Tunze Osmolator

[Palmer]

Has anyone ever had the infared sensor go on their Tunze Osmolator? I noticed mine not replacing water with the green light on today. I cleaned the sensor with vinegar per manufacturers instructions without any improvement. Only other option is to replace controlller or send back to Tunze for repair. I just installed this thing in February. Anyone else ever have this problem?

Man I loved this thing!!!:yell: Until today that is......

[Mrfish55]

Mine has done that a couple times, cleaning the sensor worked for me, never quits when I am home though, only when I'm out of town.

[burrows14]

I had the same problem with mine. My replacement should be here any day can't wait lol

[Palmer]

I had the same problem with mine. My replacement should be here any day can't wait lol

Where did you have to send it back to? What was the estimated time to get it back to you? Yeah I bet you can't wait it saves a lot of hassle....

[burrows14]

I talked to j&l where I bought it and then they talk to the distributor for me. It has been about 2 weeks now

[Palmer]

Good deal hopefully I have success as well lol

[lorenz0]

To be honest i love the unit. But cleaning the sensor became a weekly chore. After bringing it to my parents they let the resivour drain all the way and the pump ran so much that the modual actually shorted (opened it up to find the casing with a melting point). So I bought a new unit ha ha ha i love this thing

[trilinearmipmap]

I have to clean my optical sensor about every six months. Once or twice the unit temporarily failed on me due to buildup on the optical sensor and a cleaning with vinegar water got it working again.

I am on my 3rd osmolator. One was destroyed by water damage, the 2nd the optical head went after a few years. These things seem pricey and not as robust as some of the other auto-topoff choices.

The osmolators work very well to detect tiny changes in the water level eg. if I remove 30 or 40 mL of water from my aquarium then my osmolator will sense the difference and kick in. However on another tank I have an Auto-Topoff dot com float valve based topoff system and while it is not as accurate as the Osmolator, it does the job well enough.

[fkshiu]

I have had the same osmolator going for over 4 years now and still going strong (knock on wood). The sensor gets a good cleaning every few months with a scrub and vinegar dip and the pump gets replaced every couple of years. One of the best investments I've ever made in reefing.

[NanoHuman]

The main reason to use an osmolator is that float valves are based off very simple mechanical switch properties that fail or give a wrong reading causing flooding eventually. I plan on getting one sometime soon.

[shrimpchips]

Has anyone ever had the infared sensor go on their Tunze Osmolator? I noticed mine not replacing water with the green light on today. I cleaned the sensor with vinegar per manufacturers instructions without any improvement. Only other option is to replace controlller or send back to Tunze for repair. I just installed this thing in February. Anyone else ever have this problem?

Man I loved this thing!!!:yell: Until today that is......

Are you sure it's not the pump that's failed? It will fail if you let it run dry for too long too many times.

[Palmer]

Are you sure it's not the pump that's failed? It will fail if you let it run dry for too long too many times.

Yup the panel shows a green light when the sensor is dry. And when unplugging the unit and plugging back in the pumps turns on for a short period of time without problem.

[Palmer]

I have had the same osmolator going for over 4 years now and still going strong (knock on wood). The sensor gets a good cleaning every few months with a scrub and vinegar dip and the pump gets replaced every couple of years. One of the best investments I've ever made in reefing.

I agree "when" it works it works great. Looking back through the search function a few other can reef members have had similar problems. So I suppose it has a failure rate like everything else.

[Palmer]

Update- I sent my osmolator back and they sent me a new unit. Not bad!

[globaldesigns]

I have never had a problem with the IR, and I never clean it. What I do though, is have the fresh water hose run over the float switch and IR. So maybe that is enought to keep it clean.

[lastlight]

Snap that's a good idea. I'm somehow not going to change mine out of laziness but I like it. Glad they came through with the replacement man. Who did you deal with? LFS or Xenia directly?

[Palmer]

I sent it to Walter at Tunze USA, I originally bought it from BRS and since they are in the US that may be why they sent me to Walter.

I dont think the malfunction was due to lack of cleaning. Walter mentioned in an email that rarely there can be an internal malfunction/failure that can cause it to happen.