Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by biecacka

Jason, what are you feeding the ATS with? I'm getting ready to put mine online soon and feeding it with a line from my return pump. How many GPH are you shooting for?

Corey

I don't know the exact gph but its being fed by a RIO pump. I think rio1700? I'll have to look back to see. Every time I try to go wide open my screen production goes way down. I cut it back very slightly. Not much but seems to be just enough. I don't like touching my return line for anything else as I run a bean animal setup and my siphon is tuned to the return.

[jason2459]

Yep, RIO 1700. It's listed for around 642gph but that's with 0 head so something shy of that with around 1' head and then cut back very slightly with a ball valve.

[jason2459]

Back home and time to get my tank back on track. I've been gone about a week and have to say about all the failsafes I've setup were tested. Thank goodness for my Apex.

So, just before I left I toped off everything that could be toped off, cleaned everything that could be cleaned , and emptied everything that needed emptied.

I had everything ready to be gone for a month. I woke up to get ready to head to the airport and I notice a bunch of text messages and emails from my Apex. I run down to the basement and the return and skimmer are off and the return section is drained.

Investigate. 30m before having to leave.

I turn on the new salt pump and it took a few seconds before it starts sucking air. I open up the 50g brute and its near empty from being comoletely full the night before and new salt added. I go to fill it up with fresh water from my ATO slimjim I just filled up the night before. A couple seconds into it and the pump start sucking air. I open it up and its empty.

Keep Calm. 25 minutes before having to leave.

I look around the floor for water. Over 70g of water. I look around the tank, under the tank in the basement, and around the sump room. All dry.

Keep calm. Where could it have gone. 20 minutes before having to leave.

Think.

Floors all dry so no leaks. New salt mix brute is empty so it didn't siphon into it and its below the sump so couldn't siphon out. ATO is empty so same thing.

Think quick. Keep calm. 10m before having to leave.

AWC. Look in the sump. Not around it.

Quick look at parameters. pH plummeted. Temp in sump fine. Temp at tank no idea but I'm sure much lower then normal. Salinity 30ppt.

Act quick and think. 5 minutes before having to leave.

Think of a solution that will keep my system going at least for the next 5 days before I get back and as little interaction needed by tank sitter.

So, I pull the AWC tubing out completely and unplug the spectrapure. If it wasn't a siphon problem and a problem with the pump stuck on this will resolve both situations. I'll figure out which was the issue later if possible. Spectrapure pumps are supposed to be anti siphon...

I turn on the valve to the RODI and the valves to both the ATO and new salt mix brute. Leave instructions to shut off the gray thing with blue handle. aka the main shutoff to the RODI. I ran it around to the front of everything so it was obvious.

I dump in 8 or 10 cups of salt into the new salt mix brute. This is not a good thing to do and I new it. This will cause a lot of precipitation. But my goal at this point will be to get the sump filled with salty water and get the return going so heat will be delivered to the tank. Then let the Apex keep topping off the system with that salty water slowly raising the salinity back up.

Run out the door for the airport and hope it all comes together.


26 hours later.

Apex alert. One of my energy bars has lost power. I look for which on it is and it runs my return pump....

Keep calm at least gyres are running.

32 hours later

I get someone to check the gfci outlet. It was tripped for some reason and now reset. Return pump back in action and gfci hasn't tripped again since. I'll look for stray voltage later.


34 hours later

Apex is alerting me my skimmer bucket needs dumped. I turn on the dump pump.

20 minutes later. Same alert and I dump it again.

10 minutes later. Another alert that the skimmate bucket needs dumped again. Skimmer is going nuts.


Keep calm.

I just shut down the skimmer and left it off. I do not want to worry about that the entire time I'm away. Also, don't want to waste the salt water. Need to get salinity up anyway. Evidently the skimmer doesn't like the conditions my tank is in and the saltwater being used to top off now. It's definitely not ideal saltwater.

So, now I'm depending on the ATS to provide oxygen and remove nutrients. Bacteria should have a field day.

BUT I can't see it now. My laptop happen to be plugged into the same powerbar as the return that went out. Laptop must not have a good battery. Can't see of anything is dead or anemones getting shredded up.

Can't worry about that now. Just have to let the Apex take over from here and let it do its thing. AWC and Skimmer are now off and don't have to worry about those two causing problems.


Failsafes that worked.

1. my run low ATO alert kept kicking in my new salt pump and fresh water pumps keeping the sump going until they were empty.

2. I don't keep enough fresh water to cause my salinity to go bellow 30ppt or 1.023 which is low but not leathal.

3. My low switches in both containers didn't allow pumps to run dry

4. My ATO fail switch and programming didn't allow my return to run dry as it got shutoff at I think I saw in the Apex graphs around 4am. (Alerts were going off all night and I had my phone on silent. I won't ever do that again) rest of that section siphoned out so it could have totally burned that return pump out.

5. Large float switch in new salt container shutdown AWC (which leads me to believe there was a siphon created in the spectrapure pump so I need to talk to them about that)

6. pH high shutdown my lime dosing while sump was offline for a long period of time.

7. Heater outlet was on as the display tank was getting colder. Sump temp maintained perfect temp as the Ranco controller did not allow it to over heat and took over as the primary temp controller. It is set to 80 it looks like.

8. Skimmer bucket and apex integration with it saved me from a run away skimmer.

9. Power outage alerting allowed me to know exactly which strip and outlet was out. If the outlet was bad I could have had the return plugged into a different outlet.

10. I'm sure there's more but can't think of it right now. I guess the high full levels in the top off and new salt containers allowed me to know when they were full and the main water supply to the RODI system could be shut off. That was nice.

Home now and it looks like everything is alive. Most the LPS corals look ticked off. Glass is covered in bacteria as the skimmers been off and no water changes have been happening like normal. I didn't turn off the carbon dosing or the lime water dosing.


I did a quick set of parameter checks. Over the past several days the salinity has slowly climbed back up and right now at 33ppt.

Nitrates ~.2

Calcium: a low 380

Alk: a very high 14 and probably why the LPS are not happy at all.

Phosphates: 4ppb converts to 0.012ppm

So, now I have the skimmer back online and it seems fine now. I'll have to keep an eye on it. I added some salt to the new salt mix. It's salinity was at 15ppt. It's now up to 35ppt. I also turned back on the AWC and will be watching that closely as well.

Of course it all had to happen as I was leaving and while I was gone. But man I would have basically bee. With out anything in my tank but some powerheads the entire time I was away. Most likely the tank would have had some losses. I would have definitely had to restart a new sump. Over 5 days of being off would not have smelled good either.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Oh DANG!!! Did you ever figure out what the problem was in the first place?? Where did 70g of water disappear to??

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

Oh DANG!!! Did you ever figure out what the problem was in the first place?? Where did 70g of water disappear to??

I have to believe it went down the drain. Over 70g could not have evaporated in just a couple hours with out boiling the tank which didn't happen. Over 70g would be very obvious if leaked or drained out onto the floor somewhere. Couldn't have siphoned out into any of the containers. ATO was empty, brute new salt mix was empty, and the lime water tote was still full so would have had over 70g spilling over onto the floor.

Only thing that could put it into the drain is the automatic water change setup. But that was a lot of water to drain out in a few hours. It had to be done between around 11pm and 6am. By 3 am it would have been below my ATO/AWC alert. By ~4am my ATO /AWC failure programming kicked in and shutdown the return pump. Then between that time and 6am the rest was removed out of the return area and down to the baffles in the other two sections.

I don't know how fast a siphon could work through a 1/4" rodi line that's restricted by a peristaltic pump. Seems unlikely. So, leads me to believe the spectrapure stuck on possibly and AFAIK the fastest it can pump is 250ml/m.

I'll look closer at a the graphs and timing when I have time. I've had 0 time this last week as it was a very busy business trip. The tank was the last thing I wanted to worry about.

[slief]

Originally Posted by jason2459

I have to believe it went down the drain. Over 70g could not have evaporated in just a couple hours with out boiling the tank which didn't happen. Over 70g would be very obvious if leaked or drained out onto the floor somewhere. Couldn't have siphoned out into any of the containers. ATO was empty, brute new salt mix was empty, and the lime water tote was still full so would have had over 70g spilling over onto the floor.

Only thing that could put it into the drain is the automatic water change setup. But that was a lot of water to drain out in a few hours. It had to be done between around 11pm and 6am. By 3 am it would have been below my ATO/AWC alert. By ~4am my ATO /AWC failure programming kicked in and shutdown the return pump. Then between that time and 6am the rest was removed out of the return area and down to the baffles in the other two sections.

I don't know how fast a siphon could work through a 1/4" rodi line that's restricted by a peristaltic pump. Seems unlikely. So, leads me to believe the spectrapure stuck on possibly and AFAIK the fastest it can pump is 250ml/m.

I'll look closer at a the graphs and timing when I have time. I've had 0 time this last week as it was a very busy business trip. The tank was the last thing I wanted to worry about.

Wow. That's just crazy. I ran the Spectrapure pumps for many years and never had any shipon issues. Which pump is this? Is it one of the Litermeter III slave pumps with a separate AC Adapter and not the full LM III? If so, do you have that AC Adapter plugged into one of the relay outlets (outlet 4 or 8)? Those pumps draw minimal wattage and if you have them plugged into one of the triac outlets, that could have caused the pump to stay on as the EB8 can't properly sense a load on the outlet. Anything below 6 watts should really be on a relay outlet.

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by slief

Wow. That's just crazy. I ran the Spectrapure pumps for many years and never had any shipon issues. Which pump is this? Is it one of the Litermeter III slave pumps with a separate AC Adapter and not the full LM III? If so, do you have that AC Adapter plugged into one of the relay outlets (outlet 4 or 8)? Those pumps draw minimal wattage and if you have them plugged into one of the triac outlets, that could have caused the pump to stay on as the EB8 can't properly sense a load on the outlet. Anything below 6 watts should really be on a relay outlet.

Its the standard LMIII with remote pump plugged into the LMIII (B port). The LMIII is plugged into a Tsunami AT1 pressure switched outlet (High mark in sump) which is plugged into a piggy back plug that plugs into 6_8 (AWC_6_8) which would be EB6 outlet 8.
https://www.reeftronics.net/ja/jason2459/apex-status

That piggy back plug is a large tethered float switch in my 50g brute new salt mix container. When I got down to the basement that morning the LMIII was shut off. Which a couple things can shut it off. The high AT1 pressure switch in sump, the high Apex float switch in sump, the programming saying ATO or AWC has failed due to low float switch being closed for too long, and the big tethered float switch in the brute on run down.

I'm looking at the apex graphs now for the morning of the 13th.

1AM
Looks like my ATO and new salt pumps were kicking in like mad starting at 1:00AM they are only allowed to run for 1 minute every 15 minutes. That probably saved everything from happening faster then it did. Maybe.

2AM
By 2:26am my new salt pump is shutdown due to low switch opening up in my new salt brute saying it needs filled. Need to fill Alert is going off.

At 2:50am 34.3ppt salinity level and Condx/Salinity starts plummeting due to no more new salt mix and just straight ATO fresh water going in while this mysterious disappearance of tank water is being removed. Condx Alert is going off

2:59.58AM ATO Warning alert is going off.

3AM
Salinity at 31.9ppt
At 3:12am ATO low float opens up and alerts out it's empty and shuts down that pump. Need to fill alert is going out along with all the other alerts repeatedly being sent out every 60 minutes is what I have resends set to.

4AM
4:07AM ATO Fail Alert goes off and shutdown the return pump which also shuts down my skimmer.

6AM I get up to my phone full of text and email alerts. Kicking myself for putting my phone on silent which I rarely if ever do.

[jason2459]

So, the LMIII's outlet is pretty much ON all the time. The LMIII then handles the ~1% water changes daily through it's on board controller spread out I think 155 times a day. The Apex is there to shut it down or shut other things down like it did if there's an AWC failure which it seems there was. Just bad timing on me leaving out of town when it happened and me not hearing my system Alerting the crap out of me while it was happening.

[jason2459]

Have to say though it was stressful and several things failed. But it seems like it all failed the way it's supposed to and alert how it was all supposed to. So, I guess I got a good real world test on all the alerting and failsafes working together and everything is alive in the tank.

So, now the only thing that needs tested is the run high failsafe and alerts. Those were all the run low and empty failsafes and alerts kicking in. That would be if the ATO stuck on or the other AWC litermeter pump stuck on and kept pumping water into the sump. There's several high float switches and all pumps are plugged into a pressure switch as well which would also shut them off incase the apex doesn't.

[Floyd R Turbo]

There still has to be a hole in the logic somewhere which allowed all that tank water to go down the drain. This is the primary cause of the issue, until you find that problem, it could happen again!

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

There still has to be a hole in the logic somewhere which allowed all that tank water to go down the drain. This is the primary cause of the issue, until you find that problem, it could happen again!

Yeah I've been thinking about that and reviewing what I might want to change. I'm fairly happy with how it went down. Not happy it happened of course. I think I hit worse case minus the tank blowing out.

Problem is if it was a siphon that was the cause this would still be the same outcome. If it was the spectrapure pump stuck on with in its own controller then I'll think of something to check it from running freely. Simple resolution to that problem is the Apex DOS as it ties in to the Apex directly.

[jason2459]

So, this is the outlet that the AWC is connected to.

Fallback ON
Set ON
If Outlet vSumpHigh_A7 = ON Then OFF
If Outlet vSumpLow_A6 = ON Then OFF
If Condx9 < 30.0 Then OFF
If Condx9 > 37.5 Then OFF
Defer 060:00 Then OFF

I'll have to look at the timing even closer but this may help tell me definitely if it was a siphon. Not necessarily if it wasn't. But one thing I see I can change if it wasn't is reduce that defer time down by half. That defer time was based on the litermeter standalone single pump used for the limewater ATO. Right now I have mj1200's for the top off. I could even cut that down to 20 minutes based on their programming.

I think I'll also change that to fallback off. That and change that condx statement higher to like 32 now that I've corrected the large salinity swings it was having before.

I do want to change those mj1200's out for the 400ml/m diaphragm pumps from avast. That will help in some situations too but I've mentioned that before so that's not a new change based on this situation and don't thing it would have helped other then possibly delaying the final outcome a bit more.

[jason2459]

OK, new programming set. And will think of what else to prevent a rouge pump continuously running. Can't stop the siphon.

Fallback OFF
Set ON
If Outlet vSumpHigh_A7 = ON Then OFF
If Outlet vSumpLow_A6 = ON Then OFF
If Condx9 < 32.0 Then OFF
If Condx9 > 37.0 Then OFF
Defer 018:00 Then OFF


Edit: actually I could do something with solenoid shutoff valves to stop the siphon. Kick those on when AWC_6_8 outlet = off.

[jason2459]

I haven't looked at the graphs more and need to but I did some math. I just don't see it being the Spectrapure Litermeter. I had a hard time thinking it could be a siphon from it. Being that it does have 3 rollers would make it very hard for a siphon to even be allowed through if not impossible with out it breaking a roller. All rollers were in tact. I did check that.

So, only thing I could think of if it was the Sepctrapure LMIII is if the controller on it didn't shut off the pump. The pump is set to 190ml/m right now as calibrated. BUT say it stuck on and the on board controller stuck it on at full speed which is 250ml/m.

That's 15,000ml or 3.96 gallons per hour. This started around 1am and removed most all the water by 4am. But again lets factor in it happen to just finish off right at 6am when I got up. And lets say it actually started at 12am for everything to start kicking on at 1am.

At a full 6 hours of running at 250ml/m could only remove 23.78 gallons. I lost close to 50g from my new salt mix brute, close to 23 gallons in the SlimJim ATO, and all water that would be above the baffles and in return section of my sump so around another 20 gallons. So, I have to still figure out the source of water loss. Unless a restricted siphon through 1/4" RODI tubing could move more water then that. No way.

I'm thinking now somehow my skimmer. Now to look at those graphs as it's integrated with Apex as well. At least the water removal component is and figure out how it emptied out of the bucket with out me turning on the pump inside it to empty it.

[jason2459]

Well, this certainly lines up and helps fill in the picture. New entries in bold.

1AM
Looks like my ATO and new salt pumps were kicking in like mad starting at 1:00AM they are only allowed to run for 1 minute every 15 minutes. That probably saved everything from happening faster then it did. Maybe.

1:06AM to 1:47AM Float switch in Davey Jones Locker opens and triggers the alert that it needs dumped.

1:29AM Pressure switch in Davey Jones Locker trips alert that the Bucket is Full

1:29AM Skimmer is turned off due to the Davey Jones Locker being full.

That should have done it. No more skimmer from that point on. That would have been about 3 gallons of water removed and 3 gallons of new saltwater added. A nice little mini water change. I would have woke up at 6am with those alerts and dumped the bucket. If there were actual issues then I would have found out then and not lost 70+gallons of water.

BUT!!!


1:31AM Skimmer turns back on and doesn't turn back off until 4:07AM when the return shut down due to the ATO fail alert.

2AM
By 2:26am my new salt pump is shutdown due to low switch opening up in my new salt brute saying it needs filled. Need to fill Alert is going off.

At 2:50am 34.3ppt salinity level and Condx/Salinity starts plummeting due to no more new salt mix and just straight ATO fresh water going in while this mysterious disappearance of tank water is being removed. Condx Alert is going off

2:59.58AM ATO Warning alert is going off.

3AM
Salinity at 31.9ppt
At 3:12am ATO low float opens up and alerts out it's empty and shuts down that pump. Need to fill alert is going out along with all the other alerts repeatedly being sent out every 60 minutes is what I have resends set to.

4AM
4:07AM ATO Fail Alert goes off and shutdown the return pump which also shuts down my skimmer.

6AM I get up to my phone full of text and email alerts. Kicking myself for putting my phone on silent which I rarely if ever do.

[jason2459]

New Theory that I should be able to replicate tonight easily but how I have no idea. When I test this theory out tonight I should find out how.

I remember one annoying thing all weekend was me not being able to see my skimmer's neck. I have a plastic sheet over my sump to reduce evaporation during the winter. This sheet was in the way of seeing the skimmers neck from my basement camera I have setup to view it all remotely. I also remember coming home that Monday late night and moving it out of the way. I don't remember if it was right on top of the air intake.

I have a feeling it was very near that air intake and got sucked onto it. From fiddling around the night before I left with getting the ATS screen cleaned off I shifted that sheet around to get to it. I normally make sure it's not in the way of the skimmer or the camera to see it's operation. I don't remember doing it that night. I did that pretty late in the evening on the 12th into the 13th. Probably around midnight which is lining up with that 1am event.

So, around midnight I'm shifting things around. By 1am has slowly drooped close enough to the skimmers air intake and gets sucked onto it causing the skimmer to overflow. The Apex alerts that it needs dumped shoots out and soon after it shoots out that it's full.

This all makes sense to me. What doesn't is what follows. I have a pump in the bucket that I have 1/2" clear tubing ran to a floor drain right next to it. When I get that DJ Dump alert I'll pull up the sump camera to get a quick visual and turn that pump on for a second and back off. This creates a siphon that drains out the bucket. But once drained the siphon is broken.

Then the cycle continues. Eventually I get the alert a week later that it needs dumped again and I turn that pump on again.

What appears to have happened is that bucket went past the Dump switch level and hit Full shutting down the skimmer. Then somehow siphoned out. The pump never turned on. I don't have any programming to turn it on. It's manually set to off and it does have SET OFF and DEFAULT OFF as the only programming on the outlet.

Since it never hit full stage again and the skimmer turned back on and lost 70+ gallons of water until 4am when ATO failed alert came on I can only think that some how

1. the siphon started brought the bucket down below the full stage (have to figure out the HOW this happened)
2. skimmer starts back up and still overflowing due to restricted air intake
3. the siphon never breaks and keeps up with the overflowing skimmer
4. skimmer along with the bucket siphoning out into the drain empties my ATO and new salt mix brute
5. ATO fail alert kicks in and shuts it all down once both reservoirs are emptied.

Now I have to figure out how the heck that siphon got started with out the pump turning on to start it.

In the mean time I have closed some gaps and tightened up the timing on all the alerts so it all gets shutdown much much sooner. I can't stop that siphon if it occurs again but I can shutdown the skimmer that's supplying it. Have to figure out how that siphon started so it doesn't do it again though.


Here's my biggest gap in logic that caused it all to siphon out.

I thought I had the ATO Warn to shutdown the skimmer in place and the ATO Fail to shutdown the return in place. The return ATO fail is in place which did stop my return from burning out. So, that was good.

Here was my skimmer programming
Fallback OFF
Set ON
If Power SumpEB8_7 Off 002 Then OFF
If Outlet vSumpHigh_A7 = ON Then OFF
If Outlet return_7_1 = OFF Then OFF
If Outlet vLockerF_A3 = ON Then OFF
Defer 002:00 Then ON

What I thought was in there was my ATO Warn if on then OFF statement. Notice the vSumphigh statement in there is there and I did take out the vSumpLow statement but what was supposed to be put in it's place was the vATOWarn line as it has a delay in it otherwise the skimmer was turning on and off every time the ATO kicked on and off.

So, here's the new Skimmer programming

Fallback OFF
Set ON
If Power SumpEB8_7 Off 002 Then OFF
If Outlet vATOWarn_B8 = ON Then OFF
If Outlet vSumpHigh_A7 = ON Then OFF
If Outlet return_7_1 = OFF Then OFF
If Outlet vLockerF_A3 = ON Then OFF
Defer 002:00 Then ON


Tightening up the timeing the vATOWarn would have went on before 2am saving a lot of water. But figuring out WHY that started draining will save all but 3 gallons of water if that ever happens again.

[jason2459]

It's driving me nuts not knowing how that skimmer bucket started draining. Basically I'll just put my finger over the air intake and let the bucket fill up and see what happens.

Can see that plastic sheet in this picture I posted earlier in this thread.

[jason2459]

Oh yeah, and I still have to look for stray voltage and why my GFCI tripped which was the next issue during my trip away. If I don't find any I will change out the outlet as they could themselves go bad.

[SpectraPure]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

There still has to be a hole in the logic somewhere which allowed all that tank water to go down the drain. This is the primary cause of the issue, until you find that problem, it could happen again!

The drain line for the drain pump should only be 1 to 2 inches below the water surface. This way only 1 to 2 inches can be drained out if something happens.

Jeremy

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by SpectraPure

The drain line for the drain pump should only be 1 to 2 inches below the water surface. This way only 1 to 2 inches can be drained out if something happens.

Jeremy

Yep it was. I've moved it into the return section and below the low sump switches that turn on the ATO. It was over by the drain pipes which 1-2 inches there means it's drained out the return section and everything down to the baffles plus another 1-2" in the other two sections.

I've pretty much ruled out it wasn't the SpectraPure LMIII as the math didn't add up to how much water was lost compared to how much the LMIII could have possibly pulled out.

[jason2459]

Salinity is back up close to 34ppt now. 1 more ppt over the next few days.

Anemones are looking nice and full today. At least what I can see through the webcam that I love watching through out the day.

[jason2459]

Alk spike recovery update. Most of the lps is coming back. Looks like the couple SPS I have and was showing growth before this look "burnt". Frogspawn is in worse shape then anything else and it may recover but may not. Goniopora looks great oddly. Bubble tip Anemones are full. That minimax looks like its growing well. The gorgonia looks rough and hope it recovers. Yellow Fiji looks normal ticked off right now as I'm taking pictures and will fill out again in about an hour I'm sure. Encrusting monty looks fine and is still super purple in person. Purplehaze I think it's called.


Terrible picture of course from me but all those stubs were new growth so hope it recovers


Couldn't get even a bad picture of the other SPS. Oh, mushrooms look fine.



Duncan looking better then it did the past couple days.


Coming out nicely




Really not looking good. I've had a hammer look like this before and it just withered away from there.









Oh yeah the alien egg looking coral looks normal

[jason2459]

Going to test out putting my finger over the air intake filling the Davey Jones Locker here soon and see how what happens and if I can replicate what happen the morning of the 13th.

[jason2459]

Well, mystery solved for the most part. At least how the siphon kicked in when the skimmate bucket filled up.

That night before I secured a few of the hoses together that go into the floor drain. This includes the water softener, awc old tank water, rodi waste water, and the skimmate bucket drain hose.

I then shoved it down into the drain.

Mistake. Do not do this.

What that did is put the drain tube into the water that's in the floor drain. When the siphon kicked in, which I did do that night before after doing that to the hoses to make sure the bucket was fully empty, is not allow the siphon to break fully.

So, pump turned on and emptied the bucket. Hose shoved into the water in the drain allowed that water to drain out of the bucket until it was empty. BUT once empty air got into the tube through the bucket side but was stopped just over half way. A good foot of the tube on the drain side was still filled with water.

Now, when the bucket was filling up there wasn't enough pressure to cause the siphon to keep going. The bucket just kept filling up. THEN, by the time the skimmate got to the top of the bucket over the water level in the tube that was left on the drain side there was enough pressure to start up the siphon again.

This just kept going in a vicious cycle. I basically turned my skimmate bucket into a toilet and my skimmer had diarrhea.

So, all I had to do is make sure the tubing is not shoved into the floor drain hole and into the water down there. Then the siphon fully breaks once the bucket is empty. So, I'd the skimmer ever goes crazy for some reason or the air intake gets clogged, which I think is what happened, it will now do what it was supposed to do which is shut down after the skimmer bucket is full. Which is only around 4 gallons at most. At 3 gallons I get alerted it needs dumped. At 4 gallons it shuts down the skimmer.

Or if for some reason it doesn't the ATO Warning alert will now shutdown the skimmer like I thought I had programmed in there which is about 20 minutes of run time. Not 4 hours like the 13th.

Here it was fully shoved in which up until the night of the 12th it never was before and never had this issue


And now pulled out like it was before and siphon fully breaks like it should.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Talk about Murphy's Law in action, dang!

You could add a dome-cover to the air intake of the skimmer, like a half-ball or a stand-off plate that prevents the intake from being occluded.

The drain thing though, that sucks...maybe you put a "T" in the line and extend a vent line up a few feet & zip-tie it to something to prevent that from happening. Kind of like a plumbing drain vent line. Removes any potential siphoning condition.

Glad you figured it out, sucks with the timing though!!!