Hope your days going better then mine

tommy6905

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Went into the basement this morning to grab some socks before heading to work and heard a humming sound coming from the area of the my nuvo 10. Realizing it was my ato pump(not so smart micro) running dry I almost cried.

Ato is hidden behind the wall where the tank is so I had walk around to see the damage. Probably dumped at least 3 gallons of freshwater in the tank. Checked salinity(1.010) I have my gold nugget pair and 6 red/green btas. Clowns didn’t look phased, btas were all closed up/ few soft corals in there looked crippled.

I had some fresh saltwater on hand so I did a water change and got the salinity within range. I had to leave for work so I’m praying somehow every bounces back. Will be home in a few hours.

Anybody with a smart ato, throw it in the garbage
 
Good luck I had a smart ato that did the same thing. I caught mine just before the sump overflowed.
 
Good luck I had a smart ato that did the same thing. I caught mine just before the sump overflowed.
You ever find out what the reason was, I mean I thought these things had some type of fail safe after it pumped so much water it would stop and beep
 
Nope never found out why you did it. I headed up using it for another couple years without it happening again. I just never put that much water in the reservoir at a time just in case. I didn't like it because the electrical connections went into the optical eye and were prone to getting salt on them. How are you making out?
 
Sorry about the bad luck. Quick question though...how did 3 gallons of fresh water fit in a 10 gallon tank without an overflow?
 
Is your measurement correct for salinity? 1.010 equates to 14 ppm. A normal tank running at 35ppm (1.0264) would mean that more than half of the water was replaced with freshwater. Even if your original water was 30 ppm (on the low side) this would mean over half the water was replaced.

I'm not saying you don't have a problem or bad luck, but the numbers posted here don't make any sense. Don't compound your problems if whatever you are measuring with is not working properly.
 
My guess is it overflowed onto the floor.

Yeah, but the water isn't changed all at once when your ATO acts up, it mixes slowly. For a normal water change in which display water is removed to do the change, this would mean that in order to get to the end measurement of 1.010, 60% of the saltwater would have to have been removed (35ppt * 40% = 14ppt=1.010sg). So in a 10 gallon tank, 6 gallons of fresh water would have to be added with 6 gallons of saltwater removed beforehand for the number to make sense.

And like I said, a screwed up ATO mixes slowly (because original water was not removed), so that means more than 6 gallons of fresh water would have had to be added to get to that end number. This would be like doing a continuous water change...in order to change X amount of the original water on a continuous change, you have to change more water than you would if you did it all at once.

I supposed he could have had a full 10 gallon top-off tank for a 10 gallon display, and the entire thing dumped out, but that would seem odd. And maybe the OP didn't mention a flood, but that is a good amount of water that flooded out not to be mentioned.
 
That is why the new coralbox return pumps with float switch come in handy. It can sense the rise of water level in the sump and shut off the return pump. So in this kind of situation, your main display will not be harm, only the sump will be affected.


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The JBJ ATO has a security system that shut-off after 4 minutes of continuing pumping. You can change that up to 15 minutes, but then it could be dangerous, depending on the pump.

Moreover, I have the 2 floaters-sensors glued together with 1 CM of difference (1 standard finger horizontal :) ) . So the water in the sump goes up and down only that difference keeping the tank salinity very stable.

I had this setup in my 13 G tank because that level of water change was reflected in a "could be" important salinity change (never tested if afinger size level water evaporation could affect the SPS).

When I moved all to the RSM250 (65G) I just moved the glued sensors and have been working flawlessly for the last 4 years.

The good part is that you pick the pump you want for the JBJ based on the water you would accept to be pumped within those 4 minutes if sensors fails.

I never heard of a JBJ pumping for ever (fail of the security switch). If that happens in my case I will trash all as I have a 20 G RODI water reservoir for the JBJ ATO. The house will be flooded too.

Cheers
 
Went into the basement this morning to grab some socks before heading to work and heard a humming sound coming from the area of the my nuvo 10. Realizing it was my ato pump(not so smart micro) running dry I almost cried.

Ato is hidden behind the wall where the tank is so I had walk around to see the damage. Probably dumped at least 3 gallons of freshwater in the tank. Checked salinity(1.010) I have my gold nugget pair and 6 red/green btas. Clowns didn’t look phased, btas were all closed up/ few soft corals in there looked crippled.

I had some fresh saltwater on hand so I did a water change and got the salinity within range. I had to leave for work so I’m praying somehow every bounces back. Will be home in a few hours.

Anybody with a smart ato, throw it in the garbage

That stinks! I’ve been there, I use a direct float off my ro/di system. When I did my tank swap to my 120 gallon the float that I had had a hairline crack which I could not see. And filled up with water and got stuck in the on position. It filled my entire trigger 34 sump with about 20 + gallons of water.It just started to overflow when my Apex ALD (good investment) went off and texted me and emailed me and the siren sounded at 11:30 PM. SG went down to 1.021 from 1.026. Lost all my sps,acros, and most LPS from the swing. Hope everything turns out okay for you.


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Is your measurement correct for salinity? 1.010 equates to 14 ppm. A normal tank running at 35ppm (1.0264) would mean that more than half of the water was replaced with freshwater. Even if your original water was 30 ppm (on the low side) this would mean over half the water was replaced.

I'm not saying you don't have a problem or bad luck, but the numbers posted here don't make any sense. Don't compound your problems if whatever you are measuring with is not working properly.


Fresh RODI will float on top of saltwater unless mixed or until the salt has had time to diffuse into the freshwater. My guess is that has something to do with the low salinity reading. Hopefully that means it wasn't as bad as it sounds.
 
I don’t know about the smart micro but the regular one will shut off after a few minutes of pumping and lock it off while beeping. You have to unplug it to reset it
 
I don’t know about the smart micro but the regular one will shut off after a few minutes of pumping and lock it off while beeping. You have to unplug it to reset it

that’s what mine does I don’t have the micro version though


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Fresh RODI will float on top of saltwater unless mixed or until the salt has had time to diffuse into the freshwater. My guess is that has something to do with the low salinity reading. Hopefully that means it wasn't as bad as it sounds.
That would be good news, but hopefully he has enough flow so that RO/DI would not be sitting on top for long!
 
Is your measurement correct for salinity? 1.010 equates to 14 ppm. A normal tank running at 35ppm (1.0264) would mean that more than half of the water was replaced with freshwater. Even if your original water was 30 ppm (on the low side) this would mean over half the water was replaced.

I'm not saying you don't have a problem or bad luck, but the numbers posted here don't make any sense. Don't compound your problems if whatever you are measuring with is not working properly.[/ I estimated 3 gallons of water. When I checked the water salinity was 1.010. I wasn’t there when it happened. I can’t say it was all dumped at once or over a period of time
 
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