I installed a Turbo Aquatics L4 ATS on my 90g a month or 2 ago. I'm getting good algae growth, and have had some discussions with a member of my local club that also runs one of these ATS units. Unfortunately, his setup is quite a bit different than mine because his tank has a dedicated fish room for filtration, and everything is under my stand.
I've made some minor modifications to the ATS. It comes with a flapper valve to control the primary output's flow. I replaced this with a Ball valve to match the output drain. The output is a 1.25 or 1.5" pipe which is excessive IMO considering that the feed pump is connected through 3/4". So I installed a 3/4" reducer on the output of the ball valve which is essentially the last ting before the water gets back into the sump. This was done to reduce bubbling in my sump and make it easier to tune the valve. The secondary drain is still just a straight 1.25" pipe.
However, even with the minor modifications to the primary drain. There is a decent amount of upwelling and micro bubbles from the ATS. While my tweaks have reduced the sound to be no worse than anything else in my sump. The lingering slight issue I have is that I am getting salt creep building up from the little bit of spray the bubbles cause, nothing excessive luckily, but enough that I'm still hoping to find a way to resolve it. My next thought would be to maybe add a couple inches of 3/4" pic after the reducer, or to change the reducer to 3/4" to be immediately at the primary drain out of the ATS and then go into a 3/4" valve.
Just curious if anyone else has run into similar issues with a Turbo ATS, or a similar waterfall style ATS and has any suggestions. Luckily the problem is fairly minor if I can't find a way to further streamline the setup of the ATS.
Thanks for any suggestions
I've made some minor modifications to the ATS. It comes with a flapper valve to control the primary output's flow. I replaced this with a Ball valve to match the output drain. The output is a 1.25 or 1.5" pipe which is excessive IMO considering that the feed pump is connected through 3/4". So I installed a 3/4" reducer on the output of the ball valve which is essentially the last ting before the water gets back into the sump. This was done to reduce bubbling in my sump and make it easier to tune the valve. The secondary drain is still just a straight 1.25" pipe.
However, even with the minor modifications to the primary drain. There is a decent amount of upwelling and micro bubbles from the ATS. While my tweaks have reduced the sound to be no worse than anything else in my sump. The lingering slight issue I have is that I am getting salt creep building up from the little bit of spray the bubbles cause, nothing excessive luckily, but enough that I'm still hoping to find a way to resolve it. My next thought would be to maybe add a couple inches of 3/4" pic after the reducer, or to change the reducer to 3/4" to be immediately at the primary drain out of the ATS and then go into a 3/4" valve.
Just curious if anyone else has run into similar issues with a Turbo ATS, or a similar waterfall style ATS and has any suggestions. Luckily the problem is fairly minor if I can't find a way to further streamline the setup of the ATS.
Thanks for any suggestions
