ATO directly from RODI

uhupong

Well-Known Member
BRS Member
I bought Apex ATO and thinking of hooking it up to my sump and rodi and use solenoid valve for control.

Let me know Pro and Con please.

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I don’t think I can sleep with a solenoid controlling any kind of an infinite source of water. The benefit will never be worth the headache of a flooded house.
Even if you can 100% gaurantee the solo wood won’t fail, the RO usually requires some kind of a flush before it goes to the DI. After the RO has been sitting for a bit, TDS built up and it requires a flush. Otherwise, your DI will get exhausted pretty quick. My RO goes up as high as 140ppm after a couple days of not using and it takes about 5mins to flush to get to 2ppm in which I then send that to the DI for final polishing to 0ppm.
 
Im trying to set up a sustem so i can go away on vacation for a few weeks without worried about tank running dry. It happened to me before.

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I have a friend in Cambridge that has spent years trying to come up with a bulletproof system as he travels for 2 months at a time, and every time, there is a auto top off failure while he is away. He's a archaeologist for Harvard, he's no dummy. Risky risky, be careful. I usually make a bunch of water before my trips, and have family or friends do the top offs for me. So far, no issue's with that. Just my 2 cents.
 
Im trying to set up a sustem so i can go away on vacation for a few weeks without worried about tank running dry. It happened to me before.

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I rather have the tank runs dry and come home to a dead reef tank than come home to a dead reef tank and a flooded house!
A 60gallons barrel is around $100 and can last me about a month for my 400gallons system.
 
Do you know if HD sell that container?

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I sort of did this but used a tank to hold the water from rodi . Then added two optical sensors to the tank and a float on both. in addition to the Apex ATK.
 
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The solenoid valve only opens for 1 hr a day so i could never over fill the main tank more than 8 gallons of RODI in 24 hrs.
 
Can solenoid value fail and leave the port open ? It may be a silly question as I don't know how the valve work.

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Here is my approach - I have a 5 gallon HD bucket as the DIY ATO, but I also "dose" RODI from another 5 gallon jug (could be as large as you want). I have dialed in the dosing rate at 150ml x 12 doses/day which lasts right around 10 days.

I am running a 60 DT with a basement 55 sump. I believe my evaporation is as high as it is due to the basement and high flow.
 
This is what I love about threads. "This is me" have provided the best answer to the OP question, and we still want to design systems that works but have a high risk of failure. The archeologists guy will need a hugh ATO container or just change the hobby.

Friends and family are human beings. They fail too. The worst is that you can't say anything or blame them, because, at the end, is our hobby and our responsibility.

I do agree with This Is Me. Buy a big container for your trip and later save it for future trips.

Now what do I do: Same as Cripticlife. I have a 25 G container beside the tank that is good for 1 1/2 weeks , in average.

If i will be 2 weeks out or more. I leave 5 G containers full of RODI water beside the tank and ask a family member to go home after 1 1/2 weeks and pour the 5G water containers inside the ATO container and is good for another 1 1/2 weeks.

Be sure that I call 200 hundred times the poor guy that said YES to my request. He/she hates me but it has been working.

Cheers
Daniel
 
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Can solenoid value fail and leave the port open ? It may be a silly question as I don't know how the valve work.

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The solenoid only opens if there is power applied to it by the Apex. I don't know if it is a field closed one. But the float valve is a final backup if it was to stick open .
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The archeologists guy will need a hugh ATO container or just change the hobby.

Not necessarily if your using a float valve top off system. Whether it's being stored or straight off the line top off setup, it's all the same series of functions. Containment isn't the issue in his case, the equipment for delivery is, and the shut off that's where the failures are, the components. TDS buildup seems to be the bigger issue over time. In this particular case seems to be around week 4 or 5. With 6 tanks there isn't long periods of time of in-operation.
 
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