Kalkwasser overdose. Woke up to this this morning. OH NO!

[IBernE]

So apparently my smart ATO micro decided to dump extra water onto my 40B laced with Kalk. I haven't had major issues with it until now. The alarm seems to go off from time to time for no obvious reason to me but I've assumed it was due to changes in the amount of water it topped off. As I understand it, when it adds more water than the last time it topped off, the alarm goes off. Not such a big deal for me. But this time there was no alarm and no red flashing light and the tank was almost almost overflowing. Not sure what to make of this. Regardless, I'm lucky that today I go to work a little later than usual. I have a 20G Brute container where I keep RODI Water and I had only 10G available. I removed as much water as I possibly could and rearranged my scape and corals to get them down closer to the sand so that I can take out as much water as I could. For now it's still pretty cloudy but better than before. Hope I don't suffer any losses here. Any Ideas on the ATO or any suggestions as far as the tank are welcome. I have to go to work and will make more RODI later.

 

[Wesley]

Wow! The tank looks horrifying! Hope the lost is not too bad.

I have a Kalk Stirrer/ATO set up as well, but I use it along with APEX. One of the programming line I have is that if the pH is higher than certain value, it would stop the ATO/Kalk altogether. I'm hoping it would stop this kind of disaster.

 

[IBernE]

Yea before I left for work and after the water change I did, the fish looked fine. I even have a diamond goby who was sifting around like nothing. He must've felt a sour taste in his mouth I'm sure lol. Hopefully coral won't go either. A while back I saw a view from "inappropriate reefer" on YouTube and the same happened to him. He didn't lose much. I hope I'm as lucky.

 

[marrone]

I suggest, if you haven't done it already, to check you SG as 10gal of fresh water in a 40gal tank, which net is less than 40gal, can drop the SG down quite a bite. The low SG wouldn't have any affect on the fish but inverts and corals may die from it being low.

 

[IBernE]

No I didn't check the salinity. I'll check as soon as I get home. I didn't think about that. The fresh batch of saltwater that I added I mixed to the same salinity I always do which is 25

 

[marrone]

Depending on how much fresh water went into the tank your SG could have drop somewhat, this is a big problem with Auto Top offs that go crazy an dump a lot of fresh water into the tank.

How big of a water change did you do? It's possible that the water change that you did was enough to offset the drop in SG, leaving the tank a little lower than normal but not enough to cause major problems.

 

[IBernE]

Yea I get what you mean and I just did not think about that this morning. I guess I just wanted to take out as much water as I could as fast as I could. But I normally keep my water level pretty high, high enough that you cannot see it on the front of the display glass so it wasn't toooo much that was topped off. I'd say maybe around two gallons. But I removed a lot of water. I removed as much as I could remove while still keeping corals submerged. I lowered some rocks to allow me to do this. I left maybe around 10 gallons but probably it's less because of the sand and rocks. I left my tank about 33% filled. As I didn't have enough RODI Water on hand to make more. But yea hopefully salinity isn't too bad.

 

[IBernE]

Quick update

Everything is looking fine and all fish and inverts are alive an accounted for (the inverts I can actually see anyway) and everyone is eating well. There doesn't look like anything bad happened, just have to wait and see if there are any long term issues. These pics are of when I got home after being away 8 hours and a removal of about 30-35 Gallons of water and replenished with around 10Gallons of water. Salinity was good at 24 when I tested it as soon as I got home. I've added another 10 Gallons at the same SG and will add the rest tomorrow.

 

[Wesley]

Glad to hear they are OK!

Time to invest on a better ATO.

 

[Reef Trends]

This is why I like ATO's that have a backup sensor also or many of them will not dispense over a certain amount at once.

 

[Wesley]

This is why I like the Apex's the most so far:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If WaterL OPEN Then ON
If WaterL CLOSED Then OFF
If WaterH CLOSED Then OFF
When On > 015:00 Then OFF
If pH > 8.68 Then OFF
Defer 000:05 Then ON
Defer 000:04 Then OFF
Min Time 030:00 Then OFF

I rely primary on the low water sensor, instead of using high and low sensors that APEX's task script suggested. For me, just the diameter/height of the low sensor is enough for me for almost the whole day to have a trigger of ATO.

In case, that one sensor fail, the ATO will also close when the upper sensor is covered with water.

In case both sensors fail, when it is on for over 15 minutes, it will stop the ATO.

For any reason if the pH is higher than a certain amount, it will also stop.

Even if nothing fail and it has been dripping for 15 minutes, it won't try to open again for at least 30 minutes. Allowing the Kalk to circulate for awhile before start dripping again.

Again, if all electronic fail, which is many levels already, it has a physical value to shut it off when the water is above the high water light sensor.

 

[IBernE]

Dang that's ultimate protection right there!

 

[IBernE]

This is why I like ATO's that have a backup sensor also or many of them will not dispense over a certain amount at once.

The smart ATO micro USUALLY doesn't pump more than it pumped the previous time. If it detects it has pumped the same amount it pumped before and a little more it stops pumping and sounds an alarm. So that feature is there. I just don't know what happened this time or if there was user error involved. I don't know but I hope so as it's the best ato for me due to its size. (I don't have a sump).

 

[Reef Trends]

Prior to this did you unplug it or loose power? Optical sensors often need to be reference out of water upon powering up. Possibly what happened.

 

[IBernE]

That's a big possibility. What happens is when the alarm sounds, I unplug it and plug it back in to reset it. I never touch the actual sensor.

 

[IBernE]

Update

No deaths but a couple of things to report. My pink bubble tip anemone split. I think this goes hand in hand with what I've read about them splitting under undesirable conditions in order to survive. So now I have TWO pink bubble tip anemones. I also have a green one but that one did not split, so Not so bad. I have a nice yellow hammer whose yellow tips are now blue. It's not as open as it used to be but doesn't look all that bad, just blue. Also, I have a very nice Jack O' Lantern Lepto that is still nice and bright except that it used to have bright yellow "eyes" they're not there anymore at least they don't look yellow. Besides these three things everything is back to normal.