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Building a stanoff ATO system

eldiablosrt8

eldiablosrt8

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im looking into an ATO as we speak but i need a storage barrel for the ro/di water. looking for a 10/15 gallon barrel that can be place on a stand next to tank and i can fill up weekly...

besides a good ato system, what else will i need?
-a small pump for barrel? heater?filters? dont wanna start a project and only have half the stuff for it
 
It depends on how your ATO is going to be set-up.

From the sounds of it, you going to manually fill the barrel weekly so no flat valve is needed for that part. For the ATO you'll need a pump, slower pump, that can fill your sump. Nothing else is really needed.

I use an ATO I built using a relay, dual float switches for redundancy, and a peristaltic pump the feeds my Kalk reactor (which overflows into my sump. The container my ATO draws from is filled using a float valve. One thing I never got around to was installing a solenoid on my RODI so I could use a timer to shut it off. Shutting down the RODI would allow my 100g top off to drop considerably instead of activating my float valve every time it hit that level. This allows for less DI creep which wrecks havoc on the DI and produces inferior product water (for a spell)
 
well i dont have a ro/di system i buy all my water. i really havent wanted to mix my own water yet. so its easier for me to just buy from my LFS...

so what kind of barrel should i use??? rain barrel??
 
I used one I got from a local irrigation company. Pretty much anything is OK for drinking water is OK for this :)
 
A 20g tall tank is great for this as well and they can be pretty cheaply gotten used or even new.
 
eldiablosrt8 said:
well i dont have a ro/di system i buy all my water. i really havent wanted to mix my own water yet. so its easier for me to just buy from my LFS...

so what kind of barrel should i use??? rain barrel??
Click to expand...

Coming from a guy who used to do what you did...
"Upgrading" to your own RODI + brute mixing/storage system (like what Bryan will link you to when he reads this...Aldie's setup etc) is SOOO much better and easier...imo ;)
 
I ended up using a drip doser + timer for my ATO, connected to a large Tupperware box.
I manually fill the box weekly from a large rubbermaid trash barrel outside.
I am a bit paranoid, and that setup has ZERO chance of killing everything if it all goes wrong.
Plus, saves a lot of space in the fish room area.

Since it is dosage based, not automatic, usually takes a bit of manual tweaking every week.
I deliberately set dosage a bit below real evaporation per week.
But I like to do that in conjunction with salinity testing anyway.
Doing that allows me to add salt/fresh as needed, to keep it perfect.
Part of that was from some experimentation with wet-skimming. Long story.

I do not see any need for heater or filter.
 
Bottom line, as most people have mentioned -

You need something to hold the water that is food safe (barrel, cheap aquarium). A lid is nice.
No heater or filter necessary, nor do you need anything to circulate the water inside the container since it is ideally filled with RO water.

To move water from the container to the tank, these are options that people seem to favor -

1) Float switch that activates a pump to move water from the container to the tank (GreshamH's setup)
2) Digital timer that activates a pump or doser to move water from the container to the tank
3) Siphon tube tied into a knot to control the drip rate to move water from the container to the tank

Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, including cost, convenience and likelihood of overfilling the tank that has pretty much been summed up above.

Hope that helps.
 
If you are going to place on the stand outside of the tank, would there be enough height to just do a gravity feed with float valve?

If going this way, you may need to drill your sump, or buy this Level Loc or E-Shopps Float Valve (The second one didn't fit the rim of my glass sump, so I used the Level Loc)

Also, if doing a gravity feed without electronic shutoff, remember to put a valve to shut off the water when doing water changes.
 
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