ATO - Hope You Know Your Greek Alphabet!

Alpha Tau Omega - Us fraternity guys - we never forget the whole Greek alphabet.

I, on the other hand, was in TKE at Penn State. Ohh the memories - some of the best friends and greatest times were had living in the house.

If you are like me... my first thought when I read "ATO" was... BEER! My second thought, however, was that fish likely don't enjoy beer as much as frat guys do, and ATO must refer to something else... (Though, I am sure you can build a kick-ass funnel out of all the equipment I needed to purchase for this tank.)

Unlike Fraters, fish/corals/inverts love consistency. And one of the biggest issues when it comes to consistency has to deal with salinity. As water evaporates in the local environment of the aquarium, the salt stays in solution. This causes the salinity level to raise, which stresses your livestock. So how do we stop this stress from occurring?

An ATO (Automatic Top Off) system combats the issue of evaporation. With the use of a simple float switch (or two in my case) we can control a pump to increase water levels after evaporation by adding fresh RODI water.

Float Switch with Safety Float

Why RODI? Same question I asked! The salinity level rises as pure water is evaporated off (the salt stays in solution - science is pretty cool). This is why we need to replace it with pure, clean, fresh water.

A suggestion for the entrepreneurs out there - figure out a way to automatically maintain the internal water level in college students and you will be a billionaire. You could actually drink like a fish, and no hangover!

So back to the switch... The bottom switch has a float that is set to be floating just above the ideal water level. When the water level drops due to evaporation, the float drops, hits the switch, and turns on the pump. Once the water level returns to the set point, the float switch lifts off the switch and the pump turns off.

I mentioned that my unit has two switches: the float switch I described, and a safety float. The safety float must be resting on its switch in order for the pump to turn on. If it is floating, it will turn off the pump. Why is it there, you ask? Well, if a snail or something blocks the float switch from floating, the safety float will make sure the system doesn't overflow.

If you are like me, or any fraternity guy I know, you have to take the car for a test drive before you buy it... if you know what I mean. Well the same thing for any toy I buy. I tested the float switch with a lamp. Here is how it went:

Float Switches not connected to the bracket.

This Simulates when the water is too low-
the float falls to the bottom and turns on the lamp (pump)

This simulates when the water level lifts the float off of the switch-
This turns the lamp (pump) off

The top float needs to be in the down position
when the bottom float relays that it needs water,
in order to keep the pump on

It the top float is floating - even when the bottom float signals that more water in needed
The pump will not turn on

All of these actions are pretty simple to understand when you start to play with it. The pump plugs into the switch and the switch plugs into the outlet. This is how it looks under my tank:

The green covered container houses the fresh water. The pump utilizes the yellow tubing to get water from the container to the pump section of the sump. The piece of PVC is used so that the yellow tubing remains above the water line of the green topped container while returning water to the sump. You remember what happens if the tubing is below the water line in the storage container if you read my last post. (Hint - it starts siphoning!)

So an ATO works just like any beer funnel at a frat party - if there is room for more liquid, it fills it to the brim. Fortunately, an ATO fills to the perfect level - funnels typically take you too far!

Well my beer level could use a top-off, so I am going to crack one open. Hope you enjoyed today's lesson.