DIY ATO Suggestions?

[ramtmac]

I'm looking to make an ATO for my 55 gal tank. I don't have a sump so the water would have to go straight into my tank.

Any suggestions on easy an inexpensive ways to build one? Seen so many designs, but some look dangerous and some are just confusing.

(I've just gotten started on this whole salt water aquarium hobby).

[Aristarchus]

Our club president has a gravity feed set up that is extremely simple and inexpensive on his quarantine tank. It's just a 5 gallon jug with a john guest fitting in it and has tubing ran from the fitting to a float valve in the tank. If the float valve sticks the worst that can happen is your salinity will be a little bit low but it shouldn't overflow unless you have you water level a bit high normally. If you want it to be aesthetically friendly then you will probably have to buy a full blown ATO from autotopoff.com (cheapest I can find), and run a remote reservoir from some where else in the house. Gravity fed will be your cheapest bet since you won't need to buy or power a pump. If you do use the ATO from autotopoff.com and decide to go the gravity route then you should put a solenoid switch in line with it just for added measure. Your two float switches, and lastly the float valve in your tank will be your 3 lines of defense to prevent floods. If you have snails then be careful using a float valve in the tank since they can sit on it and drain your reservoir. HTH

[hebygb]

ATO is an area that I do not feel comfortable in skimping nor DIY.

I use the following:
ATO dual floatswitch with guards from autotopoff.com ($55)
Aqualifter ($19)
resevoir (empty salt bucket)

IMHO, the only risk is that both switches fail, or there is a power outage. In the case of both switches failing... I have never had a switch fail. But if they do, I control what is in my resevoir so the impact on my tank is known and finite... It will not crash my system.

In the case of a power outage... chances are this will mitigate evaporation because the lights will not be running...

This same setup will work if and when you decide to incorporate a kalk reactor between water resevoir and tank/sump.

ATO is a critical component for the stability of a healthy tank and the consistent operation of a skimmer. Once again, this is IMHO... $75 dollars is a cheap expenditure in this hobby for a nearly "set it and forget it" system.

[ramtmac]

Thanks. So you don't recommend a DIY ATO?

[hoffy02]

Here is a cheap and easy one, they sell it in a kit or you can buy seperate parts... Or you can go the route I did and use their directions and buy the stuff you need local... you can also modify this one to allow the switch to control a small electrically contoled valve in order to open or close from a gravity fed source...

Here ya go

http://www.aquahub.com/store/media/TopitOffKitDeluxeInstruxCompDec07.pdf

[Mike31154]

My current system is also sumpless. I use a DIY setup similar to gravity feed but just a tad more complex. Still pretty simple though and with a minimum of electrical gizmos, none of which touch the water. A 7 gal glass winemaking carboy with a rubber stopper with two holes for acrylic tubing. One short tube, one long going almost to the bottom of the carboy. The short tube is connected via flexible tubing to a small air pump on a timer. A small check valve may be installed to prevent water from feeding back into the air pump, but the way mine is set up, it's almost impossible for that to happen. This pressurizes the carboy and pushes top off water up the long tube to a mechanical (furnace humidifier) float valve through more flexible tubing. The whole thing is set up on a small stand next to the display, so not the most pleasing set up to the eye, but it works well. I suppose I could always hide the carboy in one of those wicker baskets or something, but I don't mind looking at the rig, so I haven't bothered. The other thing you need to do is figure out your timing schedule to run the air pump in order to keep up with evaporation. If the pump runs a bit too long, the float valve will prevent overfilling. Also need to make sure the stopper is snug in the bottle, since it does build up a bit of pressure over time.

A strictly gravity fed set up is not feasible for me at this time since it's too difficult and likely dangerous to set up a large container that high above my display. A future build with a basement sump will solve all these issues. Then I will definitely go strictly gravity feed - simple and fewer failure modes as with commercial systems with multiple float switches, pumps, tripped GFIs, circuit breakers, controllers etc. But that's just my take...

This set up provides about a week's worth of top off for my 77 gal.

http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pvuPV98pDCZk8s8lCJec9gyZtzarbmYcS1raIlButXZc_xoxa4MC_E7nQyh8nt5bLWdSr-5T6mvOd2uPWL5e6Iw/Carboy.JPG

http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pWBiahsz7VXaXitGOlOUHmrh8KAGkOd1vISJvpCy9ZICvyx1TmF7VObLjB4uWYp2Dh2TdtS4571WkzEMAF_gCeA/FloatValve.JPG

[alski]

This is on my 20. I usually have to fill it about every other day or so. It's just a large pet bottle with the ball in the tip removed.