Best Value Most Reliable ATO??

did you get it? Likes/dislikes I have been looking at an ato for awile

 

BlueLine Tsunami AT-1

 

I got the JBJ.

So far so good. I did not use the suction cups as even in the directions is says they do not recommend you use them. The only think i don't like is it is somewhat difficult at first to attach the senors to the brackets. but not an issue once you fig it out. i did have something strange happen. the ato was working fine, but today i came home and my sump was filled well above where it should have been. i pulled the senor up and it kicked on i put it back in the water and it kicked off. what i think happened is that it siphoned water out of my reservoir once the pump kicked off. i am going to re work my hose and make sure that was the problem. will post back in a few days to make sure.

overall i think it was a good buy at 50. even 80. the unit seems well built. simple set up besides the figuring out the mounting bracket.

 

Glad u like it, bud!
Your water reservoir level MUST BE bellow the tip of the hose where water comes out or else you will always have that siphon going. Secondly, the output hose should never be submerged in the sump water. I'll take a pic of my setup if it will help. Let me know if u want to see how I set up mine.

-Mag.

Sent from my phone using my two opposable digits

 

well you hit it right on the head.

i am about to change it.

but just asking why do you not want to have your hose below the water line?

 

Glad you like it Im going to get one this weekend. Thanks for the input

 

It has to do with the laws of physics. Narrowed down to gravity and the siphon issue you were having:

If you mean under the water in the sump, it's quite simple:

Imagine you have two 5 gallons buckets next to each other (bucket 1 and 2), both have 3 gallons of water and they're connected by a couple of feet of hose that is filled with water (Wich would be the case of the ATO when activated, pump pushes water up and out the hose).
Now, you get a 1 gallon jugs of water, and pour it into either one of the buckets (lets say bucket #1) and you will see that within seconds, bucket #2 that is connected with the hose, even though you're adding water to the other bucket, starts to raise. This is because of the siphon and the fact that water tries to find its level always. Which you understand obviously because you mentioned it on your original post.

So, now transfer that into your fish tank. You have a reservoir filled with water, and a sump also filled with water. If both ends of the hose are submerged in the water, after your pump starts and pushes whatever air was in the hose out, it will be filled with water and it will either siphon water from your reservoir into the sump or water from your sump into your water reservoir and this will flow the water from one container to the other until the siphon is broken or equilibrium is found.

Now, if you had your reservoir at a higher level than the sump, with a hose stretched down to the sump, then the water from the reservoir would keep falling into the sump, causing a flood. That's why your reservoir must be at the same level or lower than your sump and the output must be above the water level of your sump, otherwise it would siphon as described.

I think I made it even more complicated than it really is, but I hope it will help out. I'll post a pic of my setup tonight.

 

I just drilled plenty of holes in the output hose just above the waterline. That breaks the siphon.

 

I have the JBJ and really like it. No complaints!

 

Sorry about the delay, here's my setup:

On the first pic you can see the whole setup. Inside the bucket, a MaxiJet 600 pump that pushes the water up the hose into the sump.



On this second picture, you can see how the hose is all the way up to the tank, aiming towards the back glass of the sump to reduce noise when topping off.



If the end of the hose would be submerged in the water of the sump, I would get back siphon, since some times I keep the level of the water in the sump a little higher.

On this last picture, you can see how I try to keep the water level of the sump and the maximum water level in the reservoir about the same. This is to prevent back siphon, in the strange case that my return pump stops working for any reason and the sump gets filled up to the top. The only way I've ever had a spill was due to my overflow drain being cruised by one of my nerite snails, reducing the flow rate and being unable to match the flow rate from the return pump.



Sorry about all the dirty glass and stuff.... maintenance not due until the weekend ;-)