ATO and Float Switch Nightmares

It's a great thing to have ,specially when your away,like on vaction.and having in the sump is good,because nothing(like snail) can get on your float to make it go on when not needed.You should be safe and you fill have more time t have fun with your tank instead of lugging water and dumping water all the time.

Loverotties said:

It's a great thing to have ,specially when your away,like on vaction.and having in the sump is good,because nothing(like snail) can get on your float to make it go on when not needed.You should be safe and you fill have more time t have fun with your tank instead of lugging water and dumping water all the time.

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My main concern is with the float switches. I know they're mechanical and anything mechanical is prone to failure. My question is are they very reliable and is there a high incidence of them getting stuck and causing an unwanted flood?

Make sure you get high quality float switches and not the cheap chinese imports from fleabay. Good float switches are going to set you back about $10 each and add up quickly. I have 8 of them on my system (each float switch has a redundant backup, if one fails then my ATO will not work)

The brand I suggest is Madison, you can get them at McMaster Carr with the manufacturer MN of M8000. They are also available with a snail shroud from AutoTopoff.com

Mine have been fully operational with 0 failures for about a year now.

thepianist said:

My main concern is with the float switches. I know they're mechanical and anything mechanical is prone to failure. My question is are they very reliable and is there a high incidence of them getting stuck and causing an unwanted flood?

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it all depends on how you design it... I currently have a mechanical float switch, however I will be changing to electric soon.

Basically, I will have a solenoid operated water valve that is OFF with no power (so in a power failure there will be no flood OR ATO)

There will be a power supply to send 24 volts to this solenoid to open it and let water flow.

I will have two float switches.. One to keep the water level where I want it and another situated about an inch higher up out of the water. These switches will connect the circuit when they are in the down position.

so the HIGH one will ALWAYS be down and "on"

The lower switch will keep the level proper... If it fails ON the level will rise 1 inch to the second switch and it will now be regulating the water level.

Have one for about 5 years and bin perfect!

Fat Tony said:

Make sure you get high quality float switches and not the cheap Chinese imports from fleabay. Good float switches are going to set you back about $10 each and add up quickly. I have 8 of them on my system (each float switch has a redundant backup, if one fails then my ATO will not work)

The brand I suggest is Madison, you can get them at McMaster Carr with the manufacturer MN of M8000. They are also available with a snail shroud from AutoTopoff.com

Mine have been fully operational with 0 failures for about a year now.

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Agreed! Redundancy is the key! In series for control floats and parallel for high and low limits.

Really appreciate all of your responses and feeling much better about adding ATO to my system. Haven't heard anyone respond yet telling of flooding incidents occurring with them so I will assume if I have good equipment and operating properly that floods are a rarity. Thanks for all of your input.

what I did on my old 150 was add a mechanical float inside the sump. My insurance, was a bulkhead above the water line for overflow. Took that to a drain in the basement with 3/4 pvc. Biggest concern was the float sticking and not shuting off the R/O. Worked like a charm for the time I had it.

slumpysix said:

what I did on my old 150 was add a mechanical float inside the sump. My insurance, was a bulkhead above the water line for overflow. Took that to a drain in the basement with 3/4 pvc. Biggest concern was the float sticking and not shuting off the R/O. Worked like a charm for the time I had it.

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Sorry, but this is a recipe for disaster. If that mechanical float stuck, you would have been on your way to having a feshwater tank in a few days. The pipe running to the basement would have handled the runoff and you wouldn't even notice until it was too late.

Many tanks have been lost to RO/DI's hooked up directly to the sump with just a mechanical float valve.

I always kept an eye on it, but at the time it worked as I didn't have a reserve system in place.

You could always put the ATO on a timer. Say for an hour or what ever. It you had a malfuntion it would only run for the amount of time you have it set for.
Just an idea. Don't have one. Just thinking out loud

you could just go with the tunze osmolator there are no switches or floats to stick, it is a bit pricey but well worth the money for your piece of mind, i have one and had no problems with it.

never hook up your rodi directly to your sump like jason said if the float switch fails it would be a disaster. i use a 5gal tank for my ato holding tank on my 75 i fill it once a week depending on evaporation. like a lot of people i live in an apartment so i store my water in 5gal. jugs, when i have to fill the ato i pour 5gal. into my 10gal. water change tank i run a power head to mix in my chemicals then use another small power head to transfer the water to my ato tank.

one other thing to remember is use a propper sized ato tank, for instance i use a 29gal. tank for my sump and 5gal. tank for my ato if everything were to go wrong meaning if my ato ran it's self dry and then the power went out my sump is big enough to handle the extra water and never have to worry about it flooding.

http://www.marinedepot.com/Tunze_Os...f_Plug_In_Units-Tunze-TZ4111-FIDPETPU-vi.html

My Spectrapure system is working like a champ now. It has a tube that sends a signal to a solenoid and lets the water run down an inch then turns on.

This is backed up with a mechanical float switch just in case.

If the power goes off then there won't be any water added.

Having a max. reservoir size is cheap insurance, just in case the float switch sticks in the on position. The only issue then becomes lugging 15 gallons of RO/DI from the big reservoir to the tank reservoirs when the tank uses up 4 gallons a day. The good thing about using ATO is consistant salinity for your specimens as well.

The only floods I've had have been when I forger to set the sprinkler timer to turn off the Spectrapure when filling the main reservoir that I pull tank reservoir refill waters from.

This is what they invented wet/dry vacuums for. :nuts: