Saved by Tunze Osmolator

[jcook54]

I was doing a water change on my frag tank yesterday and I decided to remove some water from the display before I turned off the return pump so the water level in the sump would be low. What I forgot to do was turn off my Tunze ATO. While I was listening to my headphones, the Osmolator 3155 was pumping cold RODI water into the sump. Fortunately I was able to remove water much faster than it could pump and I ended up turning off the return pump in fairly short order. At that point the ATO continued to pump water until it reached the 7 minute mark and automatically shut itself down. When the pump runs for too long, the system assumes there's some sort of issue and shuts down. When I got ready to add water back to the system I noticed the warning light was one and realized what I had done. Needless to say the salinity in the sump was quite low but I checked the tank first and it had only gone down to 1.025 from where I usually keep it at, 1.026. I removed water from the sump and added the fresh saltwater and got everything lined up before I pumped the water back up in to the tank.

I guess the moral of the story is "pay attention to what you're doing" but I'm really grateful that Tunze decided to include an auto cutoff in their programming. I'm already a Tunze fanboy but this just makes me appreciate their products more. In the end, I wasted about 2 gallons of good RODI water and everything else seems to be just fine.

 

[lmm1967]

2 of our tanks have Tunze ATOs - they just flat out work. I've had sensors from all other manufacturers fails (Netpune - good for a year maybe, GHL - I've only used the float switches but have had a problem with1) - the Tunze optical and float switches have just worked. The pump will fail after a while (2 years in my case - but I did let it run dry a few times) but they are readily available on Amazon Prime and generally can be delivered to home within 48 hours.

I wish they could give me feedback via a wireless connection or something so I could record, store & graph the data. That's the only negative thing I can say - other than they run almost $200 normally.

 

[viethluu]

my Micro ATO also has automatic cut-off feature also (after 3 minutes of running maybe), and it is way cheaper than the Tunze. I use the Micro ATO since the beginning of my reefing career, and so far it lasted me for almost 5 years now.

 

[jcook54]

my Micro ATO also has automatic cut-off feature also (after 3 minutes of running maybe), and it is way cheaper than the Tunze. I use the Micro ATO since the beginning of my reefing career, and so far it lasted me for almost 5 years now.

Is that the one made by "AutoAqua"? A good ATO is such an important part of the reefing puzzle, as long as you don't screw something up like I did.

 

[viethluu]

yes, AutoAqua Micro ATO, a very good product actually

 

[jcook54]

I know I'm getting off topic but since I started the thread I figured it's fine - There are so many good products out there. And on either side of those good products are a ton of outstanding and mediocre products. This hobby has changed so much for the better in the last 20 years and that's part of the fun. I resisted the Jebao-type products for a long time because I'm stubborn but I'm certainly sold on them now. Good camp, for sure, but for the $$$, they can be hard to beat.

 

[RonS]

I use the JBJ and had a similar experience. I got it used (well used, I believe) from someone on the forum. It uses float sensors, and I haven't had an issue.

In my case, I connected a new UV sterilizer last week. In addition to forgetting to calculate the volume of water that would remove from my sump, it also had a pinhole leak in a threaded connection that I didn't detect right away. Fortunately, the JBJ ran for about 7 minutes, then wisely stopped pumping water. I, too, had a slight drop from 1.026 - 1.25, but if the auto-shutoff hadn't worked, it would have been much worse.

My Seneye detected the low water level in my sump and alerted me. I was able to rush home (fully assuming that the UV had busted open and there were 30 gallons of sump water on the floor!).

How did we ever do it without controllers/Internet/SMS?

Oh yah - I didn't - That's probably a big reason why I quit the hobby the first two times : )

 

[Rickdareefa]

I use the aqua duetto also have a back up of the same. Mine stopped working on a Sunday night after 11 months 13 days. I sent an email to the company and they called me that night! They replaced mine after mailing it to them within a week. Amazing customer service. So I bought another one for redundancy. It has never failed while on just stopped filling, great product, such a small footprint and affordable

 

[sharis100]

Love the aqua ATO product line! Great features for such a small footprint- perfect for smaller tanks and systems. We have used the RoDI saver, the auto water changer and the micro ATO products. On our main system we switched to the APEX ATK which alerts if there are any issues. And we have a backup ATK in case the main fails.

 

[urbanknight]

+1 on the Tunze. I have used several different types including DIY. The most disappointing was the Neptune ATK first generation. It seemed to have a mind of it's own. Worked well for about a month then got sketchy. Rather that be concerned about a malfunction, I switched over to a JBJ. Never had issues with it. For me, it was a question of if I could trust it long term. I had used a Tunze mini in another system years ago and it never failed. So I bought the 3155. It's been on the system approaching a year now with no issues. Let's face it. A reef and it's equipment requires constant monitoring and maintenance. We are all gluttons for punishment in this hobby! As @jcook54 stated earlier, technology has come far in getting more reliable ATO units and other equipment to the market place.