Need an ATO recommendation

[ArowanaLover1902]

Tonight was my final night with Tunze products (the only reason I'm up at 6:00 in the morning is because of their defective equipment). I've used a tunze 3152 for about 6 months, I've had repeated issues the whole time. Now, with 5 gallons on my carpet, I think it's time for a change. I've got college in 3 weeks and was trying to keep costs down, now I'll likely have $200 spent that I could have used to do things like eat. Need advice.

 

[Katrina71]

Smart micro ATO

 

[reefwiser]

Looks like you have the ATO sensor right at the exit of the drain from the tank? Is that correct? Needs to be in a calm area without much turbulence and where the water level is constant.
What types of problems did you have with the Tunze ATO?

 

[Flexin]

+1 on the smart ato. Have that on both tanks for a year and no problems. You could have searched on ATO recommendations, you will get the same answers...

 

[Water Dog]

Do you also have a picture of your ATO reservoir? Is the water level in the ATO reservoir lower than level of the ATO fill hose? Just want to make sure you’re not experiencing siphoning issues. Also, in the thread you started in the Tunze forum, you mentioned that you’ve had your return section run dry and suck air, to avoid that, the ATO sensor should be in the return section, not the overflow section.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Thats my old sump, I did an overhaul. My LFS guys told me to put it in the return chamber because thats pretty much the only area that fluctuates, it just messed up once and didn't add any water, letting it run dry. My reservoir is just a 5 gallon bucket, it is lower than the hose. Its not a siphon issue, I had that once but I didn't even mention it because it was totally my fault. The sensor does something where it tells the pump to keep going, and it does, nonstop. For example (and this isn't the first time its happened) I was woken up at 6:00 last night because water was spilling everywhere. It had dumped about 4 gallons. I've looked at micro smart ATO, you're right it does seem pretty cool.

This is what my sump looks like now, I couldn't find an actual picture on my computer, I'll get one later. But the sensor is in the return chamber above the return pump.

 

[Water Dog]

I would contact Roger Vitko at [email protected]. He’ll troubleshoot it, fix it or replace it since it’s only 6 months old. Roger’s level of service is second to none.

 

[Flexin]

I also have it in the return pump area of my sump. Once the water flow stabilizes it should be fine there. I turn it on 10 mins after returning power to my return pump. If you can get that one fixed that is great. The smart ato also has an anti siphon valve (the new one)