ATO failure

I've always been told fish can handle a drop in salinity, it's the jump that gets them, not sure how this plays with your inverts/corals. The damage is done, I wouldn't try to quick fix the problem or you'll have all new problems of shocking them twice. You should slowly bring it up IMO. Also, is there a reason why you keep your tank at 1.024? I've always looked at the stats of TOTM on RC and they seem to keep theirs at 1.026 or so.

 

This is exactly why I just put a conductivity probe on my Apex. You never know when something is going to fail. Doesn't replace a periodic check with a good quality refractometer, but it's great to let you know when it detects something awry.

As for re-acclimating them, I would ramp it back up about as fast as it went down. The stress of the changing salinity may not be as bad as the stress of the lower salinity itself. Just my two cents. I've lost corals from low salinity, but never to somewhat rapid change of salinity.

--AJ

 

Yeesh. How does the tank look today? What kind of ATO do you use?

 

I bet it is your solenoid. Especially if you have cleaned the float switches really well, which I am sure you have.

You can get a new solenoid setup for $25 at autotopoff.com...I just ordered one to have on hand when/if things go wrong.

For the my ATO system I use a double switch from autopoff. It has low and high water float sensors (latched). It has its own relay and solenoid. On its own there is no redundency. Just a low water float and a high water float.

But for redundency I have a high water switch that I made. If the water gets too hight (ato stuck) then it shuts down the outlet to my ato solenoid....I also have a conductivity probe. I love it.

On a similar note my conductivity probe and my refractometer were reading drastically different. Turns out my refractometer calibration solution was bad. When I used the new stuff, it jived perfectly to my salinity probe.

Finally, BRS is now selling 400mv ORP probe calibration solution!

 

I would consider tearing apart the solenoid and seeing if there is any gunk in it. One time I had a spec of crap barely clogging it and it leaked on me. Once I got the crap out it worked fine.

 

Andy,
One situation to consider is just a leaking sump. Your ATO tops off your sump to keep up with your leak and the salinity of your water changes. There are three ways that I can think of to mitigate this risk:
1) Have your ATO tied into a container with a limited amount of water that you fill up manually when it gets low (like 5 or 10 gallons). This limits how much water can get dumped into your tank and limits the possible salinity swing.
2) Only allow your ATO to run a few times a day for a limited amount of time (like 1 or 2 minutes - just enough time to do a normal daily top off). Before it dumps too much water into your sump, you'll likely notice the leak and fix things. If you use a low water float switch, your low water switch could be set to alert you (and turn off pumps & heaters before they get ruined).
3) Use a salinity probe.

Jim,
Apex ORP probes require you use standard pH calibrations that are saturated with quinhydrone. Unfortunately you can't use that stuff and get a reliable calibration on the Neptune probes. It works for the Pinpoint meters, but I'm not sure what else. Quinhydrone is rather expensive and somewhat hard to come by. Let me know if you order some and maybe we can split an order.

--AJ

 

OK cool on the calibration.

I am going to write BRS and see if my neptune orp probe will at least READ the 400 mv solution as being 400mv....at the very least I would know if my probe did need calibration. As for calibration, I am planning on a group buy for quinhydrone too, once I get it figured out I am sure we will have at least a few takers.

 

Sounds great. Count me in.

--AJ