Return Chamber not lowering…other chambers are?

[pianosdr]

Problem: I’m not exactly sure how this is happening, but my return chamber is consistently full even as I am pulling water out of the other chambers. I just pulled so much water out that the chamber directly preceding the return chamber was missing most of its water. I’ve only noticed this as of yesterday, and I’ve not changed anything at all about how the chambers are configured. I’ve had the tank up for a couple of years now with no issues like this to date.

BACKSTORY:

I have a Neptune ATO in my return chamber, and the “high water” sensor is closed (meaning water is at/above it). This stops the ATO from topping off the tank with RO of course until the water level recedes below the “low water” mark.

It’s fairly common for the water to be above the high water mark for a variety of reasons, so normally I’ve just always ignored it for the most part and simply waited for enough water to evaporate. This usually takes less than a day to self-resolve.

But recently I’ve noticed the high sensor staying closed for more than a day, which is a problem since the salinity will just continue to rise if the tank is evaporating water but not receiving RO replacement water. So I flip on the neptune dos to start removing water from the tank, with the expectation that eventually the water in the return chamber will get to the proper level. I check the tank a few hours later (which was longer than I expected it to take), and I suddenly realize the chamber BEFORE the return has only a couple gallons left, to the point that the skimmer was no longer able to skim, and the heater was nearly fully exposed. Despite this, the return chamber still had water very close to the high water sensor in its chamber.

I don’t understand what could be causing this

 

[TX_REEF]

do you have photos of the sump?

 

[MnFish1]

Problem: I’m not exactly sure how this is happening, but my return chamber is consistently full even as I am pulling water out of the other chambers. I just pulled so much water out that the chamber directly preceding the return chamber was missing most of its water. I’ve only noticed this as of yesterday, and I’ve not changed anything at all about how the chambers are configured. I’ve had the tank up for a couple of years now with no issues like this to date.

BACKSTORY:

I have a Neptune ATO in my return chamber, and the “high water” sensor is closed (meaning water is at/above it). This stops the ATO from topping off the tank with RO of course until the water level recedes below the “low water” mark.

It’s fairly common for the water to be above the high water mark for a variety of reasons, so normally I’ve just always ignored it for the most part and simply waited for enough water to evaporate. This usually takes less than a day to self-resolve.

But recently I’ve noticed the high sensor staying closed for more than a day, which is a problem since the salinity will just continue to rise if the tank is evaporating water but not receiving RO replacement water. So I flip on the neptune dos to start removing water from the tank, with the expectation that eventually the water in the return chamber will get to the proper level. I check the tank a few hours later (which was longer than I expected it to take), and I suddenly realize the chamber BEFORE the return has only a couple gallons left, to the point that the skimmer was no longer able to skim, and the heater was nearly fully exposed. Despite this, the return chamber still had water very close to the high water sensor in its chamber.

I don’t understand what could be causing this

Could you take a picture of the chambers you're talking about - OR a drawing? If I'm understanding your post, you do not have a sump - it's an all in one tank correct?

I might consider putting your ATO 'level' in the tank itself if you can, as compared to your return. But - it's hard to know depending on exactly your setup. Also - which ATO are you using? (EDIT - I assume you mean an ATO by Neptune, connected to your apex?

 

[Mschmidt]

Is your return pump working?

 

[pianosdr]

Hi all,

Thank you for the replies. I’ve attached a few photos, though it’s hard to see in photos tbh.

The tank is a Red Sea Reefer 350 G2. Return pump is a vectra M2 that still appears to be functioning as normal. The ATO is the Neptune ATO. All of the gear on the tank in fact reads as normal. It’s just the return chamber is always nearly full of water (I pointed to the water line in the pic, which is near the top of the chamber) unless I effectively drain most of the water out of the other chambers.

To the suggestion of moving the ATO sensor to the main tank, this would not be feasible. Everything is connected to wires and tubes that are specifically measured to its current location, and the main tank water level is both static as well as wavy at the top (of course due to flow), so an optical level sensor there would not function correctly.

 

[Doctorgori]

you got a leaky baffle somewhere

 

[TX_REEF]

try turning up the return pump flow until it's exceeding the drain rate, and see if the return pump chamber water level drops lower than the water level in the rest of the sump. if it still doesn't, I agree - leaky baffle

 

[pianosdr]

I have to assume the baffle suggestion has to be the only plausible reason, but I don’t know how that could have happened. Nothing ever goes back there to cause it to move or break there’s only one baffle, which is the one separating the return chamber from all the other gear in the pic.

I’ll pull the gear out and see …

 

[MnFish1]

Thanks for the pictures.

 

[pianosdr]

So I guess it’s resolved for now after I pushed the sponge in the baffle down a little further to compact it more and I guess hopefully force the water to pass through to the return chamber a little more slowly. Once I did that and then sped up the return pump a little more to reduce the water level, it seems to be pulling from the return chamber and not the rest of the sump water level appropriately.

I felt around the base but did not notice any particularly worn areas of the caulking, though admittedly I couldn’t inspect it all up close of course without draining the entire sump and pulling it out. I’m not quite sure why the sponge would only now need to be pushed down. I did take it out and clean a while back, but that was several months ago

Anyway, ty for the assist here. Whatever the case, the water passing through the baffle too quickly was indeed the issue.