Help! ATO failed!

[jenajet]

Ugh, woke up to find my auto top off filled my sump almost to overflowing. Approximatley 15 gallons of fw and my sg dropped to 1.017. How is the best way to bring it back up without making things worse for the corals. Is this gonna kill them?

[reefermike1]

ouch! im sure others will chime in, but i would do a series of small waterchanges with higher than normal salinity just to get it back to 1.020, then top off with sw untill sg is back up. had the same think happen but my sg only went down to 1.020, topping off with sw all week im back to 1.024 going to continue that till i hit .026. thats the reason i dont like atos. even if the switch doesnt malfunction, all it takes is for the skimmer to go crazy and dump a few gallons and the ato kicks on and dilutes your water. doubt if your corals will die, but im sure theyre not too happy and i wouldnt want to stay at that low salinity for long.

[salt-rookie]

Just mix a cup of salt into a jar of RODI water and add it twice a day until the SG is where you want it...

[Hendersonracing]

Id add jus a little throughout the day...take your time and bring it up slowly...If your going to be home all day just take your time!

[leveldrummer]

take a couple days to do it, i would actually let them sit at 1.017 for another day too, let them get a little more used to it, you shouldnt lose anything as long as the swing wasnt too rapid.

[crvz]

I would try to speed up evaporation until it's back to normal. It would probably take a number of days, but the slower the better in my opinion. Could you add an extra fan or two?

[Caesar Gdi]

Yeah unless something looks stressed I would just let it evap down to its normal level

[jenajet]

Thanks guys. I think I am gonna do a little of all. I am adding a small amount of salt and kicking up the evap. No one looks stressed at this point.

[Tynan Rasmus]

just curous ... what caused the failure?

[jenajet]

I honestly have no clue.

[Tynan Rasmus]

well thats no good! :P ... how you going to fix it?

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Caesar Gdi

Yeah unless something looks stressed I would just let it evap down to its normal level

definitely the way to go, use ASW in your top off, it doesn't apprecibly change the salinity whgen adding it, yet, the evaporative losses will very gradually bring up salinity over a day or two.

No need to add salt directly to the tank unless creatures are stressed, and then only as a solution.