- Today, on the Five Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide
these tanks are going to evaporate water.
There's a right way and wrong way to deal with it,
and nearly every reefer I've met,
including myself, did it wrong day one.
Today, we're not just going to show
how to deal with evaporation,
but how to deal with it easily with an Auto Top Off.
All that is coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hey, I'm Ryan, your host of BRStv in the
Five Minute Saltwater Aquarium Guide.
This is a clear, simplified and direct path
to setting up a first successful reef tank.
It's time to talk evaporation,
the challenge here is the tank is going to evaporate water.
Something that you'll see with the naked eye
is the water level drops,
but what you can't see is as the water leaves
the salt stays behind.
So the water gets more concentrated
and salinity rises everyday.
Until, of course, you come by
and top it off with fresh water
and all the levels go back to normal.
So today, you'll hear what kind of water to use
to top off the tank, how often to do it,
and probably the single most common system upgrade,
the Auto Top Off, which does all of that for you.
Some are better than others,
so we're going to share
which is the right one for these tanks.
This is the part that most reefers get wrong day one.
For some reason, it just seems like you should
top off a saltwater tank with saltwater,
but that's not the case.
If you do that, you're going to increase the salinity
every time you do it.
Keep in mind that when water evaporates,
it's just water leaving the tank,
all the salt stays behind in the tank.
So when you replace the evaporated water,
commonly referred to as topping it off,
this is done with fresh water.
Preferably, purified RO DI water.
As to how often to do it, well, in tanks like these
they'll probably evaporate a half a gallon a day,
so a few gallons a week.
With forgiving corals like these,
you could probably get away with once a week,
but I say better practice is
probably a couple of times a week.
I suggest keeping a five gallon bucket
of freshwater below the tank
and just scooping some out as needed
when you feed your fish.
It's like a 30 second process.
That's really all there is to it.
Pouring some fresh water once in a while,
make sure the tank stays full.
However, this is where it gets fun.
What makes reefing a hobby for many
is the acquisition and application of knowledge,
then using that combined with technology to solve issues,
increase stability or reduce maintenance.
In the same way a protein skimmer reduces the need
for water changes, related work and in turn
increases the water quality,
auto top off reduces the work
involved with topping the tank off
by doing it for you automatically,
which in turn increases tank stability.
Stable salinity means a majority of other elements
in the water are stable as well,
at least on a day to day basis.
An Auto Top Off looks like this,
just a water level sensory, either optical eye
or float switch which recognizes some water evaporated
and then turns on a pump to replace it.
In this case, you can throw the same five gallon bucket
under the tank, which with tanks like these
could last about a week.
You could also go with fancy five gallon
or 10 gallon Auto Top Off reservoirs from Trigger Systems.
As to which ATO is best,
I'm going to give some very direct advice here.
This is one of those rare instances
where one of the more costly options
is also the most popular
by a magnitude of two to three X.
The Tunze Osmolator just has been adopted
by the reefing community
as the most trusted and reliable option.
Trust is important because if they get stuck on,
they can flood the tank and your floor with water.
Anyone who's used a low quality ATO
and had it flood will say
you don't have to learn the hard way.
I've personally been using the Osmolater for over a decade.
It's what the BRS team here uses on,
easily exceeding 100 plus tanks over the years,
and we've never see one fail in the ON position.
With any ATO, sometimes a dirty sensor can fail off
but I've never experienced a Tunze Osmolater
getting stuck on, which is a real concern.
The combination of optical sensor,
backed up with a mechanical flow,
backed with an internal timer
and ability to tune the pump speed just works.
It's one of those specific pieces of gear
that almost everyone ends up
somewhere in their reefing journey.
So you can actually save some money by starting here.
My suggestion is just top off by hand
until it fits the budget.
However, if you want to save some money,
the Tunze Osmolator also has a nano version
which is half the cost and good for tanks
up to about 50 gallons like these two.
The nano doesn't have an optical eye,
but maintains a float switch and a timer backup
that turns it off if it detects it's been running too long.
There's a little jumper inside that allows you
to increase the timer if needed
but I'd start with the default one out of the box
with the shorter timer.
At half the cost, in which you also consider
the nano osmolator comes with its own pump,
is probably the cheapest reliable option
for tanks like our 40 breeder and the E-170.
In our case, because budget is a real thing
we're throwing the lower cost nano
and the 40 breeder with a five gallon bucket under the tank.
With the E-170, we're going with the traditional
Tunze Osmolator with the 10 gallon Trigger ATO Reservoir.
I'm sure you're catching the theme here,
both of these tanks are going to look sharp
and produce the same level of success.
So it's really not that important
which route you take, but with the E-170
that polished form factor is part of the draw.
So we're sticking with that and some nicer touches
like the ATO Reservoir.
Where, other than size,
a simple bucket actually serves the same purpose.
Okay, so evaporation solved either by hand
or with an ATO.
The next thing is cleaning the glass.
I just keep saying this,
but there are a dozen ways to do this,
but we're going to get the right tool
for the right job the first time.
The entire Five Minute Guide is always
available here if you want,
but you can save some cash
by doing this right the first day
and that's coming up.