ato help

ok so my friend (who owns a pet store) and i installed a tank in a clients office recently and have not had to really worry about topping off because we have been going at least once a week most times twice a week so we just bring ro/di water when we go to test the water or add fish or corals or something. the initial plan was to just hook a float valve to a water line the client had plumbed into the stand for us. but the problem is that its a copper line so when we filled the tank we ran cuprisorb for a few days and tested to make sure that it was all gone. but now we are about to switch to a monthly maintenance schedule now that the tank is up and running so we need to put the ato in. i was wondering if di resin will remove copper. if so then ill hook up a brs di canister with a float valve on the outlet and well be done. any help is much appreciated

 

DI resin alone will remove copper ions, but not particulate copper solids and salt, per se.

Is the water line source from an RO unit to begin with? If not, and you're just running untreated municipal tap water in, you may as well pack it in now, you'll have a really hard time getting any kind of invertebrate, including corals, to grow in that tank. DI resins are meant to treat already processed water from an RO system. If used alone a lb of DI resin may exhaust in as little as a few gallons of water... not cost effective at all.

Also, aside from copper pipes, ATO is a dangerous game anyways. If you're going straight from a high pressure water line to the tank via a simple float valve it's a ticking time bomb. One evil snail, one broken part, one unanticipated obstruction in the float and you'll overflow the tank, drop the salinity, kill the tank, and make a HUGE mess.

My ATO system is fed straight off an RODI unit, and it's triple redundant in that I have 2 float switches and a timer on the solenoid valve, and I still worry about it.

Anyways, I would say no to the copper pipe. If there's room under the tank install a decent RODI unit, and invest in any of the commercially available ATO systems. Float valves have their place in some ATO systems, but hooked up straight to a source alone is not a good idea.


Well...that's my 2¢, I'm sure someone will be along shortly to contradict me, and I hope they're right

-Doug

 

thanks Doug that was very helpful. i've decided i'm going to do an ato based off of a float switch from autotopoff.com, a tom aqualifter, and a 10 gal. tank as the reservoir.