Rincon_Reefer
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2020
- Messages
- 119
- Reaction score
- 175
- Location
- Savannah
- What state or country do you live in
- Georgia
I was all about the simplicity of the red sea reefer gravity fed ATO.....until a few months in when I realized salt creep made it totally crap. Not to mention dosing Kalkwasser, oy vey. Side note, not sure how red sea got this past any sort of R&D test based engineering phase...but I digress.
I tripled my volume and bypassed their float valve for $120.
By my estimations the redsea ATO is about 2.5-3 gallons. Not great. I would like a bit more time out of my ATO than refilling every few days.
So, I added a cheapo 5 gallon Commander brand tote container I bought at lowes. It is made from the same polyethelene the brute trash cans are made of. Everyone has been using those for years to store RODI, so I wasn't worried about leaching. Then I drilled a hole and put some off the shelf sink plumbing in with a 1/4" barb fitting. I needed to convert from 1/4" flex tube to 3/16" since red sea used a weirdo hose size, but there is a cheap fitting I found on BRS. I sealed everything using silicon and it was ready to go. As for the pump I used a JBJ nano ATO, also a BRS purchase. They say 40 gallons, but honestly it only runs a handful of times a day, so the wear and tear is not much. All the other optical based ATO systems are double the price (lookin' at you tunze)....so me think if it last half the time (which I doubt) it still is worth half the price. Plus JBJ is a pretty trusted brand so I'll see how it works.
The real trick of this system is that I mounted my 5 gallon tote at exactly the same height to maximize usable volume. It isn't perfect, but using the theory of communicating vessels (fun science term) it is pretty close. I put mine on a sliding shelf so it is much easier to fill than the original ATO, but that is of course optional. So far so good, my JBJ pump works like a champ and the additional volume is super convenient.
I tripled my volume and bypassed their float valve for $120.
By my estimations the redsea ATO is about 2.5-3 gallons. Not great. I would like a bit more time out of my ATO than refilling every few days.
So, I added a cheapo 5 gallon Commander brand tote container I bought at lowes. It is made from the same polyethelene the brute trash cans are made of. Everyone has been using those for years to store RODI, so I wasn't worried about leaching. Then I drilled a hole and put some off the shelf sink plumbing in with a 1/4" barb fitting. I needed to convert from 1/4" flex tube to 3/16" since red sea used a weirdo hose size, but there is a cheap fitting I found on BRS. I sealed everything using silicon and it was ready to go. As for the pump I used a JBJ nano ATO, also a BRS purchase. They say 40 gallons, but honestly it only runs a handful of times a day, so the wear and tear is not much. All the other optical based ATO systems are double the price (lookin' at you tunze)....so me think if it last half the time (which I doubt) it still is worth half the price. Plus JBJ is a pretty trusted brand so I'll see how it works.
The real trick of this system is that I mounted my 5 gallon tote at exactly the same height to maximize usable volume. It isn't perfect, but using the theory of communicating vessels (fun science term) it is pretty close. I put mine on a sliding shelf so it is much easier to fill than the original ATO, but that is of course optional. So far so good, my JBJ pump works like a champ and the additional volume is super convenient.
