What could cause this drop in salinity!!?

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ReeferMadness80G

ReeferMadness80G

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The total drop happened between 9pm-3am with the two big drops happening in 10 minutes. I’m stumped [emoji848] my probe is not near the ato.
 
Orphek OR3 reef aquarium LED bar
Only way your salinity could drop, especially that fast, is if fresh water was added to your tank. I am guessing the Apex probe is just malfunctioning. Have you tried calibrating it? Has the temp of your tank remained constant?
 
Waters said:
Only way your salinity could drop, especially that fast, is if fresh water was added to your tank. I am guessing the Apex probe is just malfunctioning. Have you tried calibrating it? Has the temp of your tank remained constant?
Click to expand...

My apex is only like a week old, I just calibrated it.
Temp is constant, here’s a comparison of temp and salinity
adb9c2c47bb8fa97315e594396bf315d.png

Here is the readout of salinity since startup, you’ll see one big flux in red, that is when I actually put the probe in a holder instead of hanging in a little basket I had. The next flux in yellow, is the one in question.
6edc8bffc378513933884f0fa081c88a.png
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
AS
MaiReef said:
A leak in the tank? Then the ATO filling up the replaced water is about all I could think of if the ATO is not malfunctioning.
Click to expand...

Yikes!! I certainly hope not, I don’t see any standing water anywhere, and at 10% that would be about 9 gallons in my system.
 
Tidal Gardens
These are my thoughts in order
  1. Air bubble in the probe
  2. Electrical noise (moving cables or adding equipment and cables)
  3. Leak in the system (or skimmer overflow) then ATO replaces
  4. Extra ATO added due to raising water levels in display or sump ( could be caused by blocked flow path raising DT level or sump water level).
 
Mine did the same thing when I first installed my apex also. Took about a month and recalibrating it 4 times finally got it to read stable and it's been stable since. You will find many people have the same problem when I searched for the solution.
 
Also I forgot, and would add between #2 and 3 is:
  • Broken or defective probe (rough handling or screwing down too hard in a probe holder)
  • Something like sponge or algae growing on the tip


Good luck getting it going like t should.
 
Top Shelf Aquatics
miPapareef said:
Also I forgot, and would add between #2 and 3 is:
  • Broken or defective probe (rough handling or screwing down too hard in a probe holder)
  • Something like sponge or algae growing on the tip


Good luck getting it going like t should.
Click to expand...

Thank you! Probe is only about a week old, the whole system is really. I think it may just have a break in period on these probes and will need to be calibrated a few times before they become stable.

My Reservoir for ato is only 6 gallons so it’s impossible for it to fill my tank with 10% of my TWV so I think I can rule out a ato malfunction, I don’t see any standing water or anything so I can rule out a leak. And my water levels are all normal.

I will update after recalibration
 
ReeferMadness80G said:
Thank you! Probe is only about a week old, the whole system is really. I think it may just have a break in period on these probes and will need to be calibrated a few times before they become stable.
Click to expand...

That shouldn't normally be the case. Conductivity probes do not equlibrate with things in solution the way ORP probes do.
 
Ok, so before I made this thread, I thumped the probe a couple times and tilted the holder trying to release in air bubbles. That didn’t seem to help, so a minute ago I pulled the probe out and shook in around in the sump pretty good. Check out my reading now
42501fbb38f1d5e8fd2f0a30ca3b4a67.png

So it appears there was a stubborn air bubble trapped and I have freed it. I will update this thread if things change but that appears to be the problem.
Thanks everyone for your help and if nothing else this is a good checklist for new Apex users (like myself) in the future.
 
Tidal Gardens
I watched the brs video that stated they are highly susceptible to interference from outside sources. I have one as well and dont trust it one bit... mine does the same thing.
 
ontop27 said:
I watched the brs video that stated they are highly susceptible to interference from outside sources. I have one as well and dont trust it one bit... mine does the same thing.
Click to expand...

Might be better if they used 4 electrode probes to greatly reduce the potential for interference.

https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/013005MD

Description
DuraProbe 4-electrode cells provide the highest accuracy for demanding laboratory or field applications. The 4-electrode design compensates for electrode fouling, cable and connector resistance, polarization errors, and fringe field interference errors.
The epoxy/graphite cell material is extremely durable and chemically resistant.
DuraProbe conductivity cells are ideal for high and standard conductivity samples and difficult samples such as wastewater, runoff water and mud.
 
Tidal Gardens
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