ATO dumped 5G into diplay

[DesertReefT4r]

Yep title says it all. Salinity dropped fro. 1.025 to 1.022, sump nearly flooded over, skimmer overflowed into sump. This must have happened over several hours so thats good, better than all at once I guess. So right away I checked salinity, drained the extra water from the sump, shut off the skimmer and tested my ATO which seems to be fine. Need to look at it more in the AM. Started mixing some tank water in a bucket with more salt. Going to get salinity up a little tonight and a little in the morning as to not shock the corals any more than needed. So far everything is looking normal. Tank is a 75g with mostly acropra and other sps. Any other tips or experience please share, all help is welcome.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Honestly I would let evaporation do the work for you. If the sump isnt overflowing and can handle the extra volume I'd leave it evaporate on it's own, it'll slowly raise your salinity up for you. Otherwise small water changes with desired tank salinity is your next best bet

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

I purposely have a small ato reservoir (2.5 gallon) because this may happen.

Do you dose close by the same area as the ATO sensor? My sensor is on the return chamber of my AIO and that is where I dose as well. I may have to check and clean the sensor today to avoid these failures.

Wondering if I should Vinegar bath or the brs citrus acid ? Don’t want to harm the sensor

 

[Aquavaj]

What kind of ato do you have? Most should have a few failsafes to prevent this. The Tunze I have has optical sensor for level control, float switch shutoff and 15 min auto shutoff. In addition to that I added a float switch to the apex breakout box to shut off the Tunze if the sump level trips the float switch.

 

[W1ngz]

Once you check everything is working as expected, I'd just put the removed salt water back into the ATO and have evap take care of it. That will re-introduce the salt to the system slowly over a few days, with no work.
Once the salt water has left the ATO and is back in the system, rinse the ATO system, sensors and floats and refill it with fresh water.

Consider adding a float valve to prevent future over-additions of water.

 

[saintsreturn]

Honestly I would let evaporation do the work for you. If the sump isnt overflowing and can handle the extra volume I'd leave it evaporate on it's own, it'll slowly raise your salinity up for you. Otherwise small water changes with desired tank salinity is your next best bet

This would be my answer as well. Only risk is a power outage and the sump overflowing. But that can be mitigated by pulling some water out and adding it back in as top off until evap does the work for you.

This is a good case scenario and not the worst i have seen for sure. This also happened to me several times with the point of sale i had for an ATO. That has been replaced and hasnt happened since. thankfully.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Thanks for all the replies. Plan in action is last night I slowly added 1.035 water using the ATO. This morning salinity is 1.023 and everything looks good. Doing a 10g water change at 1.026 today. From there evap and water changes to correct the rest.