Innovative Marine is beginning the rollout of their new Hydrofill auto top off system and every detail indicates that this is one product that will truly live up to the company’s namesake. A four-point sensor system in the Hydrofill ATO Controller and a completely novel design for the Hydrofill ATO Pump come together to create one really complete system for maintaining water level in AIO aquariums and sumps.
The raw specs highlighted in the posts linked above are great and all but what impressed us most is how complete the kits actually are. The Hydrofill ATO Controller has a myriad of mounting options, with dedicated magnets to hold each conductivity-sensing water level probes, with suction cups on the wires just to help keep everything nice and neat. Meanwhile the Hydrofill ATO Pump comes with plenty of soft, non-kinking silicone tubing, with an intake strainer to prevent clogging, clamps for locking down the hose and a thoughtful mounting bracket to either hang the ATO Pump from the edge of the tank or screw into wood panelling of the stand. And every last screw, clamp and more is included!
With all the parts and pieces included in the Hydrofill ATO System we took the pump and controller from boxed to fully functional in just about 15 minutes, without cracking the directions. The only detail we felt compelled to look up was which one of the sensors is for high and which one is for low, but it turns out that the way Innovative Marine designed it there is no dedicated high and low sensor, they both work together to determine the high and low water level. The only thing that isn’t included, for obvious reasons, is the container of too off water from which the Hydrofill ATO Pump will actually pull water.
If you have an all-in-one (AIO) marine aquarium of a moderate size, having some form of automatic-top-off (ATO) is crucial to a stable aquarium. The catch is that AIO tanks have a small “sump” area of variable water level and it’s quite difficult to find an ATO system that is both complete, easy to install, discreet and reliable. Priced at $300 the Hydrofill ATO System including both the pump and the controller is not an aggressive pricing, but by meeting and exceeding the qualities listed above, the Hydrofill delivers incredible value to both end users and the retailers that will sell them this device.
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