AWC setup on freshwater AIO

[Jstan84]

I am looking for some guidance on safely setting up AWC and I have the following:

• IM AIO tank setup for fresh water
• Hydros X2 w/ wifi power bar
• Hydros ATO kit with sensor and drive pump
• 5 gal ATO reservoir
• 5 gal drain reservoir

I am trying to figure out what to use for a drain pump:

• Second ATO drive pump - I do not see how I could stop a siphon since I will be pumping from a chamber in the AIO down to drain reservoir
• Hydros dosing pump - I do not see how I could prevent a drain reservoir overfill without additional collective equipment, I do not have an open sense port to install a level sensor in the drain reservoir
• 120v dosing pump connected to wifi power bar - I can connect this to a float switch I already own and put the float switch in the drain reservoir. This seems to be the safest option since the float would cut the pump off if the power bar loses wifi while the pump is on

Is there any reason I shouldn't let the ATO operate as normal during the water change? I can pull the water from the tank upstream of the ATO discharge and assume I could put a timer for the ATO sensor to be dry to shut off the tank drain pump if the ATO reservoir ran out of water or the ATO pump failed. I guess that could cause failure if the power bar loses wifi for a long period and the drain pump causes my return pump runs dry and burns up.

Is the correct answer to shut off return pump and ATO operation, run AWC drain cycle, then restart ATO and return pump?

Is there anything I am missing here?
Any specific guidance on how to properly set that up in the app?

 

[Danny]

If you use the built in AWC you will have to have three pumps and use that output to control all three. I use dosing pumps. They are in my garage 35ft from the tank. I ran the tubing through insulated PVC conduit in the attic. The drain pump pull water from my sump at the tank up through the attic to the garage where the pump is located. Through the pump then back up through the attic and down a wall to the kitchen sink drain. So I do not use a container on the drain pump. I would not use a wifi outlet for either AWC or ATO. The reason is if for some reason there is a communication issue between the controller and the wifi strip the wifi strips outlets will remain in whatever state they are in when communication is lost. They will stay in that state until communication is restored. So if you loose communication while one of those pump are on they will stay on.

 

[thom_smith]

I am looking for some guidance on safely setting up AWC and I have the following:

• IM AIO tank setup for fresh water
• Hydros X2 w/ wifi power bar
• Hydros ATO kit with sensor and drive pump
• 5 gal ATO reservoir
• 5 gal drain reservoir

I am trying to figure out what to use for a drain pump:

• Second ATO drive pump - I do not see how I could stop a siphon since I will be pumping from a chamber in the AIO down to drain reservoir
• Hydros dosing pump - I do not see how I could prevent a drain reservoir overfill without additional collective equipment, I do not have an open sense port to install a level sensor in the drain reservoir
• 120v dosing pump connected to wifi power bar - I can connect this to a float switch I already own and put the float switch in the drain reservoir. This seems to be the safest option since the float would cut the pump off if the power bar loses wifi while the pump is on

Is there any reason I shouldn't let the ATO operate as normal during the water change? I can pull the water from the tank upstream of the ATO discharge and assume I could put a timer for the ATO sensor to be dry to shut off the tank drain pump if the ATO reservoir ran out of water or the ATO pump failed. I guess that could cause failure if the power bar loses wifi for a long period and the drain pump causes my return pump runs dry and burns up.

Is the correct answer to shut off return pump and ATO operation, run AWC drain cycle, then restart ATO and return pump?

Is there anything I am missing here?
Any specific guidance on how to properly set that up in the app?

Float switch or float valve? Float switch would require a 0-10v input which is only available on X4 or Wave Engine. Unless you're talking about some sort of a plug or cord with float switch capability built-in. X2 has no means of supporting a float switch. Regardless of type of float switch there is some risk of failure. Float valve would work but whatever you do for drain you would need to make sure all tubing between pump and valve is secure and not subject to pop loose if pump remains on and there is back pressure. Even then there is risk you would fill more than you drain eventually risking overflow. Alsolute safest solution is a combination of both.

Typically I would say no to running ATO during water changes. But this is a freshwater tank and you're putting the same water in regardless of ATO or AWC so it doesn't matter in the least. The advantage of leaving ATO on is you can get away with two pumps instead of three.

As for the safest drain pump, I would probably suggest a Hydros dosing pump. Actually that goes for both drain AND fill. The advantage is you can run drain and fill concurrently and they will be at or very near the same rate. The ATO micro pump may be subject to siphon which you may be able to mitigate with siphon break. To some extent a 110v pump would also be subject to siphon BUT the bigger risk is the pump remaining on during a wifi disconnect overflowing the drain reservoir and/or draining your tank beyond the capacity of the fill reservoir. During a disconnect, the wifi strips remain in the last known state until connection to X2 is re-established.

The trick to this is going to be putting safeguards in place to not overfill/overflow your tank with ATO while at the same time permitting the ATO to run longer than normal during auto water changes. A very quick test seems to indicate creating your drain output as type Generic, Input Count 0, Output Device as whatever and Controlled by Light Schedules enabled with a Start Time and End Time would work. Then you can configure you ATO with the typical level sensor Input, Output Device whatever, Depends On DRAIN with Dependency Mode On if On then Advanced Settings toggled on with Maximum Run Time set. The maximum run time and (I think) input would be ignored while DRAIN is running forcing both to run at the same time. Then if the DRAIN is off, the ATO would operate normally abiding by both the input and maximum run time. Using this configuration there would probably be a good arguement to use like pumps for drain and fill. And for the greatest safety you really need a water level sensor or float switch on your drain reservoir to cutoff the drain pump. The float valve wouldn't help much here because the drain would get back pressure and stop flow but remain powered on and fill would continue because the drain is powered in.

 

[JeffB418]

I am looking for some guidance on safely setting up AWC and I have the following:

• IM AIO tank setup for fresh water
• Hydros X2 w/ wifi power bar
• Hydros ATO kit with sensor and drive pump
• 5 gal ATO reservoir
• 5 gal drain reservoir

I am trying to figure out what to use for a drain pump:

• Second ATO drive pump - I do not see how I could stop a siphon since I will be pumping from a chamber in the AIO down to drain reservoir
• Hydros dosing pump - I do not see how I could prevent a drain reservoir overfill without additional collective equipment, I do not have an open sense port to install a level sensor in the drain reservoir
• 120v dosing pump connected to wifi power bar - I can connect this to a float switch I already own and put the float switch in the drain reservoir. This seems to be the safest option since the float would cut the pump off if the power bar loses wifi while the pump is on

Is there any reason I shouldn't let the ATO operate as normal during the water change? I can pull the water from the tank upstream of the ATO discharge and assume I could put a timer for the ATO sensor to be dry to shut off the tank drain pump if the ATO reservoir ran out of water or the ATO pump failed. I guess that could cause failure if the power bar loses wifi for a long period and the drain pump causes my return pump runs dry and burns up.

Is the correct answer to shut off return pump and ATO operation, run AWC drain cycle, then restart ATO and return pump?

Is there anything I am missing here?
Any specific guidance on how to properly set that up in the app?

So I actually just went thru putting AWC on my gf's IM AIO 40gal tank recently. Unfortunately I ran into an issue with the AWC profile in hydros, you can't use this profile without 3 outputs assigned (ATO, drain, and fill). This is because this profile is really made for salt where you hate to have different ATO and fill sources. But with freshwater, they can be the same. So i have bubbled this up to coralvue. But a work around for now would be to just use the ATO profile for the ATO/Fill pump. Then add a second output for AWC draining. Schedule this drain to run X mins every X days. Also under the ATO output, use the depends on section to turn off the ATO operation while the drain pump is running. You may want to disable heaters/pumps as well based on the tank. Once the drain cycle is done, the ATO will kick back on and fill. Now yeah you are right about ATO timers, you will will want to set your drain time short so that you dont have to have excessively long "Max on timer" that could burn you for cases where your ato reservoir runs dry. So draining alittle every day is likely the best option.

Def use the ATO pump from the kit for filling the tank. For draining, most definitely use a peristaltic 120V dosing pump. To prevent overfilling the reservoir I would say use something like this product on the dosing pump to turn it off if sensor becomes wet: AutoAqua Smart Level Security (CLOSEOUT)
But to properly use this, I would suggest getting a single wifi outlet. This sensor shouldnt be cycle'd off and on since it has a 3-5 min booting period for power outages. I would plug this safety cut off into the wall, then the single wifi outlet, then the pump. This way it will cut power to the pump and wifi outlet if your reservoir fills. Plus you will get a "device offline" notice for the wifi plug, telling you "hey your drain container is full".

While a float valve is a safety option, thats risky too since a pump pressure could still leak thru in a rare case.