need suggestions for a auto top off system

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

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[reefjosh]

  I have a 65 gallon tank that have two powerful halides for my corals and it has an open top. So I have an evaporation problem and I'm sick of adding water by hand so I want to set up an auto top off system. What I have in mind is to have a ten gallon reservior next to my sump and I was thinking about using a aqualifter to pump the water from the reservior into the sump. And I would have the aqualifter activatied by a float switch located in my sump. The reason I wanted to use an aqualifter was because the water level in the reservior would be highier than in the sump, so I think if I used a powerhead instead, than once it turned off a siphon would accour, and I don't think a siphon would occour if I used an aqualifter. ( please tell me if I'm wrong)

That was just my idea, but I could really use some suggestions and ideas or just say if this idea of mine would work .

For this auto top off system I do want to use a float switch through. 

[na.lamar]

Check out www.autotopoff.com they have cheap setups.

[reefjosh]

I forgot to say that I already own some float switches.

I do need some advise though about how I should pump the water from the reservior to the sump.

Something else that I could use some suggestions on is how to secure my float switch in my sump.

[Nate C.]

Clear Silicone works well for securing a piece of Acrylic to the sump.  If you know your level, you can just make up a small acrylic bracket and then silicone it to the side of the tank (hold it in place with a clamp until the silicone dries).

As for how to control the water from the reservior to the sump - you can have the reservoir elevated above the sump, then use a solenoid valve to start/stop water flow to the sump.

[reefjosh]

Thanks for the advise Nate.

 I will secure the float switch the way you suggested. But I am not able elevate my reservior, because I have very limited space around my sump and could only have my reservior on the floor next to my sump.

[Nate C.]

Then you will need to get some sort of controller that also gets turned on and off with the float switch to activate and deactivate a pump to push the water into the tank from your reservoir.

[reefjosh]

Okay thanks for the advise Nate I willl use your advise on my auto top off system.