After a water change today my sump level was just shy of where it should have been, so when I turned on my ATO and walked away I heard it kept pumping… almost a half inch extra into my 55g sump! I caught it and cleaned the dual floats on the ATO but man if that happened while I was at work… BoNg
The salinity only changed 1 ppt.
Check and clean your ATO floats often!
Good catch GolfC
Is the light from your sump/fuge hitting the floats? Perhaps adding some black acrylic or something of the sort would help.
Is your ATO hooked up to an RO or small reservoir? I really don’t understand why people roll the dice with ATO hooked up, so the only limitation is how much water the city can pump into the house.
At my previous job they hooked up ATO right to RO at most of the reef accounts. Once they moved a chiller a bit which was hooked up without hose clamps. A steady stream of water sprayed out of the connection going into the chiller all over the house… I mean mansions massive house water heater. The sump level dropped over time and the ATO, topped it off. 1.019 does not suite well for a reef tank that was just redone. Lucky for my former boss the owner of the tank was used to replacing dead corals constantly and didn’t think too much of it when he lost half his corals and inverts and had cloudy water.
I use an ATO connected to my RO. Have been since the tank was set up 2 years ago…“knock on wood” works like a charm. Its actually plumbed from my RO to the solenoid box out of the sloenoid box to my kalk reactor then from the kalk reactor to the sump. It has a double switch one slightly higher and out of the water then the one that controls the level. I test it on a regualar basis to make sure both switches function like they should. It makes maintaining the tank so much easier then filling buckets…
I use a 18 gallon reservoir and have a 2nd float switch to shut it off which it almost hit but I stopped it first.
I was thinking that if I wanted to improve my top off…I could plug the solenoid control box into a timer so it will only top off during a certain time and I can better manage it…NOW THAT YOU PEOPLE HAVE ME PARANOID…
While I personally still use the “5 gal bucket walk across the room and pour ATO” method, I’ve heard quite a few respected hobbiest indicate they’ve set their ATO up on a timer to only be able to run for 1 minute several times a day so that if something were to get stuck on the timer would shut it off after opnly 60 seconds and prevent complete flooding.
Craig… you should get an ATO. It’s been a while since we had a good flood story ;D
[quote=“icy1155, post:8, topic:3259”]
Craig… you should get an ATO. It’s been a while since we had a good flood story ;D[/quote]
I second that, lol.
I’ve hooked up tons of ATO before for many other people, but for me at home it’s been pretty much pointless. If I top off one of my systems or two…or 4 or 5 I still have to go around with a 5g bucket and top off the other tanks. I always have a couple of small QT tanks set up just incase and for little tanks top off can be even more important and needs to be done more frequently.
Eventually I’ll hook one up on a reservoir set up to dose kalk at night for my SPS system to help stabilize the pH, but that’s the main reason.
I plan on setting a mister to, to mist my mangrove trees. Well tree for time being. Hoping to get more soon.
[quote=“icy1155, post:8, topic:3259”]
Craig… you should get an ATO. It’s been a while since we had a good flood story ;D[/quote]
Which is exactly why I DON’T have one. I barely trust my ASV on my RODI, I could only imagine what I could do with a 75 GPD ATO oooops
That same thing happened to me two weeks ago, the ATO float must have gotten stuck and it dumped all 30 gallons of RO water into my sump. Thank God my system is huge, total system is over 500 gallons, it only lowered my salinity from 1.025 to 1.024.
I immediately cleaned the float switch and now I’m a little worried about it so since I’m not vacationing anytime soon, I’m going to turn on the pump manually from now on till next vacation!!
Hey Bill, the solution I’ve come to for now is only keep enough top off water in the tank for the day untill I have to go out of town. 5 gallons won’t wreck my salinity so I’ll just limit it to that.
Ironic you posted today, I was right next to you at a light today (brackenville and 7) I hit the horn but you didn’t look :BEER
Whats your current fish stock? I know you had issues a while back with the chromis.
Hey Bill, long time no see. It is time for an update. How’s that eel doing?
[quote=“TimH07, post:13, topic:3259”]
Hey Bill, the solution I’ve come to for now is only keep enough top off water in the tank for the day untill I have to go out of town. 5 gallons won’t wreck my salinity so I’ll just limit it to that.
Ironic you posted today, I was right next to you at a light today (brackenville and 7) I hit the horn but you didn’t look :BEER
Whats your current fish stock? I know you had issues a while back with the chromis.[/quote]
Sorry… I’m usually in my own world when I’m driving. Got so used to people honking while driving my LP640…
My current stock is a pair of 7" Crosshatch triggers in my 300. A pair of Blueline angels are going in the DT next week and I have a huge Maroon clown in QT right now and have a Pair of Flame angels coming in 2 weeks.
Ohh where are you getting the pair of flame angels from?!
i’ve had my whole system drop to 1.016 and 62 deg. F. well the old system, around 350 or so gal. used up a bucket and a half salt getting it back to normal. lost a handful of corals, a starfish and the fish werent too excited either but none died.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:14, topic:3259”]
Hey Bill, long time no see. It is time for an update. How’s that eel doing? [/quote]
Unfortunately my dwarf yellow eel died with no apparent cause, stopped eating a few weeks back and then died.
The Skeletor eel is doing great, eats like a pig, always sticking his head out for food. Even tries to eat passing mysis shrimp that I feed the two fishes in the tank.
Added my pair of Blueline angels and a huge Maroon Clown to my 300 tank and the pair of Crosshatches didn’t even care one bit. Picked up the Yellow stripped Maroon at Fishman, it was traded in from a customer, huge… at least 5".
Tim- I cancelled my Flame angels pair since the bigger Bluenile angel is pretty aggressive, he doesn’t take crap from any fish and he chases the smaller one a bit. I think he would give the Flames a real hard time and since I don’t have the luxury to just be able to easily scoop the bully right out of the tank, I have to be real careful with what i want to add to the tank.
[quote=“Lambo Boy, post:18, topic:3259”]
[quote=“Gordonious, post:14, topic:3259”]
Hey Bill, long time no see. It is time for an update. How’s that eel doing? [/quote]
Unfortunately my dwarf yellow eel died with no apparent cause, stopped eating a few weeks back and then died.
The Skeletor eel is doing great, eats like a pig, always sticking his head out for food. Even tries to eat passing mysis shrimp that I feed the two fishes in the tank.
Added my pair of Blueline angels and a huge Maroon Clown to my 300 tank and the pair of Crosshatches didn’t even care one bit. Picked up the Yellow stripped Maroon at Fishman, it was traded in from a customer, huge… at least 5".
Tim- I cancelled my Flame angels pair since the bigger Bluenile angel is pretty aggressive, he doesn’t take crap from any fish and he chases the smaller one a bit. I think he would give the Flames a real hard time and since I don’t have the luxury to just be able to easily scoop the bully right out of the tank, I have to be real careful with what i want to add to the tank. [/quote]
Thats the same problem I can’t roll the dice on something and remove it later without breaking down my whole system. A flame angel is one I want to try but if he nips my clam or LPS … well… thats why I don’t have one lol.
I’m with you on the flame angel Tim, would love to try, but nightmare if its gotta go!