OffTopic's 20 Gallon SPS Reef Tank

[BadPanda]

Welp disaster just struck!

My auto-top off got stuck in the on position and I wake up to a audible alarm! In my confusion I go over to my fish tank and it is about 30% less water than usual in it, the pump running air and the clownfish are freaking out. I have little clue what happened to it, my floor is wet but the desk the tank is on is dry... I consider myself pretty lucky as I had my $2,000 computer on the desk opened as I am switching out PC cases. Theres is not a hint of water on it! I rush over frantic at this point and put in the little I have left in RO water and top off the rest with saltwater... So my salinity must have shot up due to all of this... ugh! Best of all I am getting CORALS today and everything is off the rails... Guess the larger the climb the higher the reward?

This is purely anecdotal and a two in the morning decision but I must say I never would recommend the Smart ATO Micro, two days and this thing already attempted to mess up my tank. When it becomes a better hour, I will give BRS a call and see what we can due to fix the situation!

What should I due in the morning? This whole situation gives me the spooks, should I just give up on ATO's all together? Or go with Tunzes offerings?

Really sorry with the ato. Currently using IM hydrofill with no current issues. You might have an optical issue going. I was going to get the same one due to small footprint, but ended up with the IM. One issue with the prong for me is when a snail comes in contact with a prong and give a false reading. Hopefully your return pump didn't burn up as well.

 

[RomoFL]

Wow sorry this happened! I think I have to stay topping off manually due to limited space .. these horror stories aren’t making me want an ato setup any faster.

You should do a water change before getting the corals in there - set up a small refugium with any container and saltwater - and get your main tanks salinity right.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Hope your hands are feeling better in the morning. Been thinking about this all night. Terrible timing. Do as much as you can.

 

[OffTopic]

Oh this is fun, I wrote a product review at two in the morning.... that has to be exactly what Smart Micro wants!

Well a bit of a morning update. The fish seem alive and well. Honestly it is a miracle that’s the case... But I now have the biggest algae bloom yet. My plan is that I will go to the LFS and get ten gallons of Saltwater and ten of RODI. Probably going to do a 50% water change today and get the parameters back in check.

Another fun thing that happened is my Heater somehow also got stuck on and the water is at 90 degrees.... I have literally no clue how all could go so wrong in so little time.... I have a fan directly on the tank and the temperature is coming down....

However I do think I am quite lucky that the only thing I am dealing with is a wet floor and not a water logged PC.

I think I am going to call BRS and request a refund for the Smart Micro. I am not sure what to do after that... I might for awhile just manually top off myself until I am comfortable again having an ATO. I understand it is less than ideal not to have an ATO but this whole situation has me understandably spooked!

And now for the last bad news for the day, the corals from Adam are probably going to be delayed a day... there is a bad storm in Chicago I think he said, so I might not be getting corals after all... Adam has been great and said if the delay happens he will recut a replacement pack! I know most of you already know this but Adam is top notch, I am so glad I went with him, and if I must wait a little bit more I can!

I do want to thank everyone who has been so nice in all of this! I think I will laugh at this in the not to far future, dropping a five gallon RO container on the ground after I already flooded the floors!

Now I will leave y’all with this to make it a bit of a less doom and gloom update. Here’s Theo the Golden Retriever Puppy, he was woken up in all the chaos! He’s on one and a half now but he certainly is a big boy!

 

[Fudsey]

Cute pup

 

[OffTopic]

But a bit of a fun update I did win the @WWC competition, so I am getting free swag coming in the mail! We will see, I think I might pick up a frag or two at there sale!

 

[RomoFL]

Theo looks like a good boy! 12/10 would approve ;Joyful

 

[OffTopic]

oh and one last doom and gloom thing... I haven't seen my diamond goby in over a week now, he use to come out for feeding, should I search through the sand to find him? The sand bed is clean so I think he alive....

 

[speedstar]

I am a paranoid ATO user. I ended up going with the Tunze Nano, yes it only has one float switch, but the max output is lower than what the full size.. So it has the Float and timeout after 1.6 minutes of running. So max is about a gallon of water. I added since I dose Kalk in my top off and 1g could wipe out the tank a secondary eye switch that if it detects water it switches a relay off killing power to the ATO.

Sorry to hear about your luck. heater at the same time wow

 

[speedstar]

So sorry to hear. I really like my Tunze 9004. The optical sensor with redundant mechanical float switch has saved me twice from floods. The optical sensor alone would have led to a flood both times.

The time out feature wouldn't have saved you from a flood? Also isn't the 9004 the skimmer? I use the nano tunze ATO and added a eye sensor.

 

[Janci]

Sorry to hear about the setbacks.
Maybe a luck the corals are delayed to have some spare time to sort the tank out again.
I use the Pacific Sun Sentry ATO. Just an optical sensor but it cuts flow after 2 minutes to avoid overdosing.

Congratulations on the WWC win. The tank will be full in no-time.

The goby might have built himself a litthe burrow by now. I would wait and see.

 

[najer]

Welp disaster just struck!

My auto-top off got stuck in the on position and I wake up to a audible alarm! In my confusion I go over to my fish tank and it is about 30% less water than usual in it, the pump running air and the clownfish are freaking out. I have little clue what happened to it, my floor is wet but the desk the tank is on is dry... I consider myself pretty lucky as I had my $2,000 computer on the desk opened as I am switching out PC cases. Theres is not a hint of water on it! I rush over frantic at this point and put in the little I have left in RO water and top off the rest with saltwater... So my salinity must have shot up due to all of this... ugh! Best of all I am getting CORALS today and everything is off the rails... Guess the larger the climb the higher the reward?

This is purely anecdotal and a two in the morning decision but I must say I never would recommend the Smart ATO Micro, two days and this thing already attempted to mess up my tank. When it becomes a better hour, I will give BRS a call and see what we can due to fix the situation!

What should I due in the morning? This whole situation gives me the spooks, should I just give up on ATO's all together? Or go with Tunzes offerings?

Were it not for the little tank deciding to spring a leak yesterday I would have set my smart ato up, I hate that I am trying to "automate" things a bit, i love manual dosing and top ups!

 

[NY_Caveman]

The time out feature wouldn't have saved you from a flood? Also isn't the 9004 the skimmer? I use the nano tunze ATO and added a eye sensor.

Yes thank you! I have both. Duh!!!! I edited the original.

Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO is what I meant.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Oh this is fun, I wrote a product review at two in the morning.... that has to be exactly what Smart Micro wants!

Well a bit of a morning update. The fish seem alive and well. Honestly it is a miracle that’s the case... But I now have the biggest algae bloom yet. My plan is that I will go to the LFS and get ten gallons of Saltwater and ten of RODI. Probably going to do a 50% water change today and get the parameters back in check.

Another fun thing that happened is my Heater somehow also got stuck on and the water is at 90 degrees.... I have literally no clue how all could go so wrong in so little time.... I have a fan directly on the tank and the temperature is coming down....

However I do think I am quite lucky that the only thing I am dealing with is a wet floor and not a water logged PC.

I think I am going to call BRS and request a refund for the Smart Micro. I am not sure what to do after that... I might for awhile just manually top off myself until I am comfortable again having an ATO. I understand it is less than ideal not to have an ATO but this whole situation has me understandably spooked!

And now for the last bad news for the day, the corals from Adam are probably going to be delayed a day... there is a bad storm in Chicago I think he said, so I might not be getting corals after all... Adam has been great and said if the delay happens he will recut a replacement pack! I know most of you already know this but Adam is top notch, I am so glad I went with him, and if I must wait a little bit more I can!

I do want to thank everyone who has been so nice in all of this! I think I will laugh at this in the not to far future, dropping a five gallon RO container on the ground after I already flooded the floors!

Now I will leave y’all with this to make it a bit of a less doom and gloom update. Here’s Theo the Golden Retriever Puppy, he was woken up in all the chaos! He’s on one and a half now but he certainly is a big boy!

Cute dog! You are in surprisingly good spirits for all the calamity. Good for you!

So my Tunze Osmolator 3155 is my first ATO. I also almost flooded the room when I first used it as I mentioned earlier. I write this because it kind of caught me off guard, even though it was a dumb move.

When I first set everything up on the tank I had it running for an hour or so and all was well. Then, I had to kill power to the room to remove a light switch (I know, I should have done that first). When I turned the power back on, everything came up at once. It did not occur to me that every time the ATO was powered on, it would need to re-find the water level. Until the return pumps caught up, the water level at the ATO was above the sensor and the ATO just kept pumping water looking for a level it was already past. The redundant float switch caught it though and sounded the alarm. I got very lucky.

 

[OffTopic]

Cute dog! You are in surprisingly good spirits for all the calamity. Good for you!

So my Tunze Osmolator 3155 is my first ATO. I also almost flooded the room when I first used it as I mentioned earlier. I write this because it kind of caught me off guard, even though it was a dumb move.

When I first set everything up on the tank I had it running for an hour or so and all was well. Then, I had to kill power to the room to remove a light switch (I know, I should have done that first). When I turned the power back on, everything came up at once. It did not occur to me that every time the ATO was powered on, it would need to re-find the water level. Until the return pumps caught up, the water level at the ATO was above the sensor and the ATO just kept pumping water looking for a level it was already past. The redundant float switch caught it though and sounded the alarm. I got very lucky.

I try to keep a level head with this kind of stuff, I am younger than most I assume on these forums. I remember my days in the service industry(I still ski instruct on the weekends) where belligerent customers would yell there heads off. Typically when that happened I would serve them last... so I adapted my thought process to being calm and realizing yelling won’t ever help! And I also have a really cute dog thanks! Haha

I did get in contact with BRS and unfortunately they don’t refund products that have been in water.... But I am in contact with Smart Ato apparently to send me out a new one, I will probably just sell it once I get the new one.... I just got the spooks after all this! I will manually top off for now until I get more comfortable again and I will buy a Tunze Osmillator with dual redundancy.

Oh and the corals are delayed so we will see if they will make the extended trip! Also I went to the LFS and my pH and salinity was low. I was surprised that salinity was 1.020 but I did a 50% water change with salt at 1.025 specific gravity, hopefully hitting 1.023. I also used pH buffer to get it up, I was really concerned when the pH probe read 7.2 but I later learned that one wasn’t calibrated! All else is well though

 

[Janci]

I try to keep a level head with this kind of stuff, I am younger than most I assume on these forums. I remember my days in the service industry(I still ski instruct on the weekends) where belligerent customers would yell there heads off. Typically when that happened I would serve them last... so I adapted my thought process to being calm and realizing yelling won’t ever help! And I also have a really cute dog thanks! Haha

I did get in contact with BRS and unfortunately they don’t refund products that have been in water.... But I am in contact with Smart Ato apparently to send me out a new one, I will probably just sell it once I get the new one.... I just got the spooks after all this! I will manually top off for now until I get more comfortable again and I will buy a Tunze Osmillator with dual redundancy.

Oh and the corals are delayed so we will see if they will make the extended trip! Also I went to the LFS and my pH and salinity was low. I was surprised that salinity was 1.020 but I did a 50% water change with salt at 1.025 specific gravity, hopefully hitting 1.023. I also used pH buffer to get it up, I was really concerned when the pH probe read 7.2 but I later learned that one wasn’t calibrated! All else is well though

Salinity is one of the other big mistakes in this hobby.
Although your ATO was here the mistake.

Did you measure salinity before going to the lfs?

 

[RomoFL]

Any updates?

 

[OffTopic]

Any updates?

Yeah coming soon, life obligations has made everything a lot crazier.... but I will try to put aside some time to take pictures of all the corals and everything else that is new!

 

[count krunk]

I'm curious as the what caused the heater? Is it connected to any sort of controller?

If not, I would get one. 90 degrees to corals could result in loads of losses.

 

[OffTopic]

I'm curious as the what caused the heater? Is it connected to any sort of controller?

If not, I would get one. 90 degrees to corals could result in loads of losses.

To be perfectly honest I am not fully sure to the reason for the heater malfunction... I bought another one and now I don’t have any problems with it!

And for everyone who’s wanting an update, tonight when I get home I will update on the corals and overall tank health!