Hydor Smart Level ATO, Reef Octopus BH-90

[Kairus]

Starting with the Hydor Smart Level ATO - I've had it for a few days now and I'm really impressed with it. I only paid $59 for it on Amazon which is a pretty damn good price for an ATO, I'm not aware of anything cheaper. I'm not going to post pictures since my lights are off, but I can take some if people want to see.

 

The sensor works via temperature differentials, there's three points on the sensor, a minimum, maximum, and an alarm. When the alarm point gets triggered it starts an audible alarm. The sensor heats up, and you can actually feel it's quite warm, it senses a difference in temperature when the water touches one of the points. It should be a lot more reliable than an optical sensor or float valve.

 

I've plugged in two aqualifters into it and it runs flawlessly. The aqualifters are chained together so they can reach the top of my tank (it's an AIO so no sump) from my top off container which sits in my stand. I'm sure a small pump would work fine if it can handle the head height needed. Since I mix kalk into my top off, I prefer the aqualifters because the flow rate is slow and I won't have a localized spike in pH. Also the aqualifters don't have an issue being run dry while a regular pump would burn out - which is nice in the case you forget to refill your top off container or something.

 

 

I've had a Reef Octopus BH-90 for about 5 months now, and since there wasn't a whole lot of reviews out there when I was researching it, I'll post one. The skimmer is pretty quiet and the venturi silencer works really well. The pump is somewhat noisy which is understandable considering the air and water being mixed has to make SOME noise. Surrounding it with some sort of insulator helps a lot and makes the skimmer really quiet. The collection cup has a drain already in it, which I find to be awesome, especially for someone who likes to skim wet. It's definitely saved me from having water on the floor when the skimmer reacted to something in the water.

 

The skimmer can be somewhat hard to adjust, it can go from skimming okay, to overflowing with a quick turn in the adjustment pipe. Once you've got it set it does pull out some nice skimmate.

 

One complaint I do have is that it is difficult to clean - the pump, intake pipe, and I think the adjustment pipe comes off, but nothing else does, so you can't really get in there and clean it out. I guess this is nice because there's less potential places it can leak. I'm not sure if all HOB skimmers are like that though.

[shawnriv]

I'll be receiving the Hydor Smart Level Control ATO for Christmas. I'm looking forward to adding it to my Innovative Marine 38G which also has the AIO like yours. I am just confused how to hook up the pump for this. I purchased the Aqua Lifter pump (Bulk Reef Supply recommend it) but not sure about tubing. Any suggestions? Thanks!