I recently added a tunze 5017 ato to my system and still can’t seem to get it to work correctly. My currently set up is with both the sensors in my return pump section of my sump; however it seems to raise my total tank water level drastically. I came home the other day to a tank that was about 1cm from overflowing from my rim and was blown away to see my ato sent almost all the water to the system; along with the water level rose as high as it did. What seems to happen is my ato is continuously running every few minutes and since my return pump is blasting the water to the display; the display rises faster than its originally set up to drain it from the tank causing the ato to run cause the water looks as if it’s not there. Should I look into adding the ato output to my external overflow ? Or somewhere else in my sump?
Maintaining water level with an ATO
- Thread starter Be102
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SashimiTurtle
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What's your return setup?
leepink23
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Wouldn't you want to adjust return pump to balance out with how fast it drains, then the ato will just take care of evaporation.
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Be102
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This is the current set up. Basically Technically the water level is leaving my tank consistently; my only problem is I have a one sized u tube as my overflow and it doesn’t take more water despite water level or whatnot. I’m thinking it’s just getting put into the tank faster than the sensor realizes and it causes a lot to go in. And then it will go on and off for about 15 seconds for a few minutes.
I’m just concerned cause as of now how I’ve been using it is basically just an ato pump and unplug / plug it in whenever I see the water is low. However I am going away in about two weeks for a 9 days and won’t be around to manually top off and whatnot. I would like to leave the pump in a larger fresh water container than my current 5 gallon and just feel comfortable with the ato working correctly.
SashimiTurtle
Turtle
What is the drain up in the tank? Durso, bean animal? My durso wasn't letting enough water come in so when the ato kicked on the return pumped it up to the tank. Then the ATO sensed the sump was low and it filled again. Pump sent it up top, ECT... tank almost over flowed. Open the valve on the drain more, you gotta do a lot of adjusting to find the right spot.
I think Robin has the right of it ...
Your drains need to be able to handle just a little bit more that the return is throwing up there. If you can open up the drain or throttle back the return, that ought to help a lot. (And consider this ... what if a bit of hair algae catches in your drain while you're not looking, slowing it just that little bit . . . )
~Bruce
Your drains need to be able to handle just a little bit more that the return is throwing up there. If you can open up the drain or throttle back the return, that ought to help a lot. (And consider this ... what if a bit of hair algae catches in your drain while you're not looking, slowing it just that little bit . . . )
~Bruce
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Be102
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See that’s basically my exact problem; except I have a one output overflow to 2 outputs to socks / fuge. So basically I can silence it; however I can’t seem to figure out how to make it so it will drain. I guess worst case is when I leave for vacation I could just leave both the valves open wider so no water builds up in the overflow box; just still concerning with the water overflowing in the tank itself. I should get another float switch perhaps and attach it to the pump ; although I already have my return pump with a float switch in the overflow box to Incase it began to back up or got clogged it wouldn’t overflow.
