Stupid ato

[Poseidon]

So I fill my 10g reservoir up this morning, and check it when I got home Tonught and it's completely empty. The pump is off and the ato says everything is fine, I checked the float switches and they seem to work and respond with the controller just fine as well... This is the second time this has happened. I have no idea why. Nothing could have came in contact with the float switches and there very clean... It baffles me why this stupid ato doesn't shutoff when it's supposed to.

It was working fine for several weeks :/

 

[xxmurrxx]

Is your ato water container higher than the sump it's going into?

Probably a siphon issue if so

 

[Poseidon]

No the tank is below the water so no chance it could have siphoned.

 

[spyd]

It can still siphon. I would just drill a little hole in the tube just above the water line in your resevoir to create an air break. It takes no time at all to do, so even if it is not the problem, at least you can rule that out completely.

 

[Poseidon]

But the output of the ato is tied to the middle brace in the sump, so well above the water line and way above the ato tank....
Ill do some experimenting today but I don't know where to look besides a defective controller

 

[Duke]

But the output of the ato is tied to the middle brace in the sump, so well above the water line and way above the ato tank....
Ill do some experimenting today but I don't know where to look besides a defective controller

stupid question.. but was the water level actually high? is it possible you just went through 10g of top off ?

 

[Petercar (RIP Dec 2017)]

I ise a small pump for water changes ..i full my sump from a 5 gal pail ams the pump os lower then the sump. So  the pail went empty  i unplugged the pump them a few mins later ...WTF ..pail was half full

 

[Poseidon]

[quote author=Brandon link=topic=3831.msg33904#msg33904 date=1356098364]
But the output of the ato is tied to the middle brace in the sump, so well above the water line and way above the ato tank....
Ill do some experimenting today but I don't know where to look besides a defective controller

stupid question.. but was the water level actually high? is it possible you just went through 10g of top off ?
[/quote]

no the water was high, skimmer almost overflowed and the water line was 2" above the float switch  stupid thing just didnt shut off for some reason

 

[Duke]

[quote author=Duke link=topic=3831.msg33905#msg33905 date=1356098595]
[quote author=Brandon link=topic=3831.msg33904#msg33904 date=1356098364]
But the output of the ato is tied to the middle brace in the sump, so well above the water line and way above the ato tank....
Ill do some experimenting today but I don't know where to look besides a defective controller

stupid question.. but was the water level actually high? is it possible you just went through 10g of top off ?
[/quote]

no the water was high, skimmer almost overflowed and the water line was 2" above the float switch  stupid thing just didnt shut off for some reason
[/quote]

thats shitty.. until you get it figured out maybe only add 3 or 4 gallons of water, does it have 2 floats ?

 

[Poseidon]

Ya it's got two floats...
One thing I did differently was fill it all the way up to the top of the ato reservoir , never did that before, so ill
Just keep it Half full or what ever.

Another question, I turned the skimmer off because with the higher water level it's acting up, how Long can I leave it off for? I took alot of fine tuning to find the sweet spot and I don't feel like messing with it again if I don't have to.

 

[spyd]

Just scoop out some water and put it down the drain. You can leave your skimmer off for a while with no ill affects. I wouldn't keep it off longer than a day though.

 

[Duke]

Ya it's got two floats...
One thing I did differently was fill it all the way up to the top of the ato reservoir , never did that before, so ill
Just keep it Half full or what ever.

Another question, I turned the skimmer off because with the higher water level it's acting up, how Long can I leave it off for? I took alot of fine tuning to find the sweet spot and I don't feel like messing with it again if I don't have to.

I leave mine off all the time without any issues, at least a few hours a day after I do feedings, sometimes ill leave it off for longer, I use amino acids and don't want it skimmed right back out of the tank. I feel im over skimming as it is because if I shut it off for say 12 hours.. it will pull really hard for a few hours when I turn it back on but then goes back to normal shortly after that.

 

[Poseidon]

Hmm, ya I've had to empty the cup once since I started.  Really thick black crap...
Ill just leave it off for a while til the water level comes back down...

 

[Victoss]

Do you have the ATO in the right mode? I'm guessing this is the JBJ you mentioned a while back, if it was the Reef Fanatic  then I would probably know what the problem was. Reef Fanatic has 3 different instructions floating around :? and I had to go to their site to get the right one. Here is an example of some wrong instructions (mine are even more wrong )
http://web1.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1759855

 

[Poseidon]

Ya I thought it might have something to do with that but it worked fine for a couple weeks then just randomly didn't shut off, the ONLY thing I did different was fill the reservoir all the way full.
I'm
Going to test it out again soon when my water level is back down.

 

[jones02]

maybe time to upgrade to a elos or tunze

 

[Poseidon]

maybe time to upgrade to a elos or tunze

Definitely in the cards

 

[davesolo29]

maybe time to upgrade to a elos or tunze

thats my next purchase

 

[BIGSHOW]

Why don't you put a solenoid on your line with a timer?  Figure out what your loosing and the time it takes to replace the water, then set up a timer with the solenoid?

Use it with the float valve, this way you have double redundancy.