ATO really necessary?
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Not nessary but by far the #1 thing to do to make you’re life easier. If you top off by hand you are letting the water get Saltere Till you dump a bunch of fresh water in and bring it back down. It’s all about Stability and having something periodically topping off the water is a must.
windemerejack
Valuable Member
Hi from UK and welcome to r2r, you will enjoy your time here.
ato not necessary but highly recommended, massive time saver and keeps tank salinity stable. I use the Tunze ato and its the only one ive ever used so nothing to compare it to, but its never let me once.
ato not necessary but highly recommended, massive time saver and keeps tank salinity stable. I use the Tunze ato and its the only one ive ever used so nothing to compare it to, but its never let me once.
mike550
Valuable Member
@Fish rookie 07 welcome to R2R!
I started about seven months ago with a 120G tank and did manual top off for the first four months or so. It gave me a sense of how much evaporation I had and it made me check the sump and stuff every day. I didn’t necessarily refill every day but I got a sense of the evaporation rate and amount.
When I needed to go out of town for a couple of weeks I bought a Tunze 3155 ATO and a container that could hold enough water for two weeks about a week before my trip. Wanted to get it up and running and watch it for a while.
Since then I still check on my tank and ATO very regularly. I’m now using the ATO so dose for alkalinity
My point is that an ATO is not a must have but it’s a nice to have. And overtime you might use it in different ways.
I started about seven months ago with a 120G tank and did manual top off for the first four months or so. It gave me a sense of how much evaporation I had and it made me check the sump and stuff every day. I didn’t necessarily refill every day but I got a sense of the evaporation rate and amount.
When I needed to go out of town for a couple of weeks I bought a Tunze 3155 ATO and a container that could hold enough water for two weeks about a week before my trip. Wanted to get it up and running and watch it for a while.
Since then I still check on my tank and ATO very regularly. I’m now using the ATO so dose for alkalinity
My point is that an ATO is not a must have but it’s a nice to have. And overtime you might use it in different ways.
Fires Fish
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Welcome to the community! I made the same transition as you from fresh to salt almost 2 years ago. I didn’t have an ATO for the first year or so because I never needed one for my fresh tanks, so I didn’t think I would need one for my reef. It was mostly tedious to have to constantly keep gallon containers around to refill with RO water to easily top off, rather than pouring from big 5 gallon jugs, as well as having to remember to do it every day and in summer multiple times a day. The biggest thing though, for me, was that I noticed so much more stability when I got my ATO (XP Aqua duetto) so all my corals became much happier. Stability means way more to a reef tank than a tropical tank, in my experience. If you can afford the $100 or so dollars, do it this way from the start! It’ll save you trouble with trying to find balance in your tank, which is a gamechanger.
!!! Welcome to R2R !!! For me an ATO is a Must Have. Water evaporate daily at different volume. I was about 2 month adding RODI water every three days when I see the water level going down but then I learn about stability and I make a gravity ATO that is working perfectly for over two years.
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