Worst feeling ever

[LbulletM]

On your fourth day away from the tank and you can see your ATO blinking red on the webcam, needing reset, but your APEX won't connect to Fusion...

 

[reefwiser]

No one a back up at home that you can call and have them come over and do it?

 

[LbulletM]

Nope. Only person just moved out of state a month ago haha

 

[Katrina71]

Garage door with a code? Lfs might have somebody willing.

 

[LbulletM]

Closest one to my home is an hour and a half away haha. I'm sitting in the airport now, so I'm not too worried, the damage would be done by now, but the small annoying issues at the most inconvenient times keep seem to happen with the APEX.

 

[3mm3]

Definitely not a good feeling.

ATO blinking red on the webcam, needing reset

May I ask what this means? What kind of auto top off?

 

[dealseer]

Need redundancy. Especially with Apex.

 

[LbulletM]

Definitely not a good feeling.
May I ask what this means? What kind of auto top off?

Smart Micro ATO. Either my water container is empty (it's not), or it dispensed for 2x as long as the first fill after the most recent power up (probable).

Need redundancy. Especially with Apex.

Haha, this was supposed to be my redundancy! Tough without a sump.

 

[LbulletM]

Lol, the ad.

 

[bdejong1112o]

I hope the time period for dispensing is a setting or at least can be configured. I am breaking in my skimmer and periodically I shut it off to let the cup drain. New tank no skimmate yet just running the Skinner full bore to break in.

Anyways, I remotely shut it down to let the cup drain catch up and the ATO went into error mode.

I do not have mine hooked into the Apex yet as the pump power code was not long enough but I assumed that once hooked up is can be configured to allow more run time of at least reset itself.

May have to entension the aquabus to check it out today..

So, I feel your pain and hope this can be configured to allow for more runtime. I mean there is another sensor for Max fill. It doesn't need to completely shut down. Maybe for someone who has thier RODI plumbed in but mine is a fixed tank and the sump can handle all of it if it empties into it.

 

[LbulletM]

Nope, Smart Micro is a single optical sensor. No max fill sensor. Just sensor dry, dispense, sensor wet, all's good.

The way to reset is to power down and back up, which also resets initial top off length, etc. I put a webcam next to my tank so I could see it flashing the red error light, and then hooked the ATO to my APEX before leaving so that I would be able to power cycle remotely.

This was only ~3 days with very little air conditioning - less evaporation -, so everything should be fine as long as I bring it up slowly. Just need to make sure it's sorted before any week+ long vacations!

 

[landlubber]

unsettling... no question but i'd take a blinking red light over a full view of white acropora on that same webcam. hope it all works out

 

[LbulletM]

unsettling... no question but i'd take a blinking red light over a full view of white acropora on that same webcam. hope it all works out

Hahaha fair enough!

 

[3mm3]

Sounds like the smart top off doesn't live up to its name.

 

[3mm3]

Before going on long vacations I would go with a redundant float switch type and skip the high tech stuff.

 

[Engloid]

I recommend a line in your ato code that will shut off your ato if salinity drops too far (provided your ato is in the sump). What this does is if
my ato stays on to the point salinity goes below 34.0, it shuts off. I also have code in my return pump that will shut it off it salinity gets too low. That way if the ato sticks open, my water in the tank will never get lower than 34.0ppt.

Here is my ATO code:
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Salt > 34.0 Then ON
If Output RetPump_2_3 = OFF Then OFF
If Output Skimmer_2_5 = OFF Then OFF

And my return pump code:
Fallback ON
Set ON
If Salt < 33.6 Then OFF
If Salt > 36.4 Then OFF
If 2-SmpL CLOSED Then OFF
If Output VA-TankHigh = ON Then OFF
If Output VA-SumpLow = ON Then OFF
If Output VA-Feeder = ON Then OFF

 

[bdejong1112o]

So after receiving the pump extension cord and hooking it into the Apex it has been running great. Once you have the option to program it all of the little bits fall into place.

I like the salinity suggestion. I can see how that would be a good error condition to trap. All I need to do for that to work is find a calm, high flow area in my sump that has no microbubbles. Right now it's in my fuge tank prior to the out put to the secondary sump. Once in the main sump there are to many bubbles that constantly find thier way into the probe like guided bubble-missles. This leads to massive drifts in the readings.

In the fuge tank there is great flow and no bubbles and the readings have been Rock solid. However, it will eventually become overgrown with alge and I assume that will much up the probes pretty good.

I need to create a baffel/buffer zone in the return pump section so I can relocate the probes there.

 

[LbulletM]

I recommend a line in your ato code that will shut off your ato if salinity drops too far (provided your ato is in the sump). What this does is if
my ato stays on to the point salinity goes below 34.0, it shuts off. I also have code in my return pump that will shut it off it salinity gets too low. That way if the ato sticks open, my water in the tank will never get lower than 34.0ppt.

Here is my ATO code:
Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Salt > 34.0 Then ON
If Output RetPump_2_3 = OFF Then OFF
If Output Skimmer_2_5 = OFF Then OFF

And my return pump code:
Fallback ON
Set ON
If Salt < 33.6 Then OFF
If Salt > 36.4 Then OFF
If 2-SmpL CLOSED Then OFF
If Output VA-TankHigh = ON Then OFF
If Output VA-SumpLow = ON Then OFF
If Output VA-Feeder = ON Then OFF

Definitely plan on this once I upgrade to my new tank and the Apex top off. Hadn't thought of the second part to sacrifice the sump while preserving the display, though!

But I actually had the opposite problem, haha. I needed to turn my ATO ON because my salinity was going up as water evaporated with no make-up. If I could have remotely reset the ATO, I would have been fine, but I wasn't able to connect to the APEX for my entire trip. I think my issue is my range extender which probably isn't rebroadcasting after I made some changes to my wifi set up to accommodate the Apex in the first place.

 

[Engloid]

Definitely plan on this once I upgrade to my new tank and the Apex top off. Hadn't thought of the second part to sacrifice the sump while preserving the display, though!

But I actually had the opposite problem, haha. I needed to turn my ATO ON because my salinity was going up as water evaporated with no make-up. If I could have remotely reset the ATO, I would have been fine, but I wasn't able to connect to the APEX for my entire trip. I think my issue is my range extender which probably isn't rebroadcasting after I made some changes to my wifi set up to accommodate the Apex in the first place.

that sucks. is it a small tank? One thing I'm going to work on is a way I can manually open ato if needed, through fusion. I don't have any RO storage, and just have a valve that opens water to the RO unit and then flows direct to the tank.

 

[LbulletM]

that sucks. is it a small tank? One thing I'm going to work on is a way I can manually open ato if needed, through fusion. I don't have any RO storage, and just have a valve that opens water to the RO unit and then flows direct to the tank.

It's a 29 gallon with a huge AC110 on back (right around 30 gallons which I found out when I drained it to catch my Potter's Angel ;Facepalm ). Nothing was worse for wear; I just filled it back up ~.5L at a time with RO over a day and a half or so.

I have plenty of storage. I just use a 5 gallon bucket with a hole drilled in the lid for the pump output. Easily lasts a week+ of top off. Every once in a while, though, it will fill longer than 2x the first fill after power up (a built in safety - eg turn on the ATO, it tops off for 5 seconds, if a future fill up takes 10+ seconds, it errors out and will not top off as to prevent heavy dilution or even flooding) which will send it into an error mode with blinking red lights on the sensor and beeps. Not an issue when I'm home, but I had set up a webcam to monitor it while gone. The IDEA was to be able to cycle the power through Fusion if I saw the blinking red light on the web cam (I did), but I couldn't connect to fusion the entire time I was gone haha.