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DIY 2 gallon and floatless ATO


pisanoal

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I am in the process of building a ~2 gallon acrylic tank with built in filtration mainly for experimentation, and I thought Id share my float-less DIY ATO design. I built a HOB reservoir with a ¾ drain standpipe that is at the desired water level of the aquarium. Two sections of 3/8 run from the reservoir to the back of the tank, both ends submerged and tubing flooded. I have a pump piped up over the lip of the ATO reservoir on a timer that will turn on twice a day for probably 5 minutes. The idea is that same as a siphon overflow. As the water level in the tank drops, water will flow from the reservoir to the main tank. The pump will kick on to replenish the reservoir and fill the DT to max water height. The reservoir will be covered to minimize evap. With the limited space in the main tank, I didnt want to try to fit a float switch and risk snails and that sort of thing, so I was trying to think of another way. I thought of this method when the reverse happened in my sump (stupid me forgot to keep the end of the ATO tubing out of the water, no wonder it was kicking on every 15 seconds J). Probably not the most ideal application, but its a fun little experiment, and I think its a cool design if it works right. In any case, it should be flood proof. Let me know what you all think!

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Pics of tank, top view, side, and front. Came out pretty good. It's a little dirty from the static, and those aren't the lights that will be on it, I'll be building a custom led combination in a hood. I'll take more detailed pics of the ato if people are interested.

 

Tank is 8 wide x8 high x10 deep. Ato is about 6 wide by 4 high by 3 deep

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lambogriffin

For the ato.. Can do exactly what you described, except use a simple gravity set up to replenish the reservoir instead of a pump.. Mine has been up for three months, and is epicly simple and there is no mechanical connection or parts to fail. :)http://s29.photobucket.com/user/lambogriffin/media/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20140315_155037_458_zpsmx1x0umk.jpg.html'>IMG_20140315_155037_458_zpsmx1x0umk.jpg

 

About 10 gals actual water volume BTW, and that reservoir lasts almost a week

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Nice idea. Never thought about that. I was originally thinking some sort of gravity feed but not quite like that. Very cool. I did want to avoid something sticking up behind or sitting beside the tank though so that would not have quite worked for me. That definitely would have solved the problems I was concerned about which were noise or float valve failure. That was where the timer and the standpipe came in. Your idea solves both wonderfully though. You should post a build on that if you haven't as that would be a good ato to set up at the very least for vacations if people didn't want something visible all the time.

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lambogriffin

Ooooo i see.. I missed the HOB part of your reservoir, so I thought it was going to be visible anyway. The only thing about the siphon for top off, is it's not really strong enough to use a check valve, and when the main pump goes off, it back siphons if the display and rear compartment equalize.. I put a valve on it (used an airline valve/tubing) so when I do water changes I can close it and not worry about breaking the siphon or the changes in water level.. But if the power goes out it back siphons a little.. Doesn't really matter tho, as Even if the back siphoned water was thoroughly mixed into the top off reservoir, (in my case it's not because the air lock in the inverted bottle) the only net change would be an undetectable drop in salinity and then and increase back to original as the mixed water was used.

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Yeah, I was concerned about backsiphoning too, which will happen a little, but I came to the same conclusion as you. Good call on the airline valve... I didn't think about water changes. I'll have to add that in. I did test my design the other day and it works pretty well. I was happy I didn't have to scrap the design because it took me quite a while to bend the acrylic right...

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