ATO going crazy and pouring to much water!! Help

[Jé123]

I’ve recently got an ato system for my fluval evo 13.5 and it was doing just fine, always putting my water level a bit higher... Today I came back from work and it has raised the water level a lot!! I also dose Kalkwasser in the ato. My alk went from 7.8 to 8.3 which isn’t that bad and my pH went to 8.5. The worse is the salinity, it went from 1.026 to 1.021! What should I do? Should I do a big water change with higher salinity to balance things out? Also, the ato is situated in the third chamber of my fluval evo 13.5, is is a good placement for the ato? Is this why its dumping too much water? Should I get a better ato?

 

[tsouth]

You should most definitely complete a water change, but only to slowly raise the levels to normal. I would set your SG on the new batch to 1.023, then a water change a day or two later after that to 1.026.

The sensor for the ATO should be placed in whichever chamber serves your return pump.
Clean up the equipment, and research the pros and con's of dosing Kalk via ATO. I believe this is one of the possible answers to your problem. More likely than the first, a possible mis-reading from your sensor caused your ATO not to stop, therefore resulting in what you saw - raised alk, lowered sg.

Why are you dosing kalk? Is it needed?

I can only recommend the Tunze ato system because it's the only one i've ever used. It's a pretty penny, but I feel very assured that my risk of overflowing is lower because there's a fall back secondary alert sensor.

 

[AZMSGT]

You could have a siphon. That’s what I would look at.

 

[Jé123]

You should most definitely complete a water change, but only to slowly raise the levels to normal. I would set your SG on the new batch to 1.023, then a water change a day or two later after that to 1.026.

The sensor for the ATO should be placed in whichever chamber serves your return pump.
Clean up the equipment, and research the pros and con's of dosing Kalk via ATO. I believe this is one of the possible answers to your problem. More likely that the first, a possible mis-reading from your sensor caused your ATO not to stop, therefore resulting in what you saw - raised alk, lowered sg.

Why are you dosing kalk? Is it needed?

I can only recommend the Tunze ato system because it's the only one i've ever used. It's a pretty penny, but I feel very assured that my risk of overflowing is lower because there's a fall back secondary alert sensor.

Yeah it is placed in the return pump chamber but it was always pouring a little too much water but today its disastrous.. I am dosing Kalk because my alkalinity is always going down and I have a hard corals and water changes are not sufficient, It always went under 7 each week. Also my pH was on the low side so it is helping keeping it up.

 

[Jé123]

You could have a siphon. That’s what I would look at.

I dont think so the tube is never touching the water. Also, the water reservoir is lower than the tank.

 

[Jé123]

Little update: I decided to let things go and let water evaporates by itself. I’ve put a fan on top of the tank. There is also a heat wave right now where I live and we have no a/c yet. The fan kept the water temp just fine. The salinity is almost at the level it was now. I will upgrade for a better quality and more reliable ato.