DIY Continous Water Change With ATO

[Discordian]

Hello,

I am planning out my first salt water tank. I would love to get some sort of automatic water change system. It seems like the most common setup is two paristolic pumps. But I have seen folks talking about using an overflow in the sump and adding fresh saltwater to the system, using a timer and pump, so that the excess just goes out the overflow. If you make the height of the overflow the same as the ATO level, it seems like the second system has less points of failure and accomplishes the same thing. Also if there is a failure it seems to always fail in a more favorable condition (or at least the same condition) . I guess my question is why isn't this setup more common? Is there some error in my thinking? Is this not practical for most people? Would I run into any problems if I did it this way? Or would it be better to get paristolic pumps?

 

[Ludders]

I'm no expert but wouldn't this method cause your salinity to rise? How would you compensate for evaporation?

 

[laverda]

I thought about setting mine up like this in the past. But my sump is too low in relation to any drains. You would have to have a valve on the overflow or else in a bower outage the water that drains back to the sump would go out the overflow. Then when the power comes back on you ATO would want to add a bunch of fresh water. Other wise it is do able depending on if you have a suitable place for your overflow to drain to. I have a valve from my tank overflow box I can set up like you describe by just hooking a hose to it.