THE BEST AUTO TOP OFF: Spectrapure Ultra-Precise Liquid Level Controller II

[Salty_Snack]

I desperately needed an ATO for the nano I have in my office and so the search began for the best ATO solution on the market.

 

From my research there exist the following 4 metered methods to measure the water level in an aquarium.

 

1. Float switch: By far the most common and cheapest. However, arguably the least reliable; the are susceptible to snails and salt creep. The set up would require at least two floats. One to measure the water level and one for a high water level. All in one packages don't that usually include a pump are available for ~$50 on up but ideally, for me at least, I would use it with a controller and a dosing pump ~$80.

 

2. Optical sensor: (Tunze Osmolator) Possibly more reliable than float switches and arguably the most accurate ATO, but still having possible problems with snails and salt creep. For ~$200 you get a sensor, controller and pump. The pump can hand a ~7 foot head but doses kind of fast for my liking on a nano. Also, it will overshoot the sensor so that more water than needed is added to the tank to prevent the pump from coming on frequently.

 

3. Thermal sensor: (Elso Osmocontroller Digital) Would be a great ATO if it had a back up float switch. But with only one sensor a sensor failure means you have a freshed out tank and water on the floor. Elos claims that mechanical switches will always be a point of failure, and for the most part they are right. But not including one as a backup that will never see water unless there is a failure is just stupid. However, the thermal sensor idea, I believe, is a good one for primary water level measurement. There should be little effect from snails or salt creep and with no moving parts there isn't anything to wear out. I look forward to seeing an improved version of this product in the future.

 

4. Pressure switch: (Spectrapure UPLC-II, Avast Marine) Depending on the quality of the pressure switch it can be quite accurate. This method of water level measurement is not effected by snails or salt creep. In fact the switch isn't even in the tank, a hollow tube is placed in the tank and a plastic tube is linked to the tube in the tank and the pressure switch in the base unit.

 

Additionally the salinity of the water may be measure using a probe with either a neptune apex/lite/jr or reefkeeper lite/elite, among similar controllers. However, I find this method the least appealing due to long term stability of the probe. The water level may also be controlled with a gravity fed ATO, which from what I've read, works; it just wasn't something I was willing to do.

 

Of all the available products I chose the Spectrapure Ultra-precise liquid level controller II. The reasons I chose this product are as follows.

 

-Highly accurate pressure switch accurate to < .1" is their claim and I can back that up with my experience.

-Included peristaltic dosing pump with delivers the top off water slowly and can pull water up several feet and push water up tens of feet into the air. Basically, unless you are pumping water three stories or more into the air you don't need to worry about the head pressure.

-No back-siphon to worry about.

-You set the low and high level so if you want the pump to come on more often and keep the water level very constant that is a possibility. Or you could have a larger fluctuation in the level, causing have the pump to come on less frequently and add more water when it does.

-Included back-up float switch.

-5 year warranty

-American company and assembled in the USA!!!

 

My experience with the product has been great! It is compact, sturdy, and light. Like I stated above, there is only a plastic tube submerged in the water which is impervious to snails and salt creep. It is surprisingly accurate, keeping my salinity spot on.

 

But this wouldn't be a fair review if I didn't tell you everything so here's the dirt.

-The unit isn't really loud but it certainly isn't whisper quite. I have it sitting out on a shelf so I hear the full effect of the noise it produces and even from 10 feet way you will still hear it, but just barely. The nice thing is that I could stash it anywhere if it really bothered me, but it doesn't so on the shelf it stays.

-Setting the unit isn't intuitive at all. True, you only need to push two buttons, one of them twice, but if you didn't read that in the instructions you wouldn't be able to figure that out.

-Mounting the water lines to the pump is somewhat inflexible. They have to be pointed up from the top of the unit. It would be nice if they where rotatable.

-It does require some maintenance but nothing major and not that often.

 

At ~$230 it isn't a cheap unit in the least. But when you consider the 5 year warranty I believe it is worth it. If you burned through 2 JBJ ATOs in that time it would be ~$200 worth of controllers and that doesn't include a very nice dosing pump. When compared to the Tunze or Elso there is no competition at all. The Spectrapure UPLC-II wins hands down. That's not to say that the former two don't work well and that many people are happy with both. Its just that spec for spec I don't think the UPLC-II can be beat.

 

No I don't work for Spectrapure. No I don't have any affiliation with them in the least. I'm just one satisfied customer who after much contemplation purchased the UPLC-II... and LOVE IT!

 

--1 year update--

 

So its been about a year with the spectrapure UPLC-II ATO unit and I love it as much as the day I set it up. For this update I'll go through a couple of screw ups on my part, talk about maintenance of the unit and a couple of nice features that I hadn't though of after having the unit a short while before wrote the initial review.

 

Screw ups

I have, on no fewer than three occasions over the last year, let the ATO water bucket run dry and the pump remained running for somewhere between 0 and ~24 hours. Operating any other type of pump like this would burn it out and require you to replace it. However, the peristaltic dosing pump of the UPLC-II kept on running and only got a little warm. So lets say $20 per pump, the UPLC-II has saved me $60, thanks spectrapure.

 

Maintenance

NONE. The pressure tube that submerges into the water has stayed clean. After each screw up I have opened up the peristaltic pump to look for signs of damage and the thing looks brand new, no degradation or even wear of the drive unit or the rubber tubing

 

Things I didn't know

 

-I currently fill up gallon jugs with top off water and replace them as needed. Its nice to just be able to stick the 1/4" tubing down into the bottom of the jug while the pump remains on the shelf. Any of the ATO units that have submersible pumps could never be operated this way.

 

-I'm not sure how long the power cord for the pumps are on other ATO units but it is really nice to be able to keep the ATO water jugs several feet away from the tank where they are out of the way. I'm not sure if the pump power cord would allow this.

 

-Being able to mount the pressure tube down into the water is really nice. I have friends with the Tunze ATO with the magnetic mount that have a problem mounting the sensor such that is out of the water because of the water hight relative to the rim of the tank.

 

-The only downside is having to use high pressure air tubing between the jug and the pump so the pump can create a partial vacuum and suck the water up. This tubing has limited flexibility and can get pinched off if your rough bending it. Between the pump and the tank regular vinyl tubing and be attached to the air tubing so that its easier to route.

 

 

So after a year I still highly recommend this ATO to anyone and everyone looking for the best ATO on the market.

[Spirofucci]

Great review! This may be my next ATO. Do you still like it?

[duoc9119]

Can we get pictures? I would like to see how it works! Looked through their stuff and there are all these add-ons or whatever and gets very confusing

[Salty_Snack]

After using the UPLC-II for a little over a month since my review I'm still in love with it. The pressure switch has performed flawlessly, keeping the level of water at about ~0.1" from the set point. However, I use about a ~.3" difference in low/high level to keep the pump from coming on often.

 

I've found that by applying light pressure to the right side of the motor housing if the pump is facing you decreases the noise of the pump by ~75%. So it goes from rather quiet to very quiet. My decibel meter wouldn't change from the baseline 45 dB with the pump on or off at 3 feet but the frequency that is emitted is still slightly noticeable because it is unlike the background noise of the room.

 

The UPLC-II comes with a magnetic mount for the pressure switch tube which is really nice but the backup float switch (which I have not needed thus far) just has a suction cup. I've made a little plexiglass mount for it and i seems to work reasonably well. Depending on the level of your sump/overflow the float switch mounting bracket that can be obtained from digital aquatics may work well for this application.

 

I have made one mistake with my ato thus far in that I forgot to refill the water bucket. The pump ran dry for somewhere between 0 and 14 hours. But it wasn't damaged and still works fine today. I figure that it has already saved me $20-30 for a new pump after a non-peristaltic pump would have burned out.

 

The pressure tube that is submerged in the water has performed as expected. A small amount of water droplets collect in the non-submerged part of the tube but that's about it, I've not seen anything condense in the hose connecting it to the pump. No salt creep, no snail problems, nothing mechanical in the tank to fail.

 

I'll get some pictures of the unit soon and a description of how it is set up.

[Spirofucci]

Thanks for the the F/U review. Excellent. Doesn't it have an automatic off if the water container goes dry?

[Salty_Snack]

It doesn't have an automatic off if the top off water container runs dry but it doesn't need to have one. A peristaltic pump with a quality motor can run for quite a long time, probably days or weeks without any damage. The motor housing did get a little warm but that was about it.

[Natural71]

One counterpoint on the Elos is that the program doesn't allow for the pump to continuously run (with or without a working sensor). It is programmed to only pump for a few seconds then stops and begins another cycle of analysis. I believe it's a 15 minute wait time before it will decide whether or not it needs to pump again. Also, it will not pump if the sensor is disconnected so, I would assume in the event of a sensor failure, it wouldn't pump at all.

 

I own it and love it.

[Salty_Snack]

One counterpoint on the Elos is that the program doesn't allow for the pump to continuously run (with or without a working sensor). It is programmed to only pump for a few seconds then stops and begins another cycle of analysis. I believe it's a 15 minute wait time before it will decide whether or not it needs to pump again. Also, it will not pump if the sensor is disconnected so, I would assume in the event of a sensor failure, it wouldn't pump at all.

 

I own it and love it.

 

 

My evaluation was similar. Its a great idea and design from what I can tell. If it had a secondary high level sensor then I may very well have ended up with it, albeit the absence of a peristaltic dosing pump would have still pushed me toward the UPLC-II for about the same $$$.

 

What I can say with 100% certainty is at some point in the future both the Elos and Spectrapure ATOs will fail. Maybe they will fail off, maybe they will fail on, in the later case I would much prefer a secondary switch to cut power to the unit on either ATO. Unfortunately, Elos hasn't incorporated such a feature into their product which I find perplexing because every other major ATO on the market does. Even the little JBJ unit, which I am NOT a fan of, by the way.

[waynefish]

The UPLC-II comes with a magnetic mount for the pressure switch tube which is really nice but the backup float switch (which I have not needed thus far) just has a suction cup.

 

Thanks for the great review. I'll probably be picking this up. Just to confirm, the pressure switch comes with a magnetic mount? All the pics I've seen show only suction cups.

[AZDesertRat]

I must agree.

I have been using the UPLC-II for 4 years now and have been extremely pleased. My ATO storage is a 23 gallon Rubbermaid Recycling can in my garage and my tank and sump are 35 feet away in my family room. The peristaltic pump works like a charm and the level stays where I set it.

My only complaint is the suction cup mounts for the sensor and back up float switch but I found a dab of silicone on the suction cups keeps them in place semi-permanently. I have thought about building an acrylic mount that hangs on the side of the sump but thats another one of the things that will happen when I get around to it, you know how that is!

 

Just like the OP, I have no connection to Spectrapure or any other manufacturer or vendor but I am a very satisfied customer and would not hestitate to recommend their products to anyone.

 

It is also on sale for $199 in their March Madness sales flyer:

http://www.spectrapure.com/email/customer-appreciation.html

[Salty_Snack]

Thanks for the great review. I'll probably be picking this up. Just to confirm, the pressure switch comes with a magnetic mount? All the pics I've seen show only suction cups.

 

 

I too have only seen pictures of the product with suction cup mounts. I was pleasantly surprised when my unit came with a Zoomed magclip for the pressure tube. (the actual switch is inside the pump unit and a long tube connects the tube that goes in the tank to the switch) Unfortunately the float switch still had a suction cup mount.

 

One other note...

 

It doesn't affect me so I hadn't initially though of it but the clear plastic hose that connects the tube that is submerged in the water to the pumping unit is probably about 3, maybe 4 feet long. So if you wanted to put the pump further way from the location of the submerged tube more than 3 -4 feet you would have to splice into the tube and add an extension. I'm not sure what spectrapure's position is on this or how it would affect the sensitivity of the switch but it should be doable so long as the splice is air tight. It would be worth contacting spectrapure if you would want/need to do this.

[mbonus]

I too have only seen pictures of the product with suction cup mounts. I was pleasantly surprised when my unit came with a Zoomed magclip for the pressure tube. (the actual switch is inside the pump unit and a long tube connects the tube that goes in the tank to the switch) Unfortunately the float switch still had a suction cup mount.

 

 

Got to admit, I just opened up the unit and I am a little bummed that the one I ordered has the suction cups on the pressure tube. Not a huge deal but I was hoping that it would be the same as yours.

 

I'm probably a few weeks from actually setting this up, but am I understanding correctly that the pressure tube sensor is submerged and then you set the top off level via the control unit? In this scenario it shouldn't matter how deep the sensor is submerged, is this correct?

[AZDesertRat]

No it does not, you can set it to 1/10" or 4". You will leave the sensor tube loose at first and immerse it by hand for the initial set up then fasten it to the surface after that. I have slept since then but basically you stick it in the water to the level you want it to turn on then push a button, raise it to where you want it to shut off an push a button or vice versa and its set up. Maybe not exactly how they describe it but close.

[mbonus]

Ok, I follow you. So the way the sensor works is once it is exposed to air it starts the pump until the sensor is re-submerged? That might not work in my setup where I'm trying to put all of this stuff in the back chambers of an AP12.

[waynefish]

Ok, I follow you. So the way the sensor works is once it is exposed to air it starts the pump until the sensor is re-submerged? That might not work in my setup where I'm trying to put all of this stuff in the back chambers of an AP12.

 

No not quite. It detects a change in the air pressure in the tube. As the air pressure drops (because the water level is lowered), the system will pump water into the sump until the pressure increases back to its normal state.

 

See here for more info:

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1707832

[Dani3d]

Why would you burn 2 JBJ in 5 years? I have 2 JBJ running for 2 years and they are working great.

 

Much cheaper and I never had a reliability problem with either of them. I would buy the JBJ anytime, even if I would have to buy 2 of them in 2 years it would still be 150$ for both, and the pump was like 10$.

 

Even if this product is warranty for 5 years, it does not mean that the JBJ will not work well for 5 years as well.

 

 

 

At ~$230 it isn't a cheap unit in the least. But when you consider the 5 year warranty I believe it is worth it. If you burned through 2 JBJ ATOs in that time it would be ~$200 worth of controllers and that doesn't include a very nice dosing pump. When compared to the Tunze or Elso there is no competition at all. The Spectrapure UPLC-II wins hands down. That's not to say that the former two don't work well and that many people are happy with both. Its just that spec for spec I don't think the UPLC-II can be beat.

 

No I don't work for Spectrapure. No I don't have any affiliation with them in the least. I'm just one satisfied customer who after much contemplation purchased the UPLC-II... and LOVE IT!

[mbonus]

Thanks! Probably won't understand it for myself until I actually use the unit. The link was helpful but basically described my first post above; ie that some portion of the sensor is submerged all the time and the top and bottom levels are set with the control unit.

 

This would work in my situation where I can't really have the sensor out of the tank as the water lever is already close to the top.

[waynefish]

Why would you burn 2 JBJ in 5 years? I have 2 JBJ running for 2 years and they are working great.

 

Much cheaper and I never had a reliability problem with either of them. I would buy the JBJ anytime, even if I would have to buy 2 of them in 2 years it would still be 150$ for both, and the pump was like 10$.

 

Even if this product is warranty for 5 years, it does not mean that the JBJ will not work well for 5 years as well.

 

The reason that I'll be going with the Spectrapure is that it allows me keep my water reservoir in my basement and my display tank and sump in my living room. It's relatively expensive, but I feel it's worth it for the convenience in my case.

 

If i didn't want an ATO that could pump from my basement to my living room, there would be a lot more inexpensive options.

[AZDesertRat]

Waynefish is correct, the sensor detects changes in air pressure inside the tube so the range can be set anywhere in the 4" length of the tube. Mine is submerged about half way and I am set at about a 1" drop in my sump level before it comes on but could be more or less if I wanted.

[Salty_Snack]

Why would you burn 2 JBJ in 5 years? I have 2 JBJ running for 2 years and they are working great.

 

Much cheaper and I never had a reliability problem with either of them. I would buy the JBJ anytime, even if I would have to buy 2 of them in 2 years it would still be 150$ for both, and the pump was like 10$.

 

Even if this product is warranty for 5 years, it does not mean that the JBJ will not work well for 5 years as well.

 

 

All mass produced items have a mean time to failure, including marine aquarium electronics. I have not found anything published by JBJ or Spectrapure as to the mean time to failure of their respective ATO units. But what I do know is that of all of the consumer electronics I have bought in the last decade only a couple of them have worked 24/7 for 5 years or more. At this point you have only been running the JBJ ATOs for 2 years. That's only 40% of 5 years and the failure rate always increase with age.

 

My point isn't that the JBJ unit will certainly fail within 5 years and the UPLC-II will work flawlessly for at least 5 years. The point is that both units will eventually fail. Certainly a statistically significant percentage of them will fail within 5 years. Now, if I own either of them and they work well for 5 years or more, that's wonderful and in either case I would have gotten my moneys worth. But if my unit fails I would rather have Spectrapure fix or replace the UPLC-II rather that having to buy another ATO.

 

I'm assuming your taking about a aqualifter when you refer to the $10 pump. Those are OK if you only need to pump water 30" or less but for me that's not an option. Neither is it for any of my friends who have marine aquariums come to think of it. So lets compare apples to apples. A JBJ ATO is $80 and a BRS dosing pump is another $80. That's $160 for both and if one of the two fails outside of the one year warranty then a replacement would be another $80. That brings the total to $240 and you will still be running float switches. At that point its a wash in terms of $$$.

[monkeytrumpets]

Thanks for the great review! I've been looking for an upgrade to my DIY ATO, and it looks like this unit will work very well.

[Salty_Snack]

See the bottom of the 1st post for a one year update.

[AZDesertRat]

The one maintanance item you will want to look out for is cleaning the three rollers, shaft and the outside of the silicone tubing in the pump. Every 6 months or so I disassemble the pump end, remove the three rollers and wipe the residue off everything with a paper towel and Goo Gone or similar cleaner. The crud eventually builds up enough where it will not roll around and the pump quits from overheating. It is thermally protected so once it cools off it restarts but still does not pump if its not cleaned.

 

I have been extremely pleased with mine and its one of the first ones they sold to the public. My only issue was the power supply burned up but they had a new one to me right away. It was like 4+ years old at the time so had a good life.

[rockryno]

any updates from this in the past year?

[AZDesertRat]

I'm in year 5 with mine and still using the original peristaltic pump silicone tube. Still very happy and only clean the rollers, tube and shaft with a little Goo Gone about once every 4 months or so.