Warning to Profilux Users

[burgerchow]

Originally Posted by jorjef

What I have taken from this is I'm keeping my "five gallon lift to the tank and pour in top up system" for a long long time. Call it old school, cheap, inept regarding technology but it's flawless. After reading this post and others regarding automated system mishaps be it dosing or top up has pushed me further away from ever exploring them. They're just not for me.

+1. old school is best

[Myka]

Jorjef, automation is tha bomb, but it's definitely not a fail-safe.

Originally Posted by sphelps

Lastly I draw attention to my last request in the first post of this thread.

I wasn't offering advice (I know you don't like advice). I was just offering some ideas to those reading this thread.

I can't see how failing to refill a top off container could come to a situation as bad as the one you were dealt with though. The Tunze Osmolator quits pumping when it runs out of water, and the replacement pump is $30. If my sump runs out of water my Poseidon return pump will also quit operating. If the Poseidon happens to burn out I have a spare pump on hand with the appropriate plumbing fittings ready to go. The system is quite fine to run without the sump for a few days (the biggest consequence being no dosing), although the aquarium maintenance company would surely notice long before that. The company tested the tank for the "big three" weekly and reported to me if they were out of range for appropriate instructions on rectifying the problem.

There are always those things we just don't think about though, and those are the things that kick our butt and crash our tank. In your case, you didn't think about the repeated power outages. Who would? I've certainly never experienced such a thing.

[sphelps]

The problem relates to filling the container once empty especially if relying on others or equipment in your absence, doing so manually from an RO increases chance of flooding and doing so automatically requires additional ATO which doesn't add redundancy but rather another point of possible failure.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by sphelps

The problem relates to filling the container once empty especially if relying on others or equipment in your absence, doing so manually from an RO increases chance of flooding and doing so automatically requires additional ATO which doesn't add redundancy but rather another point of possible failure.

When I worked out of province (for 18 months) I kept two 65 gallon barrels full of RO/DI water. These barrels held enough for one month of top offs and waterchanges for my 90. I was always home at least once a month to refill the barrels so the barrels never ran dry and the RO/DI system never ran unless I was home. The maintenance company would use a 2 gallon bucket to manually add water to the 5 gallon top off vessel. He wanted me to automate it or use a bigger top off vessel, and I said "absolutely not". He also wanted to add a float valve to the RO/DI barrels so the RO/DI would turn on automatically, but I ixnayed that idea too. He was paid to do it a certain way, and he understood when I explained. My biggest fear was clam spawning, and I eventually sold the clams because of that fear.

When I was a carpenter, my old boss used to always say, "You gotta be smarter than the tool." ****ed me off at the time, but now I laugh. Yep, that is so true. In this case, we have to be smarter than our gadgets.

Anyway, I'm sure you're tired of this thread by now...I would be. Feel free to hit me up for frags when/if you come to that point in the future.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Myka

In all of this I see two flaws...

1) Tank was left unattended for too long (if you value your tank someone should check it daily).

I have to disagree with you in this situation, if you read it this all happened in less than a day, so having some one check the tank even once a day may or may not have helped. he did have some one checking every day or two.

I had 100 gal of top off water on my system, but I was old school with a float valve that was cleaned regulary. a large top off is a benifit, especialy when you go away.

if some one wanted me to check in on there tank for them while there away thats what I expect. check in and maybe feed fish, not do maintenance and such. I can tell you, unless you have a special tank sitter your paying for or a very very good friend, you start asking people to spend 3 hours at your place making water ect and your going to be looking for some one else the next time.

Steve

[Skimmerking]

I think that this thread has gone far unless we get everyones opinion. That will only cause hardships and headeache's. I am so sorry Steve that your tank ended in a tragic loss. To the sponsors that gave thier opinions. Yes they gave what they knew from issues in the past. YOU can't bash a guy for giving his experience and opinions. Facts are facts. But if a sensor expires after so many years and it's electronics. Then that is a flaw wires and plastics should not have a shelf life.
But to voice a debate will just get nasty. Everyone will have a say regardless on what happens.

My thoughts Steve left for vacation and had someone check his tank.
He also had his tank monitored by a controller.
Luck have it the power went off and caused it to do what ever it did causing a catastrophic event to happen with in a day or so.

Heck I was gone over to afghanistan for 7 months and my wife watched my tank and nothing happened. I have my float switch hooked up to my top off that was in my sump. But Steve's tank did and life goes on he was just letting everyone know that what hapened. Of course the owner and mike the canadian sponssor of aqua digital wos give their explanations which was said. In my honest opinion this thread should be closed to minimize any further hard feelings.

[DiverDude]

Not to take sides, but on a conceptual level, I'm with Myka on this. A smaller reservoir is less of a potential point of failure than a large one.

Why ?

We use technology to simply the complex tasks; the simple ones can be left to the dumb humans. The instructions to the warm body checking your house daily is "Take this jug of water and use it to keep that reservoir full". If they can't handle that then perhaps they shouldn't have a key

Consider the 2 possiblities with respect to the ATO and its reservoir:

1) Small Reservoir

a) Float failure and ATO pumps entire contents into tank. If properly sized, this should not create an overflow situation and is unlikely to decrease salinity to a dangerous level. The caretaker should raise the alarm on a suddenly empty ATO reservoir after a single day.

b) Float Failure of a different nature and water is never added to the tank. Well this should show itself in diminishing sump levels and the caretaker should raise the alarm that they DIDN'T have to put any water in the reservoir.

2) Large Reservoir

a) Float failure and ATO pumps entire contents into tank. Well...big mess; major salinity drop...tank crash

b) Same as above

It's worth noting that a float switch in your sump can be used to warn of situation 'b' (for both reservoir sizes).

All that being said, if your reservoir is REALLY small and needs to be filled daily then you have to ask why you'd spend money on an ATO in the first place.

Somewhere in there is a reasonable compromise and I'm guess it's in and around the 3-4 days worth mark.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I can tell you, unless you have a special tank sitter your paying for or a very very good friend, you start asking people to spend 3 hours at your place making water ect and your going to be looking for some one else the next time.

Steve

A professional aquarium maintenance company will spend as much time with your tanks each day as you're willing to pay for.

As I said above, I always had all the water made up for the tank sitter, he just had to put it in the proper places when it was needed. He did mix up saltwater himself for waterchanges using the RO/DI that I had stored for him. If I had the space at the time I would have had all the saltwater pre-mixed for him too.

I have been using this same aquarium maintenance company for a few years now, and he is very reliable. When I was away in June this year he came to my house twice a day for a week because of certain situation that called for this.

In the end, a person does what s/he feels comfortable with and hopefully that combined with some luck is enough to keep our reefs alive while we are gone.

[sphelps]

To each there own but I have no interest in a so called auto top off that still requires manual top off. If my tank used 5 gallons a day and I leave for 2 weeks I need 14 5 gallon jugs. To me that's just ridiculous and that's just two weeks, possibly planning a 6-8 week trip next year, what do I do then? If we can't fully automate something as simple as replenishing evaporated water then we should probably start rubbing sticks together to heat our homes and riding horses to work. I also helped a nice guy out last year in Calgary who paid a ton of money to only suffer a complete crash at the hands of a so called "professional" aquarium maintenance company so it's not always as simple as that.

In any case the point here was just to raise awareness of a said "feature" relating to Profilux which isn't documented but I think people need to be aware of. If people want to discuss my ATO in general I invite you to do so in build thread where I'll happily entertain any thoughts you have. I actually posted a new ATO schematic asking for feedback, I want all failure modes identified so please go nuts.

[Enigma]

Holy crap! When did this happen? When was I last there? Wasn't the tank fine?

Let me know if you would like any of the frags that you've given me back. I will happily give them back to you so you can start to populate your tank again.