So I've been out of the hobby for many years and recently decided to get back in....I wanted full automation goodness so got a shiny new Apex, float switches, water detection, etc, etc... I luckily can place all my equipment on the other side of the wall from the tank (in an unfinished furnace room). I even placed a rubber shower liner under the sump to make sort of a 'tub' in case of leakage i left one side flush to the floor since the floor drain was only 2 feet away.
I thought I would get fancy and had a separate container for the skimmer overflow located next to the sump complete with a float switch - hence my apex would see it was full, shut off the skimmer and email me...
Well here is what happened....for some reason the skimmer went crazy, filled up the collection cup - the float failed for some reason and it began to overflow slowly next to the sump. But ah ha! I have a liner to protect against such things.....well naturally my floor is not levelled correctly and once it flowed out of the liner....towards the drain...it took an immediate turn and flowed downhill right back towards the liner and went under it.
Other nice part is my fancy tunze osomolater ATO happily filled up the sump with the missing water. And since it was losing water slow enough for the ato to catch up its built in 10min max never tripped, as it filled for a few mins, turned off for a while, turned back on a few mins later, etc......
I have 3 Water detection units...one next to the display tank, one next to my separate refugium.......and one waiting to be installed next to the sump (naturally)
So I ended up with about 5 gallons of water on the floor before I got home and noticed it. No real harm done, not enough to effect the salinity too much (also I only have 10 snails and 10 hermits in it so far). Also it all stayed in the unfinished area away from my tank....
Anyway lesson learned - automation is nice but not 100%. Also I should have tested to make sure the water flowed towards the drain...and hooked up the 3rd water detector....
I thought I would get fancy and had a separate container for the skimmer overflow located next to the sump complete with a float switch - hence my apex would see it was full, shut off the skimmer and email me...
Well here is what happened....for some reason the skimmer went crazy, filled up the collection cup - the float failed for some reason and it began to overflow slowly next to the sump. But ah ha! I have a liner to protect against such things.....well naturally my floor is not levelled correctly and once it flowed out of the liner....towards the drain...it took an immediate turn and flowed downhill right back towards the liner and went under it.
Other nice part is my fancy tunze osomolater ATO happily filled up the sump with the missing water. And since it was losing water slow enough for the ato to catch up its built in 10min max never tripped, as it filled for a few mins, turned off for a while, turned back on a few mins later, etc......
I have 3 Water detection units...one next to the display tank, one next to my separate refugium.......and one waiting to be installed next to the sump (naturally)
So I ended up with about 5 gallons of water on the floor before I got home and noticed it. No real harm done, not enough to effect the salinity too much (also I only have 10 snails and 10 hermits in it so far). Also it all stayed in the unfinished area away from my tank....
Anyway lesson learned - automation is nice but not 100%. Also I should have tested to make sure the water flowed towards the drain...and hooked up the 3rd water detector....
