[abcha0s]

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Planning the ATO (Automatic Top Off)..........<moved to 38 - Changed status to draft>

Pretext: I’ve had my ATO fail while on holidays. This caused the sump return chamber to completely evaporate leading to a subsequent failure of the return pump. After fixing the ATO and replacing the return pump, the ATO did what it was supposed to do and pumped 10 gallons of saturated Kalk water (pH 12.4) back into the system. The result was a pH spike reaching upwards of 9.5. While I was able to recover from this without a tank crash and better yet, without losing any wildlife, it drove home the importance of a reliable ATO. In my opinion, it is one of the more critical components and can potentially fail without warning.