Reef Angel Forum

I'm about to set up an ATO system using the Water Level sensor and I'm wondering if someone can help me add a check to the WaterLevelATO function.

In the past, I've noticed that the water level reading has a possibility of fluctuating; whether it's caused by the tubing somehow allowing some of the pressure to escape where it connects to the PVC pipe I don't know, but there were times when the water level reading would drop 20-30% from normal.

So I'm looking for a way to code the WaterLevelATO so that it will check and make sure the water level is above a certain point before it will allow the function to actually work; so in case the reading suddenly drops to 30% (the lowest level should be 50, where the return pump just begins to draw air), it won't begin to top up the sump and possibly overfill.

Thanks in advance for the help!

It should not do that. Most likely your sensor tube is not sealed properly. I've seen it fluctuation +/- 1% and that is common. For that type of drop I would not expect it. But if it's only a short blip, I would imagine the ATO pump would hardly have time to get water to the sump. Are you seeing that for extended durations?

However, you could easily add a check by doing this:

if (ReefAngel.WaterLevel.GetLevel() > 50) // We are over our threshold, enable WaterLevelATO
{
ReefAngel.WaterLevelATO(30,61,63); // Adjust the settings to your parameters.
}

Thanks for the help!

And no, it wasn't in short blips. When I first got it calibrated, I made 65-70% to be the "full" line for the sump. After a few weeks, "full" came to mean 55. After a few weeks it became 30 and before I decided to check the sensor pipe, 20% was full. I didn't notice anything odd with the pipe, I just took the plastic tube off the pipe (it didn't come off without a good bit of pulling) and reinserted it back in and placed the whole thing back in the same location.

I figured maybe the flexibing tubing somehow bent too much and allowed the pressure to escape (not sealing properly like you mentioned), but considering it doesn't really move, I couldn't figure out how it could have happened.

Did you use pvc cement to seal the pipe and adapter?

Actually I didn't! I could have sworn the instructions said teflon tape was fine, so now that you mention it, I'm going to go ahead and cement the adapter to the pipe.

Yes, it was mentioned that teflon was fine, but I soon realized that the teflon does leak air so I removed from the manual.