Mechanical Timer attached to ATO.

[Hallowhead]

Hello,

I am planning on using a mechanical timer on both my RO/DI ATO & my tank ATO. This would stop TDS creep as it would only allow the RO system to produce water & top off x amount of hours per day. However, my concern is that the constant turning on & off of these units will do damage over time. Does anyone else have experience doing this? Have any input?

Best,
Joe

 

[amado]

You should never ever ever ever ever
Connect your RO to your tank.
That’s a really bad idea. You will come home to a fresh water tank.
You should have your RO/Di go to a container.
Your ato container should be separate and shouldn’t be bigger that 5 gallons that way no matter what happens if something fails your tank will be ok. Ato should be separate.

 

[jgraz]

Is this for water storage or for ATO for the aquarium?

 

[Hallowhead]

You should never ever ever ever ever
Connect your RO to your tank.
That’s a really bad idea. You will come home to a fresh water tank.
You should have your RO/Di go to a container.
Your ato container should be separate and shouldn’t be bigger that 5 gallons that way no matter what happens if something fails your tank will be ok. Ato should be separate.

They will be separate for sure ! I am saying that to even avoid my resivour from overfilling my tank let it run for 5 minutes a day and even if my ATO sensor breaks it can only fill for 5 mins. My RO/DI will NOT refill my resivour.

My RO/DI will have an ATO as well as a float valve and the solenoid on ATO will only open for let's say 3 hours a day so if the sensor breaks it can only overflow for 3 hours instead of all day.

My concern is these small DC controllers constantly turning on and off

 

[Hallowhead]

Is this for water storage or for ATO for the aquarium?

Both one is for ATO for my tank and one is for fill line on my 44 gallon brute garbage can. As I don't trust those floats. I wanted to redundancies

 

[jgraz]

You should never ever ever ever ever
Connect your RO to your tank.
That’s a really bad idea. You will come home to a fresh water tank.
You should have your RO/Di go to a container.
Your ato container should be separate and shouldn’t be bigger that 5 gallons that way no matter what happens if something fails your tank will be ok. Ato should be separate.

Agreed for the most part. I have a 15g reservoir and have used 20g in the past. as long as the total system can handle a full dump of fresh without killing salinity to much you will be fine. A slight drop in salinity is tolerable for the most part, especially for fish, corals a little less so.

 

[jgraz]

They will be separate for sure ! I am saying that to even avoid my resivour from overfilling my tank let it run for 5 minutes a day and even if my ATO sensor breaks it can only fill for 5 mins.
A mechanical timer is probably a bad idea for this. Better would be to use a backup float valve that will shut down the ATO if it triggers.
My RO/DI will NOT refill my resivour.

My RO/DI will have an ATO as well as a float valve and the solenoid on ATO will only open for let's say 3 hours a day so if the sensor breaks it can only overflow for 3 hours instead of all day.
If your RODI has a pressure switch it will shut down when a float valve in the storage container closes. It will only open again if float goes down. A better way would be just to shut off the water or use a valve when storage is full. The float will shut it down and then you will know to shut down the system. It can't make water again until you turn it back on.

My concern is these small DC controllers constantly turning on and off

It's a legit concern. Especially when used in a location that can essentially kill your tank in a hurry. I avoid them where I can unless I can back them up with a backup.

 

[Hallowhead]

It's a legit concern. Especially when used in a location that can essentially kill your tank in a hurry. I avoid them where I can unless I can back them up with a backup.

1.)
A mechanical timer would be the third form of redundancy. The first form would be the smart sensor which shoots a lazer.. there is no float valve. It's always closed so when the power is lost it closes and stops the pump from pumping water into my tank. The second form of redundancy is having only 3 gallons in my reservoir. This would only allow 3 gallons to be dumped into my 30 gallon although not good it's better than 5/10 or even unlimited. My third and last form is the mechanical timer... it works this way. Rather having it pump cups of water throughout the day it will turn on at night time when I should be home and only stay on for 5 minutes... this will allow the smart ATO to function and when it hits it's mark it turns the pump off.. If it gets stuck on it can only pump for 5 minutes.. or 3 minutes whatever seems to be reasonable to top the tank off. This prevents the entire reservoir from emptying into my tank.

2.)
My ATO for my RO/DI storage is done the same way but rather a pump it has a solenoid which is installed before the RO membrane so no waste is produced. This will be backed by a float valve as well. Similar to above it will be thirdly protected by a timer.

 

[DangerDave]

Well I kinda break this rule. I pull from a 55 gallon container. I use the apex atk. Two optical sensors, one for atk, one for backup, and a float as a back up. There is a connection in the container with a small hole so if the float is used, the water will spray out not burn up the pump. It’s programmed so the pump can only run for a minute before a 60 minute pause.

 

[Hallowhead]

Well I kinda break this rule. I pull from a 55 gallon container. I use the apex atk. Two optical sensors, one for atk, one for backup, and a float as a back up. There is a connection in the container with a small hole so if the float is used, the water will spray out not burn up the pump. It’s programmed so the pump can only run for a minute before a 60 minute pause.

Do you have a picture ? I need to visually see the backup float hooked up so I can replicate

 

[DangerDave]

 

[DangerDave]

That’s a pic from the brs site.