How do I run my ATO from my garage?

Jakepen · Sep 30, 2017

Tank is in my living room, and RODI container in the garage. Going to run a line thru my crawl to my tank. Just not sure how to connect my sensor and my pump at that distance. I have the Neptune ATK.

cracker · Sep 30, 2017

hello jake pen, How long is the run? Also I see Your in Michigan, Might get pretty cold in there in January

Jakepen · Sep 30, 2017

cracker said:
hello jake pen, How long is the run? Also I see Your in Michigan, Might get pretty cold in there in January

Will be about 30'. My garage stays pretty warm during the winter, and if my crawl space falls below freezing I'll have bigger problems!!

Rick's Reef · Oct 1, 2017

I ran 40' of tubing from my tank in the dining room to the garage. I have a bundle of 6 poly lines (f/w top-off, 2 lines for SW in/out water changes, 2 lines for Calcium reactor in and out and 1 line for kalkwasser). Also included is 40' of USB cable. I bought (2) 15' extender cables and (1) 10' standard cable. I took all those poly lines and the usb line, wrapped duct tape around them at 5' increments and then fished them up the wall in the garage and then down the wall to the living room after running through the attic. 2 drill holes through the firebreak is all it took (which I then sealed around them).

One trick on the USB cables to use as aquabus cables...you MUST make sure they are just cables with no active circuitry. The first 30' cable I bought on Amazon had a repeater device in the middle and I had to return it.

Here is what the line looked like by my tank. You can see the USB/Aquabus cable hanging down, I had an extra length of it longer than the tubing because the tubing went into a manifold of valves to shut-off each line independently:

Below is the shot of the garage. I have the ATO reservoir here. The shelf below has a 35g brute of FW and 35g brute of SW mix also. In the corner, you can see the poly lines going up and the aquabus cable is there as well:

Below is a better shot of the lines and the valve manifold:

Good luck!
Rick

Mrx7899 · Oct 1, 2017

Mine is about 30 feet away It goes up 8 feet then goes about 20 feet though my celling then back down about 6 feet. A brs 50ml pump mounted under my stand pulls it just fine.

LoneStarReef · Oct 1, 2017

You could also just put your Fluid Monitoring Module (FMM) in the garage and hook it up to your Apex via a long aquabus USB cable. Then put your return pump that came with the ATK in your RODI storage station and hook it up to your FMM. You would also need extension cables for the two optical sensors as well.

Or you can do what I am in the middle of doing (I have the ATK as well): I ran my RODI line directly from my RODI unit up to the attic and back down in to my office where the tank is. The RODI will be hooked up to an 8 gallon RODI tip off reservoir in my stand next to the sump. That way I don’t have to have a bunch of wires going everywhere and my FMM module can stay near the Apex. Also my RODI reservoir will have an optical sensor as well as a mechanical float valve to automatically top it off.

Hope this helps!

Jakepen · Oct 1, 2017

LoneStarReef said:
You could also just put your Fluid Monitoring Module (FMM) in the garage and hook it up to your Apex via a long aquabus USB cable. Then put your return pump that came with the ATK in your RODI storage station and hook it up to your FMM. You would also need extension cables for the two optical sensors as well.

Or you can do what I am in the middle of doing (I have the ATK as well): I ran my RODI line directly from my RODI unit up to the attic and back down in to my office where the tank is. The RODI will be hooked up to an 8 gallon RODI tip off reservoir in my stand next to the sump. That way I don’t have to have a bunch of wires going everywhere and my FMM module can stay near the Apex. Also my RODI reservoir will have an optical sensor as well as a mechanical float valve to automatically top it off.

Hope this helps!

Do they make extensions for the sensor cables?