osmolator rocks!!

[blueboy]

well, i finally got a proper top off system, after months of toying with the idea of building one, and researching on the web. I finally decided to just get the osmo, and so far i don't think i'll be disappointed. Very easy to set up, and good bye sore back(i do enough lifting at work, i got into this hobby to relax, not work more!!) They have 3 more in stock at Aquatech, $175 after tax.

[AlexKilpatrick]

I've actually built my own and it isn't that hard. Just a couple of float switches and an extension cord. The hard thing is finding the right pump. I actually bought the osmolator pump to use with mine; it is an ideal pump -- not too fast of a flow.

However, on my most recent tank, I went ahead and bought an osmolator. It has two nice features -- a time alarm if it runs more than ten minutes, and an easy hook-up to a calc dispenser. MY controller actually fell off and sat in a bucket of water for a day. I dried it out and it worked fine after that. Tunze makes some great stuff, but boy is it expensive.

[LoneStar]

I got my Tunze Osmolator a few weeks ago and it has made things so much nicer now!!!! No more making up water every few days to dump into the sump. The water level stays very precise and does not fluxtuate at all. Definatly worth the money. Now I just have to fill up the 37 gallon trash can once a fort night. Next step for me is to build a kaulk reactor to hook inline to it. :) :)

[bigdscobra]

only if i had the room :blink

[LoneStar]

only if i had the room


Its smaller than most of my text books....

[LoneStar]

but you might have to make room for the trash can though :w00t

[bigdscobra]

but you might have to make room for the trash can though :w00t


Yep thats the problem :wacko

[Belowh20]

osmolator is definitly one of the best investments i've made.

[Henry]

I would get rid of the trash can and replace it with a heavy duty barrel, we dont need another accident like what happened to Reef69. Trash cans were not made to hold water for an extented period of time.

[LoneStar]

It all depends on what kind of trash can you use. I have a Brute trash can by Rubbermaid I bought at Home Depot. Its been working great for me. I've seen many pictures on RC with people using them inline with sumps and fuges and never have a problem. They are more expensive than regular trash cans but you get what you pay for. Sturdy and thick plastic.

[Dozer]

I also bought an osmolator a few months ago and have grown to consider it the best investment I've ever made in this hobby. It is rock solid reliable. In all honesty, the slightly high cost of the unit has been more than made up for so many times now that we no longer have to remember to dump in a bucket full of top off water every day or two. No more filling and carrying bucket back and forth, no more spilling water somewhere along the way, no more letting it get too low and affecting salinity, and most importantly no more chance of ever forgetting for some crazy reason and burning up the external Iwaki return pump! I really really love the thing!

I also use the brutes and they are sturdy enough for water IMO, but I have no scientific data to back that up. Seems to me one of our resident science/engineering types on MAAST could probably easily figure that out. Anyone?? 8)

[AlexKilpatrick]

I want to put in a counter-argument to all the osmolator love here. :)

First of all, I have nothing against the osmolator. I actually use one. However, most of the things people are saying here about the osmolator are true of top-offs in general. Any top-off will make your life easier, keep your salinity level, keep your pump from burning out, etc. The only real advantage the osmolator has is that it has a little more electornic brains, in that it will not run for more than 10 minutes.

However, if you would like an osmolator without the extreme price, you can have one for less than $50. You need two float switches, an extension cord, and the osmolator pump. That's all. I had one of these work for several years and it never failed.

If anyone is interested in one, let me know. I'll actually build you one for the cost of parts + one good frag.

[blueboy]

the redundant safeties are IMO one of the greatest things about the osmo. convenience is a concern, but reliability is paramount, especially now that my tank is set up in our "new" living room with 85 year old oak flooring. (don't worry, i had the foundation contractor add quite a bit of extra support under the tank) better overbuilt than underbuilt!

[Dozer]

I want to put in a counter-argument to all the osmolator love here. :)

First of all, I have nothing against the osmolator. I actually use one. However, most of the things people are saying here about the osmolator are true of top-offs in general. Any top-off will make your life easier, keep your salinity level, keep your pump from burning out, etc. The only real advantage the osmolator has is that it has a little more electornic brains, in that it will not run for more than 10 minutes.

However, if you would like an osmolator without the extreme price, you can have one for less than $50. You need two float switches, an extension cord, and the osmolator pump. That's all. I had one of these work for several years and it never failed.

If anyone is interested in one, let me know. I'll actually build you one for the cost of parts + one good frag.

Believe me, I'm as big a DIY'er as anyone out there. I built my own sump, did all my own plumbing, built my own stand and cabinet for my tank. So as you can imagine I originally wanted to do an auto top-off system myself. However, after some research I found out you cannot build one as good as the osmolator for the price. You can build one cheaper for sure, but you cannot build one as reliable, precise and with as many features.

First off, you're forgetting that it uses an infrared optical sensor to detect water level, not a float switch. That's a major difference. That sensor is much more reliable than a mechanical float switch in a saltwater system. It does have a float switch, but that's just a failsafe flood detector (and that's on a separate circuit, which is an extra safety feature also). Next, it has the timer which was mentioned which prevents the pump from ever burning up in the case of no water in the top-off system. Finally, it has a cool little box with LED indicator lights to tell you the current status (I know, just a stupid box, but it's kind of nice to have).

To me, all of those features make it worth a lot more than a homemade system I could have built for $50-$75. By the way, it is the only Tunze product I even own, so I'm not some kind of pimp for Tunze :D . But I feel that there are a lot of products in this hobby that are overpriced junk, so when I see one that is clearly worth the money I'll defend it.

So I guess that's my counter to your counter :lol . Of course, all JMHO and please don't take it as a personal attack to your DIY system which is definitely cheaper and likely quite reliable! And, all that being said, if I had more than one tank in the house and I needed multiple top-off systems I would go with Alex's DIY approach and just make sure I cleaned the float switches routinely. As much as I like the product I know I couldn't bring myself to pay for 3 or 4 of them :blink .

[LoneStar]

Believe me, I'm as big a DIY'er as anyone out there. I built my own sump, did all my own plumbing, built my own stand and cabinet for my tank. So as you can imagine I originally wanted to do an auto top-off system myself. However, after some research I found out you cannot build one as good as the osmolator for the price. You can build one cheaper for sure, but you cannot build one as reliable, precise and with as many features.


I TOTALLY agree Dozer!!! :) :)

[AlexKilpatrick]

Believe me, I'm as big a DIY'er as anyone out there. I built my own sump, did all my own plumbing, built my own stand and cabinet for my tank. So as you can imagine I originally wanted to do an auto top-off system myself. However, after some research I found out you cannot build one as good as the osmolator for the price. You can build one cheaper for sure, but you cannot build one as reliable, precise and with as many features.


(again, bear in mind that I use an osmolator. I have no axe to grind)

Also, if you use a microcontroller, you can build one cheaper with more features, but that is not a typical DIY project.

However, I have to take exception with the idea that it is much more reliable. I am not particularly enamored with the infrared sensor. I agree it is more precise than a float switch, but that only makes a difference of a cup or so. However, it is an *optical* device in a very harsh environment. Salt and other gunk can make it fail, which is why they have the backup float switch. I've had my tunze sensor fail several times this year, although it worked after cleaning it. In cotrast, my old DIY system with two float switches never failed, and never required any maintenance. Sometimes, the low-tech solution is better.

[Dozer]

Believe me, I'm as big a DIY'er as anyone out there. I built my own sump, did all my own plumbing, built my own stand and cabinet for my tank. So as you can imagine I originally wanted to do an auto top-off system myself. However, after some research I found out you cannot build one as good as the osmolator for the price. You can build one cheaper for sure, but you cannot build one as reliable, precise and with as many features.


(again, bear in mind that I use an osmolator. I have no axe to grind)

Also, if you use a microcontroller, you can build one cheaper with more features, but that is not a typical DIY project.

However, I have to take exception with the idea that it is much more reliable. I am not particularly enamored with the infrared sensor. I agree it is more precise than a float switch, but that only makes a difference of a cup or so. However, it is an *optical* device in a very harsh environment. Salt and other gunk can make it fail, which is why they have the backup float switch. I've had my tunze sensor fail several times this year, although it worked after cleaning it. In cotrast, my old DIY system with two float switches never failed, and never required any maintenance. Sometimes, the low-tech solution is better.


Keep in mind the float switch in the Osmo. system is there to protect against flood- not empty sump. Also, it is not constantly submerged, so there is almost no chance of it failing. This is different from a top-off system totally based on only float switches which are submerged in salt water at all times. When I was researching I found many examples of float switch type systems failing and not many (if any) cases of the Osmolators failing. However, there are FAR more float switch based systems in use today compared to Osmolator systems so I won't sit here and say that's some kind of proof. I am still relatively new to the hobby (a couple of years) so I tend to rely a lot on advice from those with more experience. Again when I was researching this I talked to several people from this club, and read many posts here and at RC and a lot of very experienced folks kept saying that they've never met a float switch that didn't fail at some point and that they would trust the optical system more. That was enough to convince me to go with the Osmolator and I've never regretted it. At this time, I personally trust the optical system more in this application.

You make great points my friend, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one 8) . Hopefully we'll hear experiences others have had also. Last thing I want to sound like is "Mr. defender of the Tunze Universe", lol. I'll leave that to others that know way more about this stuff and feel strongly one way or the other. Anybody seen Roger Vitko lately :unsure ... ;)

[AlexKilpatrick]

Well, it is kind of the same thing with a dual float switch system -- you are adding a device to increase reliability. You are betting that both devices won't fail at the same time. With a dual float switch, you have one that is out of the water all the time. The pump only comes on if both switches are low. There is almost no chance that two float switches will both fail, but you could even add a third one if you want .999 reliability. :) A bigger danger is that your float switch mount will get knocked off.

But we can agree that Tunze makes good stuff. The only point I wanted to make is that you can get a very reliable float switch for less than $180. There is no reason for anyone to manually top-off.

[Dozer]

Well, it is kind of the same thing with a dual float switch system -- you are adding a device to increase reliability. You are betting that both devices won't fail at the same time. With a dual float switch, you have one that is out of the water all the time. The pump only comes on if both switches are low. There is almost no chance that two float switches will both fail, but you could even add a third one if you want .999 reliability. :) A bigger danger is that your float switch mount will get knocked off.

But we can agree that Tunze makes good stuff. The only point I wanted to make is that you can get a very reliable float switch for less than $180. There is no reason for anyone to manually top-off.

Ahh, but can you get 2 or 3 very high quality, very reliable float switches, pump w/timer (or separate timer), microcontroller, adjustable mounts, tubing and wiring all combined for very much less? ;) That's what I ran into. I guess at that point it comes down to if you prefer the optical or the mechanical. I'm going to stop now because I don't want to risk hijacking this thread. Hopefully the author will get some benefit from all this discussion...

edit- btw, shouldn't we be arguing about Cuban living standards or "Hurricane politics" or something?? :P