3 Alarm tank Emergency

[FishieBusiness]

While sleeping in this morning(out of work with ingury) I was awoken by my lovely 9 year old daughter telling me that the tank was blowing bubbles. Will my radar was up immediately as we had just topped off the ato. Hobbling down the stairs as fast as I can.(still on crutches) I find the ato empty and beeping. The return pump 3/4th submerged. And had the ato been any bigger I would have been mopping up water for hours. It was just that skin the forms when you pour as much liquid into a container with out it flowing over edge that held the water back.

First thing siphon some of that water out of the tank. In a panic I refill my ato to stop the beeping. As the pump kicked on I noticed that the water in sump not rising and tank starting to over fill again. Still in a panic I kill the return and valve off the tank. Open each valve and see the line coming into the sump flowing much slower than from the return pump line.

Great found the problem. Pulled the overflow tube and found a big turbo snail stuck in there. After taking advantage to clean the ware of coraline algae found me some bubble algae that I now have to keep an eye for. Put everything back together and problem solved.

Then promptly cut a piece of acrylic to cover my overflow. Just like everyone else has already done with this style of overflow

 

[Rafanho]

That was close..

 

[Joe Rice]

You owe your daughter a beer milkshake

 

[Cpage101]

Should put a float valve on ato line to keep this from ever happening again. Phew glad everything was okay hopefully no livestock loss due to the SG swing

 

[GraniteReefer]

Should put a float valve on ato line to keep this from ever happening again. Phew glad everything was okay hopefully no livestock loss due to the SG swing

From why I gather that wouldn’t have helped as the ATO was doing it’s job and a float valve wouldn’t have floated, it was the return drain that was restricted causing the display to run high and the return pump chamber were the ATO sensor is likely located to drain as a result.

 

[FishieBusiness]

Should put a float valve on ato line to keep this from ever happening again. Phew glad everything was okay hopefully no livestock loss due to the SG swing

Luckily it only dropped from 1.025 to 1.024 but I'm keeping an eye on it so far so good. No corals fluffing off tissue. Just going to make a strong batch of water this week on wc.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Troublesome snail. Hope you gave him a good stern talking-to.

 

[Greg Hiller]

IMO, NEVER rely on a float valve or float-switch (or check valve for that matter) in a marine reef tank.

 

[jdeb101]

Glad you were able to catch it and it didn't turn into a disaster, especially while being injured!

My tank is hooked up to an Apex with their ATO (which has two built in failsafes for itself, though those wouldn't have helped our situation). A few months ago I thought of what would happen in the same scenario you just experienced - drain being blocked. Other than the Elos tanks screens before the drain hole, I had not failsafe there which could've resulted in gallons emptied on my new hardwood floors.

What I did is add another Apex optical sensor just above the water line in the back of my display. If the drain does happen to get blocked and the return raises the display water enough, it should trigger the sensor as closed and turn off my return pump (as well as email/txt me a warning).

 

[FishieBusiness]

Apex is on my list of things when I win the lottery. LOL. I didn't know that they were that flexible of a controller. That is a great idea that you came up with!

 

[jdeb101]

Apex is on my list of things when I win the lottery. LOL. I didn't know that they were that flexible of a controller. That is a great idea that you came up with!

There's a LOT you can do with them, just takes some imagination and knowledge for programming it. I probably don't take advantage of half of it's capabilities, but to me the biggest perk of a control is for safety and fail safes (ok, and maybe just to have another nerdy fish toy I can tinker with lol).

There's always used ones that can be scored for much cheaper than new (I have the Classic, which works just fine).