ATK Failed on. Should I panic?

[lakai]

ATK Failed on, luckily I only had maybe 15-20 gallons left in my ato. Salinity dropped to 33.3. Do I panic and do a water change to get it back to 35 or do I just let it evap to get back to where it was ?? I'd hate to lose all my acros so would love some input on this. Thanks

The pmup ipretty much exploded from running dry and ato smells like burnt plastic/gasoline so I'll have to clean it out before refilling it.

This is my atk code:


Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Swx7_1 OPEN Then ON
If Swx7_2 CLOSED Then OFF
When On > 005:00 Then OFF
If pH > 8.35 Then OFF
If FeedA 000 Then OFF
Defer 000:10 Then ON
Defer 000:04 Then OFF

 

[iemsparticus]

I would use salt water at 35ppt to top off the evaporation in your tank, until you get back to 35ppt in your display.

My other concern is I noticed that you stop your ATO if your pH is over 8.35.... makes me think you dose kelkwasser with your top off water... how is the pH and dKh in your tank right now?

 

[jmichaelh7]

Why risk it again go with Tunze

I’m super paranoid about things like that

 

[flyfisherman]

Fix it. Hasnt been long enough for them to adjust to new salinity, keep an eye on ph(keep below 9) and alk(dont let swing more than 1.5). You dont want to zero out nitrates and phosphates so hopefully some left in water....

 

[lakai]

I would use salt water at 35ppt to top off the evaporation in your tank, until you get back to 35ppt in your display.

My other concern is I noticed that you stop your ATO if your pH is over 8.35.... makes me think you dose kelkwasser with your top off water... how is the pH and dKh in your tank right now?

It's at stable 33.3 now, everything looking good still. I had a 32 gallon brute with 35ppt water ready to do a water change added a bit more salt to bring it to 1.028-29 salinity but still have not done a water change yet.

I do/did use a kalk reactor in-line with my ato but luckily I had it offline. Alk is a little lower than usual at 7.4-7.5. pH stable at 8.2 though dipped down to 7.8 when this happened. Sump water level is about 2 inches higher than usual.

 

[Pistondog]

It's at stable 33.3 now, everything looking good still. I had a 32 gallon brute with 35ppt water ready to do a water change added a bit more salt to bring it to 1.028-29 salinity but still have not done a water change yet.

I do/did use a kalk reactor in-line with my ato but luckily I had it offline. Alk is a little lower than usual at 7.4-7.5. pH stable at 8.2 though dipped down to 7.8 when this happened. Sump water level is about 2 inches higher than usual.

I'd leave it alone and let it evaporate back to your normal salinity.
Get a tunze 3155

 

[jda]

This is not something that you want to hear, but there are two kinds of these things... those that have failed and those that will. Really suggest a super reliable one like Tunze Osmolator and leave the apex out of this since it is nearly always the lowest common denominator when it is involved. Best to just use the apex to monitor and not really control anything.

 

[piranhaman00]

Why do people not use the Tunze?

 

[vtecintegra]

I thought the ATK had three or four redundancies making failure almost impossible.

 

[Tamberav]

Why do people not use the Tunze?

Cuz its Apex!!!

I love my tunze... it must be 7 years old now without a failure or even a part replacement.

 

[TheHarold]

I thought the ATK had three or four redundancies making failure almost impossible.

It does- sounds like some sort of user error IMO. There is a high level sensor, five minute max run time before disabling the ATO, and a physical float valve that blocks any sort of overfill even if the entire software aspects fails.

This sounds like someone put the ATO output to “ON” instead of “Auto”, and had something preventing the float valve from rising up and blocking the water passage.