So I got this for my new Red Sea Max C-130 (love this tank... review on this coming). Along with Hydor ATO I also got 6 ft 1/2 inch tubing and a Hydor Pump (320) and a 7 Gallon slim-ish (BPA free) plastic trash can to hold my RO/DI water (this will sit under the tank in the stand).
The Hydor ATO packaging was great and the instructions were OK. I mean it's a pretty simple design most people could figure it out easy enough. Well once I hooked it all up I started to "fine tune" the sensor. This does not mean the sensor has any knobs for you to tune it, no.. it's just adjusting the position with the water line you want it to maintain. Be aware that during this "tuning time" you may want to be careful especially if you have an existing setup. For me my tank was new and I was not to concerned about dumping out water from my tank and dumping in to much RO/DI water and jacking up my salinity. If you have an existing tank I would recommend doing the tuning during a water change time.
Anyways, during the "fine tuning" the pump would kick on and fill the tank to much until the sensor "alarm" mode killed the power to the pump. Well, that works good! :-) I kept wondering WTH? What is going why want this thing turn the pump off faster... well turns out the sensor is really slow. I think it's algorithm for detecting the water level is very "fuzzy" so to not be to sensitive and freak out with "waves" in the tank. So I read more in the instructions and on their site and seems that was the problem for me. So all I did was restricted the flow thru the tubing with 2 cheap little spring clamps I had laying around. I know... cheap and cheesy. Well it worked perfectly. Also, when I get some spare time I will get around to putting a small ball valve to "dial" in the flow better.
Stars: 4 out 5
Pros: Easy to setup. Awesome Hydor quality and bank for your buck.
Cons: Needs nicer instructions and maybe some recommendations for pumps.
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