AutoAqua Smart ATO Micro - automatic (aquarium) water top off system — an interim review

© 2018 Peter Free

 

16 September 2018

 

 

4 failures in 4 months

 

AutoAqua's Smart ATO Micro has alarmed and stopped working four times within four months. None of these involved an empty ATO feed reservoir.

 

I am not yet sure that the product is absolutely unreliable.

 

What I can say is that (a) some samples are probably not reliable, under (b) less than perfect conditions. Which to my mind, may eliminate a wide range of realistic aquarium conditions.

 

Reviews at Amazon and Bulk Reef Supply indicate that I am not alone in experiencing glitches.

 

Reviewers at Marine Depot and AquaCave are somewhat more favorable.

 

I have not yet given up on this unit. In view of the observations that follow, I think that I may still be able to get Smart ATO Micro to work consistently.

 

 

What caused the four failures?

 

Perhaps two — more likely than not explanations — given circumstantial evidence:

 

 

One has to do with my unit's early demonstrated inconsistent operation.

 

And the other, more recently, with brown diatom buildup inside the unit's water-delivery tubing. Diatom coating may slow water delivery enough to aggravate the hypothesized programming weakness.

 

 

With regard to trouble-shooting, the instruction manual is worthless. It seems aimed at basic set-up, rather than at diagnosing performance glitches.

 

One paragraph does provide a hint, regarding what might have happened in all four instances:

 

 

Smart ATO micro uses QST for real-time protection against any failure situation. The controller will give an audible and visual alert when it sense[s] any other refilling time is 3 times longer than the first refilling time.

 

For example, if the first refilling time is 10 sec, it will alert when any other refilling time is over 30 sec.

 

© 2016 AquaSmart, Smart ATO micro manual: Model SATO-120P, AutoAqua Technologies (2016) (at page 4)

 

 

My sample of the Smart Micro is clearly inconsistent

 

It varies as to:

 

 

(a) when the pump turns on — relative to how far the water level has dropped below the sensor

 

and

 

(b) how much it pumps — relative to how high the water level goes.

 

 

Sometimes the Smart Micro lets the sump water line fall a long way. Other times not. Occasionally it overfills 2 to 3 centimeters above the sensor. Usually, it stops right on the sensor's mark.

 

Sometimes, I hear the pump click on an off two or three times, within a five minute period.

 

On other occasions, it will not come on for hours and then will run only once. Nothing atmospheric has changed. Nothing has affected water evaporation or use.

 

It's been doing this since day one. In spite of numerous adjustments and rebootings.

 

 

Program parameters

 

If programming slop lets the ATO-sensed water line fall too far, catching back up will occasionally take too long — as compared to the original fill time. The unit then alarms and stops water delivery.

 

I suspect that this is what happened in two of my four instances. These are the two failures that occurred before brown diatom coatings were visible inside the ATO unit's water tubing.

 

The key to a fix, might be to tricking Smart Micro into thinking that the first fill should take a noticeably long time.

 

I will have to make the ATO's initial fill time equal the farthest water drop that its programming seems to permit. Whether that is possible, I do not know.

 

The manual and AutoAqua's online FAQ are not clear as to whether the unit remembers only its very first fill time. Or whether it remembers each new first fill time, after the controller is unpowered and repowered.

 

 

Why such a tiny pump?

 

I do not understand why AutoAqua made the Smart Micro's pump so small and underperforming. It produces only a trickle of water.

 

No one sensible is going to have such a small ATO reservoir that the reservoir's physical dimensions necessitate such a tiny pump. I imagine that AutoAqua got carried away with making everything tiny. Just to show they could do it.

 

AutoAqua does make a plugin switch that supposedly can convert a larger (non-AutoAqua) pump to work with the system. See here.

 

How to hook the optional switch up, is explained at the online FAQ page's question 7.

 

 

The other two instances of failure — brown diatoms?

 

These two failures occurred just this last week, after four months of use.

 

Newly visible brown diatom buildup in the ATO's water line may have slowed ATO water delivery. Slowed it enough, to put it more frequently on the long side of the unit's expectations.

 

What was initially only an occasionally experienced programming glitch has now, I hypothesize, been aggravated by diatom-caused slowing of the ATO's fill times.

 

 

Note

 

Brown diatom buildup may be the indirect result of local water's high silicate and 8.0 pH. My properly cycled tanks all experience substantial diatom growth.

 

Fiddling, even drastically, with light strength and durations does not help. Neither has trying to reduce silicates in the tap water.

 

Reverse osmosis water is not an option in our rental house.

 

 

After last night's second ATO failure — within the last two weeks — I cleaned the ATO's tubing with bleach and hot water. We will see whether the failure rate drops.

 

This, incidentally, is one area where the tiny stock pump and its small tubing aggravate diatom buildup's negative impact on fill rate. A more forceful pump, with larger diameter tubing, would reduce the brown strands' ability to cling to the fill tube's wall.

 

On the other hand, a larger pump would theoretically increase the possibility for sump overflow. Especially so, if I am unable to get the ATO to perform more reliably with regard to shutting off exactly at the sensor.

 

 

Regarding the Smart Micro's high pitched alarm sound

 

My wife can hear the AutoAqua's alarm at far corners of the house. I cannot detect its sound, even standing next to it.

 

I am deaf to frequencies 4,000 hertz (Hz) and above. The AquaSmart's alarm must be close to that range.

 

The sensor does flash red, when the alarm is sounding. But that's of no use, unless you are looking directly at it. Or watching red reflections on the ceiling and walls of a dark room.

 

 

The moral? — Smart ATO Micro may not be reliable enough to recommend

 

That would be a pity. When it works, it's very nice. The small sensor fits unobtrusively in the comparatively narrow sump of Innovative Marine's Lagoon 25 aquarium.

 

I will keep fiddling with it. Unfiltered material may be interfering with the Smart Micro's sensor. That's what I meant earlier by "realistic aquarium conditions." I have increased particle filtration immediately before water gets to the sensor.

 

I have not given up this AutoAqua product.