Sudden Salinity drop!

[Jon Fishman]

Ok. long story short. Struggled with Apex ATO for 2+ days (will find link to thread so as not to re-hash) and finally threw the pump away.

Frustrated I walked into my LFS the next day and they had a pump, and a leak detector thingy, so I got them. No idea how to program the leak detector thing yet so I just installed the new pump and it miraculously worked.

I already had my programming set thanks to the other thread (link coming) and I used the ATO for 3 days or so, but it was taking about 2.5g of water from my fancy TEK-5 reservoir that only holds about 5g so I knew I needed a bigger reservoir.

So, in the meantime, I put the pump directly in a completely full Brute of RODI

Now, after my tank topping off 2.5g a day, I go to work overnight 7p-7a and I come home to my sump completely overflowing. The pump emptied the Brute into my sump.

Salinity is usually high by most standards I think, 1.027 and now it is 1.023

I removed a bunch of water plus 5g extra and replaced with heavily salted water and raised it to 1.0245

I plan to replace rodi with Salt water to bring it up the rest of the way over a few days.

What should I watch for?

My sole fish in the display is a Quoyi Parrotfish I JUST got, and after looking poor on the bottom (but the lights were off) within an hour he is swimming around eating now.

No corals show signs of ill effects but what should I be on the lookout for, and what do I do about my crazy ATO situation?!? What may I have done wrong?

I put the ATO back on Auto after emptying water and it started to fill and stopped at the proper level, so I don’t know why it decided to be stuck “on” overnight

I will find a link to my ato trouble thread

 

[Jon Fishman]

Neptune ATK help!!

I feel your pain! My ATK still isn’t set up right. I add water by turning the atk pump on via the switch on the app.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Jon Fishman]

I am going to use a 5g bucket for topoff water (currently SW to raise salinity) until I can trust this ATO

 

[aqua_code]

What may I have done wrong?

Limit the ATO to only run in 10 min intervals a few times a day. That will prevent this from happening again, and you can check to make sure all your float switch programming is correct.

Also make sure a siphon isn't being created. You might want to consider a peristaltic pump, float valve, or solenoid for redundancy

I mess up my salinity all the time like this and it's usually ok. It's most stressful on shrimp and inverts, just make sure to slowly raise it back up and everything should do ok.

 

[Jon Fishman]

I have “When on > 5:00 then off.

Shouldn’t that do it?

 

[lpsouth1978]

Is your brute adding water to the sump or the DT? I had the same issue a while back. I was using a Brute temporarily to top off and had the hose in the sump. What happened was that the pump kicked on and then turned off, but because the hose outlet was lower then the water level in the brute, water kept flowing. Simply put, if the hose is lower than the water level in the sump, a siphon will be created and water will continue to flow to the sump until the water levels are the same.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Is your brute adding water to the sump or the DT? I had the same issue a while back. I was using a Brute temporarily to top off and had the hose in the sump. What happened was that the pump kicked on and then turned off, but because the hose outlet was lower then the water level in the brute, water kept flowing. Simply put, if the hose is lower than the water level in the sump, a siphon will be created and water will continue to flow to the sump until the water levels are the same.

The brute is on the floor, and the pump is all the way at the bottom of the brute, so that shouldn’t do it right? I am filling right over the edge of the sump.

 

[Jon Fishman]

So set my reservoir above the sump?

 

[lpsouth1978]

Sounds like you created a siphon. If the water level in the brute is higher than the outlet of the hose in the sump, you will have a siphon. Put the hose higher in the DT until you can get a proper ATO reservoir and the problem will be solved.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Well after working 7p-7a, and taking kids to school, I have to pick them up from school at 3 and be back at work 7p-7a again, so I am gonna get 3-4 hours of sleep and hope nothing dies today

 

[lpsouth1978]

So set my reservoir above the sump?

Nope, the outlet from the brute into the tank/sump needs to be ABOVE the water level in the Brute.

As long as the outlet is higher, no siphon will be created.

 

[aqua_code]

I have “When on > 5:00 then off.

Shouldn’t that do it?

This opens the door to potentially running the ATO all day. There are several ways to setup these cycles and it depends on how you programmed it. I would set times where it can activate instead until you get this figured out.

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Time 15:30 to 15:35 Then ON
If Time 17:30 to 17:35 Then ON

If you are creating a siphon, it will still overflow even with this protection. You should add a solenoid and float valve.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Theres always the route of syphon breaks