do they have to be connected with the command bus cable? I know the WiFi power strips and plugs are an option but would like to connect all 3 pumps and heater. Trying to wrap my head around all the cool tech in the reefing world and only want to spend the money once haha. I’m currently doing everything manually and it’s a pain.

I have my tank 35ft from my mixing station in my garage and use a data only command bus cable between the controllers at the tank and the controllers in the garage. The command bus is low voltage and the data only does not carry any power so you would need a source of power in each location, I would not use wifi power strips for AWC, ATO or dosing. I have my AWC and ATO pumps in the garage with the mixing station. My Hydros controls the mixing station, RODI unit, AWC and ATO from controller in the garage.

 

[JeffB418]

I do not currently have a hydros system but will be purchasing soon and need to plan out what I need. My mixing station is in the basement and I ran water lines up to the 1st floor through a 1” chase tube I installed. Looking to do ATO and automatic water changes. I’m trying to eliminate the need to run power/ cords with water lines in the same tube. I have a pump hard lined into a drain behind the tank for water change waste water.

If you have a control X4 under the tank will it connect to a separate controller like a control X2 via WiFi in a basement or do they have to be connected with the command bus cable? I know the WiFi power strips and plugs are an option but would like to connect all 3 pumps and heater. Trying to wrap my head around all the cool tech in the reefing world and only want to spend the money once haha. I’m currently doing everything manually and it’s a pain.

Unfortunately if you want to have pumps in the basement synchronized you’ll have to run a command bus cable down to the basement. They sell lengths up to 50ft.

That being said. I have done some remote ATO before with safety fallbacks. I’ve used a single outlet WiFi outlet in my basement connected to a Neptune PMUP with AC adapter. Then have that pump rodi up one floor to my tank. I have the hydros at my tank control the WiFi outlet as the ATO pump. But in parallel I added a safety backup by using a liquid solenoid plugged into the hydros at the tank. I then program the solenoid to come on at the same time as the remote ATO pump. In the rare case WiFi goes out while the pump is enabled, the backup solenoid will stop the ATO from filling and getting stuck on.

As for AWC you could put 2 SOLE dosers at your tank and use them for AWC via a dosing schedule. It’s usually better to push than pull but it will still work and you won’t have to put the dosers near your mix station.