McJaeger
Community Member
Hey guys. I wanted to share my solution to a problem I've had a few times since I installed an ATO a few months ago. I haven't seen any threads with this exact fix and I'm a bit new to the hobby, so pardon me if this is common knowledge.
I'm using the XP Aqua Duetto as an ATO for my Fluval EVO 13.5, and it's worked great, but every so often I'll run into an issue where the sensor fails and doesn't give the pump in the ATO reservoir the "off" signal. The last time this happened it emptied the entire water reservoir into my tank, flooded the room, and dropped my salinity to 1.018. Fortunately everything survived, but I wanted to prevent it from ever happening again. Since the EVO has a relatively small overflow compartment I was a bit limited in my options, but I settled on using an XP Aqua RO/DI Flood Guardian to detect whether the water level in my tank gets above the optimal level and to shut the flow of RO water into my tank off if the sensor gets tripped.
It's a pretty simple setup. I have the Duetto ATO sensor in chamber 3 to detect when the water is low and the Flood Guardian sensor in chamber 1 to detect when the water level is high. The Flood guardian solenoid valve is connected to the tube coming out the top of my RO water reservoir, and its power supply is plugged into a smart power strip that lets me program on/off schedules for each outlet. When the guardian sensor is tripped, the solenoid closes, and and water continually being pumped out of the RO reservoir is shunted back into the reservoir via the backflow valve that came with the Duetto. Eventually the Duetto will should detect when the water is pumping for too long and cut power to the water lifting pump, but this should help stem additional "topoffs" if the water level is too high. The flood guardian activates and opens the solenoid when the power is switched on, so I programmed my smart strip to quickly cycle the power off then on twice a day. I may tweak this program as time goes on, but my rationale for it is that if the sensor erroneously detects a high water level, the ATO will only be shut off for a maximum of 12 hours before solenoid is re-opened. If the guardian sensor is still under water when this happens it'll beep until I notice and deal with it, and if it was just a false alarm the system will re-engage as if nothing happened.
See the attached pics for the sensor/solenoid layout (and a pic of the beautiful work in progress that is my tank
). We'll see how it plays out in the long run since I just installed it today, but the added redundancy will help me relax when I'm not around. What do you guys think?
I'm using the XP Aqua Duetto as an ATO for my Fluval EVO 13.5, and it's worked great, but every so often I'll run into an issue where the sensor fails and doesn't give the pump in the ATO reservoir the "off" signal. The last time this happened it emptied the entire water reservoir into my tank, flooded the room, and dropped my salinity to 1.018. Fortunately everything survived, but I wanted to prevent it from ever happening again. Since the EVO has a relatively small overflow compartment I was a bit limited in my options, but I settled on using an XP Aqua RO/DI Flood Guardian to detect whether the water level in my tank gets above the optimal level and to shut the flow of RO water into my tank off if the sensor gets tripped.
It's a pretty simple setup. I have the Duetto ATO sensor in chamber 3 to detect when the water is low and the Flood Guardian sensor in chamber 1 to detect when the water level is high. The Flood guardian solenoid valve is connected to the tube coming out the top of my RO water reservoir, and its power supply is plugged into a smart power strip that lets me program on/off schedules for each outlet. When the guardian sensor is tripped, the solenoid closes, and and water continually being pumped out of the RO reservoir is shunted back into the reservoir via the backflow valve that came with the Duetto. Eventually the Duetto will should detect when the water is pumping for too long and cut power to the water lifting pump, but this should help stem additional "topoffs" if the water level is too high. The flood guardian activates and opens the solenoid when the power is switched on, so I programmed my smart strip to quickly cycle the power off then on twice a day. I may tweak this program as time goes on, but my rationale for it is that if the sensor erroneously detects a high water level, the ATO will only be shut off for a maximum of 12 hours before solenoid is re-opened. If the guardian sensor is still under water when this happens it'll beep until I notice and deal with it, and if it was just a false alarm the system will re-engage as if nothing happened.
See the attached pics for the sensor/solenoid layout (and a pic of the beautiful work in progress that is my tank
). We'll see how it plays out in the long run since I just installed it today, but the added redundancy will help me relax when I'm not around. What do you guys think?
