Auto Top-Up Systems
Living in Hong Kong, my small fish tanks need daily topping up of water as it evaporates quickly in the heat. For marine aquarists, topping up with water is an important function as it is only the water that evaporates and not its mineral contents, so with more evaporation the tank’s water salinity and all trace element readings will quickly rise. With small tanks like mine, its easy to fill it up with half a cup of water at night, but with big tanks with big hot lighting shining on it, this simple task turns into a major chore.
Auto top-up systems started life as a mechanical solution, innovators back then would use plumbing systems similar to that of what you find in the cistern of your toilet. Not only were they inaccurate (the floating level head had a bit of give so topping up was only a rough amount), the entire mechanical system was prone to build ups resulting in horror stories of fish-keepers coming back home to find that their house had been completely flooded as the system. On top of this, these mechanical systems were bulky and were definitely not atheistically pleasing in anyway, just take a look at your cistern!
Modern auto top-up systems like the one from Auto Aqua are discreet (the sensor is about the size of a penny), relying on electronica sensors to detect the water level, and then powering a small pump to top up your tanks. Even the way sensors attached to you tanks has changed, gone are the day of just hanging them into your tank or the use of suction cups, now sensors are attached using small magnets on either side of the glass.
And these auto top-up systems aren’t just used for you main fish tanks, mainly aquarists use them to automate their RO (reverse osmosis) systems for making near pure water to be later added to their tanks.
