Auto Top Off

[46cobraguy]

does anyone know the best kit to get for this? Ive seen the JBJ, tsunami, and a few others but what works the best, what is the most reliable, and accurate? Cost is a factor so ill throw that in there too. Also im going to be looking for a RODI unit. Anyone know a good brand for a good price? Thanks for the help in advance.
chris

 

[t316]

Grumpygills can probably chime in here....

 

[fitchguy]

Spectrapure is supposed to be the best for RO units. I have a JBJ Auto Top off brand new in the box, I am just going to go with a spectrapure liquid level controller since I have a Maxcap RO System to hook it up to. if you want it for $70 Shipped. Let me know

 

[paulidee]

I am also thinking about an Auto top off system. does the JBJ Auto Top off hook up to the RO unit? Can I put a bucket of RO water on top of my sump and run a line to the top off into the sump? How do people usually do it?
My tank is in my family room and I usually hook my RO unit to my laundry room sink which is probably 30 feet away.

 

[ameno]

Originally Posted by paulidee
I am also thinking about an Auto top off system. does the JBJ Auto Top off hook up to the RO unit? Can I put a bucket of RO water on top of my sump and run a line to the top off into the sump? How do people usually do it?
My tank is in my family room and I usually hook my RO unit to my laundry room sink which is probably 30 feet away.
the JBJ has a outlet connection so you can hook up a small pump, when the water level gets low it kicks the pump to add water to the sump

 

[paulidee]

But would you connect it directly to the RO unit or a bucket of water?

 

[ameno]

the ro unit fills the bucket of water and the pump then pumps from there to the sump. so no the auto top-off does not hook to the ro unit. on the jbj controller

 

[paulidee]

Ok, I am a little new at this so please excuse the dumb questions! Do you just fill the bucket periodically with RO water or do you run a line from the RO unit to the bucket to automatically fill it? I would think you would need some sort of shut off valve for the RO unit to do that?
Thanks for your help!

 

[ameno]

Originally Posted by paulidee
Ok, I am a little new at this so please excuse the dumb questions! Do you just fill the bucket periodically with RO water or do you run a line from the RO unit to the bucket to automatically fill it? I would think you would need some sort of shut off valve for the RO unit to do that?
Thanks for your help!
you can do it either way, what I'm doing with mine is putting a float valve in the container, have a auto shut off valve on the ro unit/ mine came with one, some do and with some it's an extra, so this keeps water in the container. I goning to be setting up a auto top off system on my new tank in a couple weeks and will try to post picks of how it's all set up on my 125gal project tread.

 

[t316]

Do these float valves ever get stuck? It seems like it could happen easily, and you would have a flood on your hands.

 

[ameno]

It's possible, it's always good to have a fail safe back-up, what I plan on doing is not keep the water supply on all the time to the ro unit, I'll turn it on from time to time to fill up the container, it will just keep it from running over if I forget about it, like I do now about every other time I make water. but any of these float switches can stick.

 

[wattsupdoc]

I guess I just dont understand why you would use a float valve, a float switch and a pump. Plus a container. When the float valve alone will do the job just fine.....Why??????? You can get an adjustable float valve for about 5 bucks. Done Deal. K.I.S.S.

 

[ameno]

Originally Posted by wattsupdoc
I guess I just dont understand why you would use a float valve, a float switch and a pump. Plus a container. When the float valve alone will do the job just fine.....Why??????? You can get an adjustable float valve for about 5 bucks. Done Deal. K.I.S.S.
Because he was asking about how the JBJ auto-controller worked

 

[wattsupdoc]

Originally Posted by 46cobraguy
does anyone know the best kit to get for this? Ive seen the JBJ, tsunami, and a few others but what works the best, what is the most reliable, and accurate? Cost is a factor so ill throw that in there too. Also im going to be looking for a RODI unit. Anyone know a good brand for a good price? Thanks for the help in advance.
chris
Thats just it, all the ATO kits you get CAN not be more accurate or dependable when they have more parts to go wrong. Additionally he said cost is a factor. It appears to me he was asking whats a reliable inexpensive way to go. I Have 3 float VALVES in place right now and they are very accurate and reliable. 5 bucks each.

 

[ameno]

when you use a float valve alone hooked to your ro then if the float valve sticks you run water until you figure out what's going on, or if you gravity feed from a container the you first have to have the room to do this and still have to fill a container. so if you put water in a container the use that for top off tru a controller and something sticks you will only dump the water that's in the container. also you can hook the jbj with dual float swiches for safety, also if your topping off thru a calk reactor you need a pump for that.

 

[ameno]

Originally Posted by wattsupdoc
Thats just it, all the ATO kits you get CAN not be more accurate or dependable when they have more parts to go wrong. Additionally he said cost is a factor. It appears to me he was asking whats a reliable inexpensive way to go. I Have 3 float VALVES in place right now and they are very accurate and reliable. 5 bucks each.
Paulidee was asking questions about the JBJ, so that's what I was trying to help explain to him how it works, and yes there is simpler ways and cheaper way to auto top off. just depends on what all your trying to acheive.

 

[wattsupdoc]

Ameno, I didnt meean to offend or anything. Hope I didnt, good advise your giving.

I understand where you are coming from there. He did ask some questions about the JBJ etc. types, I just see this kind of stuff come up and still dont really get it. None of my float valves have ever stuck. I'm not sure exactly how long I've been running them. But at least 6 months on 2 of them and a couple on the 3rd. They will even work on a sumpless tank with a little modding. Mine are fed right off my R.O. Periodically scrub around it with a toothbrush. No inverts can get into this column and the valve part is above the water line.

 

[ameno]

Originally Posted by wattsupdoc
Ameno, I didnt meean to offend or anything. Hope I didnt, good advise your giving.

I understand where you are coming from there. He did ask some questions about the JBJ etc. types, I just see this kind of stuff come up and still dont really get it. None of my float valves have ever stuck. I'm not sure exactly how long I've been running them. But at least 6 months on 2 of them and a couple on the 3rd. They will even work on a sumpless tank with a little modding. Mine are fed right off my R.O. Periodically scrub around it with a toothbrush. No inverts can get into this column and the valve part is above the water line.
no offense take doc. there is a lot of different ways of doing things, I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to set mine up, and a few reasons why I went with the JBJ and a container is, for one the ro/di unit I have recommendes to not start and stop the unit real frequent that the first gal. or so is not as pur eof tds that it's better to run a longer amount at a time, not sure how true this is but I decided to go with there recommedation, also I drip kalk so on my new system I'm adding a kalk stirrer, so I have to pump to it for the top-off, which also rules out just using a float valve, also to prevent to high a ph a ph controller will be set-up in the system, lot more complicated but the kalk drip works great for me and this is a way to keep it going. If I were just going to top-off fresh water the way your talking I think would work great.
by the way is the ozarks that you have on your location, is that the arkansas Ozarks?

 

[wattsupdoc]

Missouri, Ozark Mo exactly, Just north of Branson. South of Springfield. Where are you at in Arkansas?
Yesy, I just recently built a kalk reactor myself, I've been having some issues trying to match evaporation exactly. with not being able to pressurize the unit. I've been kicking around my options to fine tune it. Thinking maybe a container with float valve, fed friom RO. Then an aqualifter with a ball valve feeding the reactor, controlled by a timer. Or maybe the JBJ. But I have all the other stuff allready except a suitable container...... Cheaper to go that way. Right now I drip shy of evap. then backed up with the float valve.

 

[ameno]

Originally Posted by wattsupdoc
Missouri, Ozark Mo exactly, Just north of Branson. South of Springfield. Where are you at in Arkansas?
Yesy, I just recently built a kalk reactor myself, I've been having some issues trying to match evaporation exactly. with not being able to pressurize the unit. I've been kicking around my options to fine tune it. Thinking maybe a container with float valve, fed friom RO. Then an aqualifter with a ball valve feeding the reactor, controlled by a timer. Or maybe the JBJ. But I have all the other stuff allready except a suitable container...... Cheaper to go that way. Right now I drip shy of evap. then backed up with the float valve.
that's a nice area, we take the Harley up that way usually once a year, nice drive, I'm in Hot Springs. What I've come up with and haven't installed it yet so I'm sure I will have a few issues but I'll have the float valve in the container, then a auqalifter pump that feeds the reactor, and to keep PH stable I'm getting a PH controller, less then $100 and have a seperate aqualifter that bypasses the reactor. It will all hook into a DPDT relay so that if the Ph reaches a certain point the relay turns on the fresh water pump and bypasses the reactor. I'll try and post on by thread I have going on how it all hooks together and how it works, dripping kalk I have it to were everything is balanced out ok, but with a reactor I'm just afraid of the chane of overdosing kalk into the system.