Help me keep water off my floor

[five.five-six]

I‘ve been fishkeeping for over 40 years and just like death and taxes, I know a wet floor is unavoidable. We do our best to use materials, methods and strategies to keep the floor dry but the best we can hope for is to extend the periods between spills and keep the spills smaller. I had a good one 2 days into a 1 week business trip to Texas

This latest flood required 2 failures. My ATO float stuck open AND my return pump failed. Either failure alone wouldn’t have caused a spill but they joined forces to get my wife to call me while away on business and passionately remind me just how much she loves me and my fish tank.


To avoid further such spousal expressions of love and affection, I’ve added some stuff. I run APEX, so a Neptune liquid Level Monitor LLM, optical multi-surface leak detector and some magnetic optical sensors MOS. The LD-3 is fine but the MOS’s I’m wondering about the programming. One of them is in the top of my Kalk reactor (Kalk_H) and occasionally the tube from the Kalk reactor to the sump gets clogged and the kalkwasser flows out the top of the reactor, it’s there to stop the ATO pump, sound a warning and text me. Another is set in my return section about 3/4” higher than the float switch that I use to operate the ATO. It should also stop the ATO pump, sound a warning and text me.



ATO pump program:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Float CLOSED Then ON
Defer 001:00 Then ON
Defer 000:30 Then OFF
If pH_Tan > 8.30 Then OFF
If Kalk_h CLOSED Then OFF
If Sump_H CLOSED Then OFF


My question is this: If the float is closed, can either the Kalk_h or Sump_H stop the ATO pump. I think the APEX OS executes in order so either Kalk_h or Sump_H should stop the ATO pump or do I have that wrong?

 

[dattack]

Just do a gravity fed float valve. Haven't had any flooding at all. Even if float valve gets stuck, the sump runs dry and you can see air bubbles on the return because of low volume.

 

[cvu]

Yeah, I do gravity feed with two float valves for redundancy. And one in return pump compament just in case.

 

[five.five-six]

View attachment 110417

Yeah, I do gravity feed with two float valves for redundancy. And one in return pump compament just in case.

Nice setup Burt those float valves will be unless within a few weeks if you ae running saturated kalkwasser through them. The do last about 10 years with RO/DI water only.

 

[cvu]

Oh, you running kalkwasser thru it. Do you use gravity method for that or some kind of doser pump. I use Versa to dose kalkwasser and wonder if I can use float valve to prevent overflow? Will I damage the doser if it tries to pump but is blocked by the float valve?

 

[five.five-six]

Oh, you running kalkwasser thru it. Do you use gravity method for that or some kind of doser pump. I use Versa to dose kalkwasser and wonder if I can use float valve to prevent overflow? Will I damage the doser if it tries to pump but is blocked by the float valve?

I use this method:

Reservoir feeds the peristaltic pump (Versa), the peristaltic feeds a Kalk mixer (Avast marine) and the mixer gravity feeds the sump. Float switch controls the peristaltic pump and now an optical sensor an inch higher than the float switch is a redundant shutoff for the peristaltic.


I also use a high pH limiter (8.3) to cut the peristaltic


A float valve to control kalkwasser will fail very quickly maybe a wee, maybe a few months but once the valve surfaces calcify, it can no longer stop the water.

 

[DEWreefing]

Are you using the little ceramic barrel and a 1 inch stick type float? I have used those in the past with a few fails. Debris get stuck in those and fail open. I switched to optics

 

[Dorado]

Another fail safe that I use is putting on a solenoid valve to regulate how much the ATO container gets filled up. Neptune has one that is easy to program and hasn’t failed me yet. It comes on for a couple hours twice a week