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ATO and WaveMaker (no sump) - how are you doing it?


stash98

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I have a rather basic setup, but I am loving it. 12 gallon long with a wavemaker, heater and SmartATO.

 

The best wave setting I have doesn't really provide any dead spots, which is good, but of course it's not optimal for my ATO since the water level is going up and down.

 

The ATO does not glitch out or turn on when the water level is up and down so that is good.

 

Right now. I just put the wavemaker (wp10, no night mode) into feed mode when I can, but that's a slight pain.

 

Just trying to figure out some options here that I may be missing. I could put the wavemaker on a timer and have it shut off for 5 minutes every 2-3 hours.

 

I could buy a mini pump and let that run all the time and have the wavemaker take breaks every few hours.

 

I assume others have had similar dilemmas, so I'm interested in hearing what you all do. I really love what this wavemaker does for my tank, so it is totally worth figuring out a good solution for this problem.

 

My evaporation is around 2.3 gallons per week.

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I switched to timed topoff back when I only had my 40 and never looked back. I use the controller to run a BRS peristaltic pump for 1 minute every 15 minutes. Sometimes I have to reduce or add a few seconds but for me evaporation is fairly steady and I don't have to worry about stuck sensors.

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I had the same problem in my little 15g with a Tunze 3152. Moving the sensor to the middle of the back glass where the water moved the least helped but I could still hear the pump wanting to start up. A Spectrapure Litermeter handles my evaporation now. It adds 850ml in 150 small doses over 24 hours. It works great for kalkwasser. I like not having a sensor in the tank because I can just remove water whenever and it's also less clutter.

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I switched to timed topoff back when I only had my 40 and never looked back. I use the controller to run a BRS peristaltic pump for 1 minute every 15 minutes. Sometimes I have to reduce or add a few seconds but for me evaporation is fairly steady and I don't have to worry about stuck sensors.

 

 

I had the same problem in my little 15g with a Tunze 3152. Moving the sensor to the middle of the back glass where the water moved the least helped but I could still hear the pump wanting to start up. A Spectrapure Litermeter handles my evaporation now. It adds 850ml in 150 small doses over 24 hours. It works great for kalkwasser. I like not having a sensor in the tank because I can just remove water whenever and it's also less clutter.

 

 

This is real interesting. I have zero experience with dosing pumps. But to add Kalk would be amazing.

 

My current setup is just a pump in a 2.5 gallon container filled with RO/DI water. I tried Kalk in that before, but it settled to the bottom and I found it too risky to overdose the tank.

 

The Litermeter is really sweet but a rather expensive solution for me. Probably overkill in my situation. The BRS pump makes more sense financially, but I am still not quite sure how I would set it up to properly dose Kalk using just one reservoir. I see you need a digital timer. I guess you would turn it on for 1 minute every 15-20 mins and it would run for a few seconds out of that minute and dose?

 

That is honestly a smarter solution than an ATO, which can dump a lot of water in at once. I just need a little more detail on best practice for setting it up right.

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I'm new to this whole thing and still reading up on what is needed and how to do it, so what I'm sharing is only what I've read someone else say.

 

it may have been on here, canreef or bcaquaria, but they setup an auto-drip. they figured out what kind of evaporation they had in a day and then set up a continuous drip to offset the evaporation. all they need to do is ensure the resevoir is topped up ever week.

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Yeah that's basically what is being done above. My main questions would be how it's done with one resoirvior. I guess I could always skip the Kalk part, but if I spent $100 on a dosing pump I'd love to figure out the best way to do it.

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well, I would likely set a baseline for how high I want my water to stay and then remove a cup or two at a time and mark it several times. then fill 'er back up and see how much water you lose to evaporation and then set the dosing pump to drop the amount lost.

 

you'd likely need to read the instructions to find out how the dosing pump would work.

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I decided to just buy a digital timer and stop the waves for 10 minutes every 2.5 hours. The ATO doesn't run much longer than 15 seconds to fill up in that situation and it seems the most balanced and inexpensive. Getting a dosing pump and figuring out how to run it just seems like a hassle right now.

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I assume your ATO is off except for those 10 minutes. That is probably the easiest way. You can use PVC guards to try and smooth out the noise from waves, but it is still subject to volatility.

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I assume your ATO is off except for those 10 minutes. That is probably the easiest way. You can use PVC guards to try and smooth out the noise from waves, but it is still subject to volatility.

 

 

Actually, the ATO is always on. It is not triggered by Waves, which is a great feature.

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