Quote Originally Posted by mountainman
Interesting concept. In theory it should work. Just a couple suggestions...

1. What if you lose power or a pump? Anyone who uses this method should make sure that the entire auto-top reservoir does not overfill the system, as all of the water will drain out without a pump or in case of a power failure.

2. I would be curious to know what the circulation rates are through the auto-top res. Maybe someone is ambitious enough to crunch the flow and static pressure/circular pressured weir equations.
Hey mountainman! You're right about the power failure, which is why I recommend that your "catcher res" is big enough to hold all the autotopper res liquid, in the event of a power failure....As for the actualy pump rates, it would depend on the gph of the pump...then all you would have to determine is how much liquid [in gals] comes out of the auto-topper res in the course of an hour and there you have it. I'll do the test and get back with you, but I figured my 250gph pump would be more than adequate with 10-18gal res's.
-sD