DIY Auto Top Off System

[Leroy]

Here's the easiest way I could brain storm a Auto Top Off (ATO) since none of my sumps/refugiums are plumbed into the basement. This ATO is located next to my stand and fills the refugium when it get low. The water in the Rubber maid container and will hold 20 gallons that I fill with RODI water once a week in the summer, less in the winter. The toughest task is making the bracket to hold the float switch that can be purchased on ebay for about $5-$6. I drilled and tapped a couple of holes an 8-32 thread for different heights or just use a plastic nut with a thru hole(s).

Bracket for the float switch

A pill bottle with holes drill as a snail guard to prevent overflow

20 gallon Rubbermaid container and a small pump to supply water to the sump/fuge

 

[Leroy]

Water height gauge made with an old 1/8 rigid airline tube with a piece of foam hotmelt glued as a floater inserted up thru a 1/4 tube so I'll know how low my water is before I need to refill. I used a strip of colored paper and taped it so if blue is not showing and pink is getting down there too then I'm down to a gallon of water in the container.
We'd hear the dry pump 3 rooms away more so than we'd hear our spouses telling us about what kind of day they had.

Hose secured in the sump/refugium located above the water line so not to draw any water back into your Rubber maid container.

 

[Leroy]

The extension cord is plugged into the pump. I would rather splice into a cheap extension cord rather the pump cord. By splicing into the cord you are making a connect no connect to the pump. So in a nut shell, the water goes low, float switch goes down with water height. When float switch is low it makes a connection between the two wires and says power on, fill with water. Water rises, float switch says power off till next time it needs more water. I plugged my extension cord into a timer to go on every 2 hrs so it's not always pumping of and on every 15 minutes.

Location of the protected float switch secured with a plastic screw thru the baffle slots. How you secure yours is the tricky part depending what type of material your sump/fuge is made of. An aquarium would require a bracket similar to mine but made to secure over the top edge of the tank and hang down.[/B]

 

[Scott]

Excellent how-to Leroy. As soon as the parts arrive in the mail, I'll be building pretty much the same thing.

Thanks for posting this.

 

[Scott]

mail just arrived ... and there it is.

 

[Leroy]

mail just arrived ... and there it is.

Thanx, glad it could be of some help. Time to get to work, good luck with yours, lmk how it all turns out.

 

[emabie]

Did you use a relay between the float switch? If not I would be worried about putting a 120V pump through the float switch.

 

[Leroy]

No constant current, on a timer moved up to on every 6 hrs for a brief minutes to fill then done, off.

 

[JBendel]

I second emable's question ... is the float switch closing 120 V?

 

[Jennifer]

3 rd With out using a relay the float switch will burn out. They are not designed to handle that kind of load. Other than that good job on the Diy.

 

[jovreef]

Could you tell me where on e-aby you purchased the float switch bracket thing from? I've been trying for a few weeks now to secure something to hold my float switch.

I'm doing an air lift float switch though with an old batter powered air pump rigged with an old cell phone charger for power (keeps it at the same voltage as the float switch.)

 

[Leroy]

Could you tell me where on e-aby you purchased the float switch bracket thing from? I've been trying for a few weeks now to secure something to hold my float switch.

I'm doing an air lift float switch though with an old batter powered air pump rigged with an old cell phone charger for power (keeps it at the same voltage as the float switch.)

Sounds interesting, I'd like to see the progress in a DIY thread. As far as the bracket I made the bracket for my float switch as well as making other specialty brackets, sumps, refugiums, fish traps and frag racks.

 

[Scott]

Could you tell me where on e-aby you purchased the float switch bracket thing from? I've been trying for a few weeks now to secure something to hold my float switch.

I'm doing an air lift float switch though with an old batter powered air pump rigged with an old cell phone charger for power (keeps it at the same voltage as the float switch.)

Check this out...pretty cheap.

http://www.aquahub.com/store/moldaholder9.html

 

[pantinor]

you might want to put a second fail safe float switch above the one with the snail trap on it. I have had them stick before and flood the tank with fresh water. There is a cheap unit I bought before. The link was somewhere on this forum after I searched around.

 

[LockeOak]

I just put together an Aquahub kit today in the lab... works great. I hooked it up to an aqualifter pump using a cheap extension cord that I spliced.

 

[jovreef]

Thanks Bonz, anyone use aquahubs hanger before?

Charga I'll be sure to take pics but the instructions & some diagrams are on nano-reef.com. Alot better than I could ever try to explain

 

[stevenp]

FWIW, I've been running a similar float switch directly wired to a MJ1200 for three years with no problems. It's rated for .2 amps @ 120V which is more than enough for a MJ.

Without knowing the exact specs of the poster's float switch, it's tough to say for sure whether or not it's capable of performing the task IMO.

**Disclaimer** I'm no electrician, but I assume the ratings are accurate.

 

[Jennifer]

Sometimes people get lucky.

I could say a lot more but I am not going to.

PLEASE READ.http://www.aquahub.com/store/curingspik.html

 

[emabie]

I just bought the aqua hub kit. Looks like a decent kit for the money.

My only concern is that they say the switches are not water proof and should not be submerged. They will not be fully submerged but will be close to the top of the water (It is a top off after all) will the moisture and salt creep be an issue?

As far as my comment above about the relay, I would never use a pump connected directly to the float switch. Even a pump rated at .2 amps will draw 4x or more times it's load at start up. This extra load can cause the contact of the float switch to fuse together. Here is an explanation http://www.aquahub.com/store/curingspik.html

Other than that I think the system Charga put together is great. i love the water level indicator you made.

I wanted a bit more redundancy in my system so I went with the 3 float system. One in the make up water container to prevent the pump from running dry and 2 in the sump in case one fails. I am also going to plug it into an X10 device so my ACII will turn power onto it for a few minutes every hour, that way even if all the floats fail it still won't flood my system with fresh water. (At least that's the plan)

I will post more once I get it all set up.

 

[stevenp]

Yep, I'm no electrician . Amazing it's worked this long.