Just a friendly PSA

[Reefing102]

Don’t forget to clean the ATO optical sensor. Apparently I’ve been slacking in this department. It got algae covered on my wife’s 32 gallon BioCube. Thankfully the ATO only dumped about 4 gallons of water before it ran dry but still tanked the salinity to 1.019 and have a nice soggy floor to deal with.

Honestly wouldn’t have noticed if the green star polyps hadn’t closed up. Which led me to look closer and I didn’t see any LED shimmer which wasn’t normal. So I looked at the surface and there was hardly movement and my screen top was partially submerged. And then my feet found the wet floor. I need to check the fail safe sensor too as that didn’t go off so I may need to reinstall it.

All in all, it’s a wonderful day to clean optical sensors. You may want to check yours too. That is all.

 

[Waters]

I will add to that and say those with a controller, add a line of programming shutting off ATO if salinity drops.

 

[KenRexford]

Add a dry one higher. That never gets algae because it is out of the water. Shut off if it does get wet.

 

[Reefing102]

Add a dry one higher. That never gets algae because it is out of the water. Shut off if it does get wet.

I have the float sensor with it but I need to see why it didn’t trigger

 

[KenRexford]

I have the float sensor with it but I need to see why it didn’t trigger

Just a guess here, but I am always concerned about anything in the tank that only acts on rare occasions. A float switch that goes up and down all the time keeps doing that. One that sits there until an emergency might be creep or dust or rust or whatever build up and then end up stuck when needed, maybe. The optical level sensor, IMO, has the benefit of constantly being "on" and hence "working." If something goes wrong, I would imagine that I would get a false shut-down of the system rather than a missed shut-down, and I prefer the former. This is all wild guesswork but based in some experience.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

It is always the one day or moment that we do not check the tank and count the fish that something bad happens.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

I prefer air driven switches use them for ato , skimmer lockers, etc, but I always have a secondary mechanical