Almost crashed the tank

[Paul B]

Almost but not quite.
Yesterday I changed some resins on my tank. On my DIY water top off there is a final filter of resins that filters the water just before going into the tank. It is in a thin acrylic tube and the main purpose of this is if I see these resins changing color, I know the main resins on the make up water is exhausted and I need to change them.
So I changed the resins in this tube and the main resins but I turned the float valve slightly so it was under the lip of the tank and the water did not shut off. The float could not rise enough to stop the water so about 5 gallons of fresh water entered the tank almost overflowing it. Luckily, I built the thing so it can only feed a drop about every 5 seconds to the tank so it can go a day or so before it overflows. But now the water is so fresh I can keep kissing gourmei's in there.
The corals are not happy but the fish don't seem to mind. I am adding some salt but mostly I will just let it evaporate to the correct level and it will be back to normal.
Coincidently, also today, my 5 gallon skimate bucket also almost overflowed which would have flooded my closet with scurvy skimate.
This is a different problem. My DIY float switch on the 5 gal effluent bucket
failed to shut off the skimmer. The other problem where the tank had too much fresh water stressed the corals to where they put out that slimy smelly stuff causing the skimmer to produce a lot of skimate.
I found the problem with the float switch and will re design it so it does not happen again.
These devices have been working for decades with no maintenance but nothing lasts forever.
But no harm done except to my self esteem.
Normally the way my animals die is fron an accident and if I was not home the fresh water would have continued to over flow the tank causing it to crash and the water on my rug would have caused my marriage to crash also.

 

[albano]

The float could not rise enough to stop the water so about 5 gallons of fresh water entered the tank almost overflowing it. Coincidently, also today, This is a different problem. My DIY float switch on the 5 gal effluent bucket failed to shut off the skimmer.
These devices have been working for decades with no maintenance but nothing lasts forever.

Are you suggesting that we check this equipment every 30 or 40 years???? :splitspin

 

[Paul B]

Checking it every ten years should be fine :tongue1:
I find that thats about how long I go before I have a major accident. :shhh:

Yes I was lucky or rather my corals are lucky. I did lose an old clam though.
I am gradually increasing the salinity.
I am in tweeking mode now. After so many years and so many tweeks you always think you are ready for anything and nothing can happen. But you can't plan for everything.
Almost but not all.
My salinity is down to 1.015 so I can get goldfish or kissing gourami's

I "fixed" the design problems that caused this series of events so we will see what happens next. I may put a failsafe switch on the tank that turns off the in flow water in case something happens to the auto top off. I have a fail safe on the skimmer effluent bucket but a design flaw caused it to fail when I needed it. I will design a fail safe for the fail safe.

All of the devices on my tank are very old, like decades and I rarely test them. Now I will install LED lights to tell me they are working.
You need to be a nuclear physisist to prevent anything that can happen. But if you keep 100 gallons of salt water in a tank for 40 years, that is filled to within 3/4" from the top and everything is automatic, something will happen every few years. If it does not, you are doing something wrong

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Is your system ~100G, if so 5G is not so much I think.

I do run into your problem once a while when I left the top-off on with shuttting. YES, my top off is MANUAL.

 

[Paul B]

It was closer to 10 gallons because the skimmer put out 5 gallons and the tank was filled to the brim which is about another five gallons,
The salinity is 1.015