My boneheaded catastrophe...

[mcarroll]

I made salinity measurements in some tide pools hat were isolated from the ocean at times. See here:
https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/6/aafeature
With that said, there had to be instances where tide pool salinity was under the influence of torrential rainfall and greatly affected.
I'll take a close look at these when I get a chance:

Coles, S.L. and P.L. Jokiel, 1978. Synergistic effects of temperature, salinity and light on the hermatypic Montipora verrucosa. Mar. Biol., 48: 187-195.

Coles, S.L., 1993. Experimental comparison of salinity tolerances of reef corals from the Arabian Gulf and Hawaii. Evidence for hyperhaline adaptation. Proc. 7th Int. Coral Reef Symp., Guam. 1: 227-234.

Glazebrock, J.S. and R. Van Woesik, 1993. Effects of low salinity on the tissues of hard corals Acropora spp. Pocillopora sp. and Seriatopora sp. from the great keppel region. Proc. 7th Int. Coral Reef Symp., Guam. 1: 307.

Nakano, Y., K. Yamazato and S. Iso, 1993. Responses of Okinawan reef-building corals to experimental high salinity. Proc. 7th Int. Coral Reef Symp., Guam. I:308

Nystrom, M., F. Moberg, and M. Tedengren, 1997. Natural and anthropogenic disturbance on reef corals in the inner Gulf of Thailand; physiological effects of reduced salinity, copper and siltation. Proc. 8th Int. Coral Reef Symp., Panama. 2: 1893-1898.

Awesome! Another great advanced aquarist piece!

But not so much as an abstract for those articles on the web. (The web isn't everything. )

But searching led me to the book Found Effects of salinity on coral reefs and although the omitted pages were selected with brutal precision from the info we'd need (Chapter 6, p.29 onward), it seems like leaving corals exposed for long times to VERY low salinity is a real potential problem, whereas spikes in salinity are not. There are lots of interesting specifics mentioned in Table 1 as well as the text.

This makes me wonder if @mdbannister's situation would have been better corrected with an overnight brine drip back to "normal" rather than through an extended multi-day effort?

 

[drblakjak55]

My tanks are in the basement, but in three short years of reefing I’ve managed twenty gallon spills onto the floor in nine amazingly stupid ways
1 hang on back skimmers. Guaranteed recipe to spill over. Happened three times before I got an in sump.
2 walking away from RO running into water change brute
3 after water change, reverse siphon from bucket to floor by forgetting to empty siphon tube
4 I do water changes by pumping tank water up one flight to the toilet. Tube fell on to floor
5 sump overflow with plugged return pump

I have also let RO run into tank until the four gallon tank emptied. Salinity got to 1.016.
Tell Siri to watch the water

 

[Stonekeg]

I'm not sure it was mentioned in here, but one of the things I'm taking out of this thread is that more RO/DI's should support a "run time setting" right out of the box, and without a controller. One button "Make X gallons and stop" functionality sounds like something we could all use now and then.

Sorry to hear this happened, but I'm going to try and learn from it as best I can. I've never done it, but I could easily see it happening to me.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I'm not sure it was mentioned in here, but one of the things I'm taking out of this thread is that more RO/DI's should support a "run time setting" right out of the box, and without a controller. One button "Make X gallons and stop" functionality sounds like something we could all use now and then.

I REALLY like this idea!! Somebody somewhere needs to make this a thing!

 

[Rakie]

I REALLY like this idea!! Somebody somewhere needs to make this a thing!

You can hook a solenoid upto a float switch, and hook that solenoid to your RO. It should automatically shut when the flat switch trips and stop water production.

Now, I wouldn't use that as a "I can leave the water on forever!" type of mod... but it might be good for an emergency "omg I fell asleep!" safety net.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

I'm not sure it was mentioned in here, but one of the things I'm taking out of this thread is that more RO/DI's should support a "run time setting" right out of the box, and without a controller. One button "Make X gallons and stop" functionality sounds like something we could all use now and then.

Sorry to hear this happened, but I'm going to try and learn from it as best I can. I've never done it, but I could easily see it happening to me.

Helluvan idea...

That's a great concept..

 

[Rakie]

Helluvan idea...

That's a great concept..

Exceptionally hard to make though. You need to have an electronic solenoid connected to your water pipe and have it shut off the flow from the faucet end. And solenoids love to fail, it's like their second favorite thing to do. This WILL lead to overflowing issues guaranteed.

Additionally, all of these pumps vary wildly in production based on how dirty the filters are. So you would need to calibrate it often, which means it would need constant reprogramming to make work. As filters get dirtier, water production slows down. So you tell it to make X gallons and eventually you realize it's not making that 5g anymore, but more like 4.5g.

Now what if you're lazy, and don't notice things? And have been mixing up that bucket of IO for so many years, you don't need to check salinity, BAH! Well then you're dumping in water at like 1.03o into your tank.

See the trend here -- It's a runaway train of failure that impacts everything down the line.

Can it be done? Maybe...

 

[najer]

Just put it on a plug in timer, time how long it takes to make X gallons and set the timer?

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Just put it on a plug in timer, time how long it takes to make X gallons and set the timer?

Theres more simplicity as well. But if u went with @Rakie 's Murphy law belief... the timer might fail and it doesnt work again. Haha.

Just poking fun rakie