Something's always going wrong

[hiimsean]

Ugh sometimes is seems like I can never catch a break. I'm headed out of town this entire week for work so last week I did everything thing I'd need to be prepared. Every time I leave for a week, the previous week I do two water changes, once at the beginning and then one at the end of the week, Clean the tank and make sure everything is in working order. I had my ATO water all filled up. Well today I come in to my office and hear a gurgling noise and knew it was my ATO. Not sure what happened but it looks like my skimmer went nuts, over flowed my collection container, and dumped all my ATO water into the tank :boo: There is some water on the floor, not too bad, and somehow the salinity is only slightly off, 1.023ish. Luckily Premier Aquatics is right around the corner so I can get some water from them to keep from loosing everything when I'm gone. Corals aren't too mad, one chalice is looking PO'ed and SPS aren't too happy.

I'd did put in a small powerhead last week and it looks like it fell of the back glass so I'm guessing it stirred everything up causing the skimmer to go bananas.

 

[acroholic]

Overfoaming in a skimmer sucks. I had it happen, so I modified my skimmer cup to incorporate a float switch, which, if the thing overfoams, will cut of power to the skimmer pump. You can do this easily if you have a controller. Pic Below. You could also use one of the commercially available overflow containers that use a float switch in them, like the Avast Marine product.

alt="" />

 

[hiimsean]

Acroholic;892863 wrote: Overfoaming in a skimmer sucks. I had it happen, so I modified my skimmer cup to incorporate a float switch, which, if the thing overfoams, will cut of power to the skimmer pump. You can do this easily if you have a controller. Pic Below. You could also use one of the commercially available overflow containers that use a float switch in them, like the Avast Marine product.

alt="" />

That will be an investment I will be making very soon. Or at least a moisture sensor to my Apex to cut it off.

 

[djatl]

When I first set my ATO up with an Aqua Lifter, I had the Apex run it at approximately the rate of evaporation. Took some experimentation to dial it in, and it wasn't robust enough for all year. Now I've added a float switch, but it still only gets to run if the float switch indicates it needs to AND a max of 4 minutes per hour, in case it gets stuck closed. As a back up to the float switch (which had a bad connection once), I also have a second Aqua Lifter that runs 1 minute per hour, no matter what. Even if something stops the first pump from running, I won't get too far behind on the top off, even if I'm gone on a trip.

 

[joseayes]

I wouldn't call this bad luck, It's actually just a good call on some point that you had missed and really is a good call since you were close t home and were able to take the care necessary to have it fixed, I would be really mad with myself if some of this things could happen while I'm away, come back home and find disasters It's one of the worse things and even worse that we are not close to fixed, some people op to have wireless connected cameras to their controllers and others have neighbors to care for their tanks, but the really truth is that we are the only ones who knows what the tank needs and take the actions need it if catastrophe occurs (I would probably even not gonna have peace of mind with neighbor or camera in any tank being miles away and impossible to make a quick trip back home, I rather would like to enjoy vacations then deal with my tank if anything could happen) jmho

 

[thanhreef]

Here is the trick that I happened to know and it works for me. Put the towel on the top of the skimmer cup to cover all the holes. Once the cup fills, the skimmer will stop producing but would still stay running.

Long term solution: I need to add float switch to Skimmer cup like Dave mentioned above. It connects to Apex controller.

 

[porpoiseaquatics]

Acroholic;892863 wrote: Overfoaming in a skimmer sucks. I had it happen, so I modified my skimmer cup to incorporate a float switch, which, if the thing overfoams, will cut of power to the skimmer pump. You can do this easily if you have a controller. Pic Below. You could also use one of the commercially available overflow containers that use a float switch in them, like the Avast Marine product.

alt="" />

I'd sure like to see the schematic on that float switch set up. Wouldn't mind putting something like that on my system.