Coralvue Smart ATO Owners Out There?

[sharko88]

I am looking to add an ATO to my system and have started doing my research. I have come across the Coralvue Smart ATO in my search and wanted to ask those who have one currently installed to manage water levels in their sump to chime in. I have read conflicting reports on what happens during a power outage so I wanted to see what others have experienced. If the power goes out will this ATO absolutely need manual intervention to reset it or will it reset after the sump level restores (about 30-45 seconds after my main pump kicks back in when the power comes back on)? I don't want a tiny power outage while I at work to cause an alarm to run all day until I get home as it would probably drive our cats crazy. Or worse yet it goes off while I am away and my wife is home and has to take care of it so it stops beeping [smilie=wink.gif] .

 

[Titus]

I was one of the first adopters/reviewers of the Smart, and I am likely responsible for conflicting reports. When I first set it up, I thought it needed manual intervention. It needs to be out of the water to re-initialize, so when the power pops off for a minute, the alarm will sound because the normal water level is too high for it to initialize. What I later found and reported is that if you leave it alone with alarm sounding, evaporation will eventually drop the water level down and it will re-initialize. The level needs to drop about 1/4 inch. How long this takes will vary for system to system. I run it in a 30g AIO, where the surface area of the compartment the sensor is in is only about 36 square inches. This means I only need about 5 oz of evaporation, which takes about 2 hours on my tank. If it happens when I am home, I just temporarily scoop up some water in a solo cup to get the water level to drop enough for it to initialize and stop beeping. If I am not home, it beeps for a few hours and then goes back to normal.

To figure out how long it will take to re-initialize, you can do the following math:

-Figure out the surface area of the section of your sump where the sensor will be (Length x width)
-Next take the surface area and divide by 4 to get the number of cubic inches of evaporation needed.
-To convert this figure to ounces, multiply the number of cubic inches by .554 to get ounces
-Then just compare this number to how much top off water you use a day to get an estimate of how long it will take.

 

[melev]

I just got one yesterday that I'll be doing a product review upon.

 

[sharko88]

Thanks Titus and I look forward to your review Marc.

Anyone know if the Tunze ATO has the same issue with a power outage since it also uses an electronic eye? Just wondering since it is more money.

 

[Titus]

@sharko88 wrote:

LOL... I have the Tunze on another tank. The Tunze is not "Smart" so it it doesn't do any initializing. It simply adds water if the low sensor is reading dry, and shuts off water and triggers the high water alarm when the higher sensor is triggered. It's high water alarm will go off when power is first restored (because all the water has drained to the sump from the return pump being off), but the alarm goes off after a minute or two once the sump level returns to normal. I prefer the Smart ATO, because it can tell that my ATO reservoir is dry and sounds the alarm. I normally don't let it go dry, but it did happen once so I saw the alarm in action. The Tunze just keeps trying to pump from a dry reservoir. This happened to mine when I was on vacation and the tank sitter was not filling it, and it burned out the pump.

 

[melev]

I just hooked it up, and am way impressed just from the initial out of the package experience. I'll run it for a couple of days before I type up a review, but I have good fuzzy feelings for it already.

 

[Dude]

I've been running this for a few weeks on my new tank. It's beeped at me a few times while I was messing around with things in the sump. I can't recall the exact reasons it went off but the safe guards are a great feature. I just unplug and plug back in and all is well.

 

[Bassthumb]

I need one. I hate my
Jbj ATO. The sensors always fail and it never fills up. I end up with big ph swings dosing kalk. I'm
Sure my
Corals love it. A
Smart ato is my
Next purchase

 

[bimmerzs]

I travel quite a bit(up to a couple month's continuously) and found I can never trust the stand-alone ATO unit's so I switched to a gravity feed system using a positive shutoff float(kent or similar) and a solenoid vve controlled by an apex or cheap timer. It runs 30 minutes each day so even if a snail park's on it keeping the float valve "open", then the solenoid serves as your backup. It cost's about $65 total including johnny guest fitting for the top-off container. YMMV