Stupid Cold Weather.

[cm11599ps]

My APEX started sounding an alarm last night because my salinity climbed to 37. I peeked into my sump and saw it was running low and I could here a hum coming from the garage where my ATO can is. Turns out the ATO line in the garage froze but the pump was still trying to force water and it wouldn't stop because the float switch in my sump wouldn't close since no water was being pumped into it.

I opened up the top to my ATO can and saw a layer of ice on top. It wasn't thick so I stuck an empty bottle in there and was able to break through the ice easily enough so that I could refill my sump by hand with the bottle. I also took a peek at my dosing pumps and the alk solution had some ice crystals forming but the calcium looked normal. The mag solution was fine too. I ended up turning off both dosing pumps and the ATO until things warm up a bit.

The strange thing is that I actually have an APEX temp probe hanging in the air close to my top off container. I was checking that temp probe a few times daily since it turned so cold this week just to see what the air temp in the garage was. That temp probe was hovering around 41 or 42 so I thought everything was good to go. I wasn't expecting everything to freeze since the air temp was supposedly over 40 in the garage.

 

[JB NY]

That stinks, but that is a lot of a salinity change for just evaporation over one night. It take me a few days to notice a problem with top.

Hopefully no damage was done and at least the Apex was there to let you know about the problem.

 

[Fragmented 99]

Can you add a heater to your top off tank

 

[cm11599ps]

Can you add a heater to your top off tank

I do. I have two temperature probes in my garage hooked to my APEX. One is in my top off can, the other one in the air next to the can. Both probes have been hovering around 42 degrees during this cold stretch.

I have the heater in the top off can programmed to turn on if the top off can gets to the mid 30's. It never came on since the probe was reading above 40.

I keep my house cooler than most with temps at a steady 63 in the winter. I'm having people over tonight so I currently have the heat at 68 and I also have the top off heater turned on manually so I hope these things will help thaw everything out. Hopefully some of the residual heat from my house helps.

 

[onegreenray]

is the top off sitting directly on the concrete in your garage. the floor is colder then the air. that may be what is cooling the water faster then the air. elevate the top off on a piece of plywood for insulation.

when did you replace the temputure probes last?