I am interested in adding an auto top off to my sump. I would like a cheap solution, but don't want to go the constant drip route. I think that I would rather do a float valve. Does anybody have a plan that they use? I don't really do electrical so I think that I would prefer gravity fed.
a friend of mine made one out of pvc. get 1 1/2 piece how ever long you want it and cut a notch out of it close to the water level you want it to sit at. then drill it and install a basic gravity float valve to it and run the line from your ro unit to that and its an easy auto top off without drilling or electical floats. make your own hanger system how ever you want. he used 2 90s and hung it over the top of the tank
On the 150 I plan on putting a container for top off in the garage (holding off on the sump room right now, just putting sump under tank) and I'm gonna have one the outlets that I have wired into the canopy fixed with a switch. Ill hook the pump in the top off container to this and plumb to the sump. When I do my daily routine maintenance on the tank I'll just flip the switch and let it run till it tops off then kill the switch. I'm a little paranoid about automating top offs as a failure could be a lot of water in the floor. Figure I will loose a few gallons a day in the 150 and I'm gonna put a small pump on the top off that way it takes a few minutes to top off. I don't think that will change salinity in 200 gallons of volume enough to hurt anything.
Today I purchased a Eshopps Float Valve with holder. I attached it to the sump. I had to trim a part of the tank rim off to make it fit. I have a 10 gallon aquarium with RO water in it and attached the plastic tubing to the bottom of the tank with three suction cup mounts. I appears to be working. So far so good. I added this link to show everybody what it looks like. This has to be the easiest auto top off ever. http://www.petsolutions.com/EShopps-Float-Valve+I89003531+C28.aspx
I use the same float valve and it does work very well. I use a 5 gallon bucket that sits behind the frag tank and drilled a hole in the bottom of it and put a john guest fitting so it could be disconnected to be cleaned because I top off with kalkwasser and the bucket and float valve needs to be cleaned every week or two due to calcuim build up.
