ATK issue

[Grayhead]

I checked my tank last night before i went to bed. Noticed my water level was low in my sump. Checked fusion and atk was on auto, but no indication anything was wrong. So I switched it to on thinking it would fill my sump. I didn't give it a second thought. Work up this morning, did my usual check on the tank and equipment. Found a full sump and overflowing skimmer. Checked the top off tank and it was empty. I know it was not.a.siphon. I have my discharge flowing I to a 1/2 inch pipe that Is flush with the high water mark to the top off tank. No way to siphon. I think something is wrong in my code for the atk. There is a line about running 60 minutes. Here it is...
Fallback OFF
If ATK_No OPEN Then ON
If ATK_HI CLOSED Then OFF
When On > 005:00 Then OFF
Defer 000:10 Then ON
Defer 000:04 Then OFF
Min Time 060:00 Then OFF
If Output Main_Pump = OFF Then OFF
Defer 005:00 Then ON

Thankfully I designed the system to hold the 14 gallons of top off. If I had a 30 gallon tank like my salt mix, I would ha e had a disaster this morning and possibly a divorce after ruining new flooring.

Is the line showing 60 minutes my issue? If so, why didn't the optics stop it? I did not hook the float valve up because of a siphon concern.

[scuzy]

When in on its overriding your auto settings. It won't know any of these programming.

The float valve would of saved you and there won't be a siphoned with the float valve engaged.

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[oseymour]

Originally Posted by Grayhead

Fallback OFF
If ATK_No OPEN Then ON
If ATK_HI CLOSED Then OFF
When On > 005:00 Then OFF
Defer 000:10 Then ON
Defer 000:04 Then OFF
Min Time 060:00 Then OFF
If Output Main_Pump = OFF Then OFF
Defer 005:00 Then ON

That's my code below

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If Swx9_1 OPEN Then ON
If Swx9_2 CLOSED Then OFF
When On > 005:00 Then OFF
Defer 000:10 Then ON
Defer 000:04 Then OFF
Min Time 060:00 Then OFF


It looks very similar to yours. So my guess it that it was a siphon, the output line doesn't need to be under water for a siphon to happen. I had to use the siphon break with the ATK.

Can you post a photo or a diagram of your setup. And like scuzy said, by removing the float valve you removed the redundancy feature that sets this apart from every ATO on the market. If the Osmolator fails with a siphon, all it can do is alarm and alert you, there is nothing it can do to stop the siphon - the float switch on the ATK will.

[FullBoreReefer]

I don't understand the "didn't use the float because of a siphon concern."

The float is your last chance at safety!

[Grayhead]

My top off tank sits in an adjacent room about 5 feet above my sump line. My salt mix tank and the ato both feed into a 1/2" pvc line that feeds directly to the sump. I have the hose coming from the atk shoved in the 1/2 pvc above the ato tank waterline. No chance of siphon. Still not sure why the pump continued to run till it drained the tank.

[scuzy]

You said you put it on ON state instead of auto. In on state none of the programs run it just means ON.


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[TerenceF]

With the Apex outlet states:

ON is ON
OFF is OFF
AUTO is FOLLOW PROGRAMMING

You told the Apex to simply turn your pump on. And, if you did not use the built-in float valve, you bypassed one of the key safety components - and your action was one of the exact reasons we included the float valve - accidental (or in this case intentional) turning ON of the ATK pump.

Hopefully others will read this as it will be very helpful for people to understand these two things.

Glad to hear it was not a catastrophic error.

[oseymour]

Originally Posted by Grayhead

My top off tank sits in an adjacent room about 5 feet above my sump line. My salt mix tank and the ato both feed into a 1/2" pvc line that feeds directly to the sump. I have the hose coming from the atk shoved in the 1/2 pvc above the ato tank waterline. No chance of siphon. Still not sure why the pump continued to run till it drained the tank.

Ahh OK, I see what you are saying now.

There are 3 possible things that happened

First and this is the most likely - when you turned the ATO to the ON position, you are telling the pump to turn on and keep running until I set it to AUTO or turn it OFF. It is totally ignoring all the programming, sensors everything. It's like when you set any other outlet to the ON position. It stays on and ignores the programming for that OUTLET.

Second - What's happening is that after the ATO pump fills your sump and turns off, all the water that is in that 15 plus feet of tubing is draining back into the sump and the ATO container. On a smaller run that might be just a little bit of water but water in 15 feet of tubing is a lot. I don't think this is likely but I'm throwing out anything I can think of.


Third - Your ATO container is above your sump water line and there is a risk of a siphon. So to mitigate that risk, you run the tubing up higher once it leaves the ATO container thinking that because it's not on a downhill, there shouldn't be a chance of a siphon. Sorry to break it to you but depending on how you have this setup, there is still a chance of a siphon. I don't know the exact details so it's hard to say.

Do you have the siphon break installed? And please install the float valve. That is on feature that sets this ATO apart from everything else on the market and it would have prevented what happened.

[mike810]

The problem here is you turned your atk to the ON state, this completely ignores all programming. That is why there is an AUTO and ON state. With the ATK, you should have also received a push connect which has a siphon break in it. There is a hole drilled at an angle which should be pointing down in your reservoir. Water will shoot out this hole when the ato pump is on but break the siphon when it is off.

Also, why the heck would you not use the included float valve? That is a safety feature that is part of the ATK. How does a siphon go because of the float valve? The float valve should completely shut off the feed line when triggered. Either way, float valve or no float valve, the anti siphon included in the ATK will stop any siphon from occuring. I have my ATK programmed exactly like yours and works like a charm.

[Grayhead]

I installed the siphon break. I kept my drain system the same way because it has worked fine over the past year with my tunze ato. I think this line is what go me....Min Time 060:00 Then OFF. Shouldn't that read06:00 instead of 60:00?
If in the on position, the pump would have stayed on all night regardless on the water level in my top off tank. By placing it in the on position, it should only tell the atk to be on, not just telling the pmup to stay on.
As for the float valve, using my set up seems safer than trusting a mechanical float valve.

Also, the tube coming out of my top off tank is only 4 feet long. It ends above the high water mark of the top off tank. By design, a siphon should never start, much less a full siphon.

[oseymour]

Originally Posted by Grayhead

I installed the siphon break. I kept my drain system the same way because it has worked fine over the past year with my tunze ato. I think this line is what go me....Min Time 060:00 Then OFF. Shouldn't that read06:00 instead of 60:00?
If in the on position, the pump would have stayed on all night regardless on the water level in my top off tank. By placing it in the on position, it should only tell the atk to be on, not just telling the pmup to stay on.
As for the float valve, using my set up seems safer than trusting a mechanical float valve.

Also, the tube coming out of my top off tank is only 4 feet long. It ends above the high water mark of the top off tank. By design, a siphon should never start, much less a full siphon.

At this point I don't know what else to say. You turned the pump on and left it all night. You have an Apex, you know what placing a device in the ON position does.

If you want to control power to the entire ATK, then put the power cord in one of the EB* slots and control power to the entire ATO there. That's what I did, look at my example below. And that's where I put my programming to turn off the ATO when my return is off so it doesn't send me alerts, turns it off when my skimmer is off and delay turning it on while sump water stabilizes after a restart.





You've gotten numerous responses on how the ATK will work and you refuse to listen. The ATK has numerous redundancies that rely on different technologies. So if all your electronic equipment fails, there is a mechanical device as a last backup.

And I think that 60:00 number you see is so the ATO will only fill the reservoir once every hour.

[Grayhead]

I'm not shooting down any of the responses I have received. The mechanical valve is a safety feature, and the last line of defence for the system. I will test it out later today to see if the pmup stays on when the switch is in the on position.
I guess I'm nervous about having a line run from that high and trusting a siphon break and a float to stop it. After having a float valve fail in the past, it's hard to trust them.
Please don't take me wrong in my responses. I appreciate the help I have been given.

Now on a side note, am I missing something that shows a siphon can start uphill? I always thought it basically flowed down hill. In my system, anything that potentially could siphon, I have put the discharge uphill from the holding container. I have a DOS for auto water change set up for my display, quarrintine , as well as my dosing additives. If I was wrong about that, then there is a flaw in my system that needs to be addressed.

Thanks for the replies

[Grayhead]

Ok. Here's what I found. Turning the atk to the on position makes the pmup run. The tunze didn't do that. Like the tunze, I thought the atk would function the same. Lesson learned. Thankfully I designed my system to be able to hold the top off tank.

[mike810]

The pmup is the atk and the only part of the atk you can turn on. The rest is just optical sensors and the fmm module with additional ports. Glad you figured it out.

[Kyl]

Originally Posted by Grayhead

Ok. Here's what I found. Turning the atk to the on position makes the pmup run. The tunze didn't do that. Like the tunze, I thought the atk would function the same. Lesson learned. Thankfully I designed my system to be able to hold the top off tank.

The Tunze would run for ~10 seconds to prime the pump, but the Tunze controller shuts it off immediately after as the water level sensors hit. That's why if you're turning the outlet ON with a Tunze ATO you never would have had the problem.

The ATK when hooked up to an apex bypasses the ATK module logic afiak, so you're left with it serving solely as an interface to read the optical sensors and drive the 24v dc port if you're running the PMUP off the controller housing. By turning the outlet ON instead of auto, you are throwing all that logic your apex would be driving for programming out the window, and putting the outlet on 24/7 until flicking it back to AUTO or OFF.

This is not a fault of the ATK, but I can see how it could be a bit confusing as I don't believe it's very clear to all that the on-board logic is disabled when connected to an apex. Coming from the Tunze ATO as well I could see how this perceived mistake was made.

[Grayhead]

It was an honest mistake no doubt. But thankfully one that did create an issue other than messing with my tanks salinity.

[cwschoon]

So, as a stand alone, which is best....Tunze or ATK?

[Grayhead]

I have both. I would lean towards ATK for stand alone