No Email Notifications?

[magus]

I'm don't seem to be receiving all of my email notifications. This isn't a huge issue for me...just learning is all. Trying to understand how it works or what does and/or does not trigger these to fire.

My setup...

On a Hydros X4

Sense port

"Type" is "Sense Port" named "Sump Water Low". Sensor is in the sump just above my return pump on the back wall.
"Notification Level" is set to "Yellow".
"Alert When Dry" is configured to "On" (the bubble is slid to the right side and both the bar and bubble are illuminated blue).


Notification

"Email Notification Level" is turned on for all three levels - Yellow, Orange, and Red.
"Yellow" type isn't configured for any other notification (Push, Local, etc.)


Expected

When the water in the tank evaporates, the water level in the return chamber will drop and, once it's below the sensor, will trigger my ATO to "On" and will send an email for the "Yellow" "Notification Level" alert.


What's Actually Happening

The ATO portion has been working for weeks so no question there about the sense port working. Sometimes, and I use "Sometimes" very strongly here, I get two emails from this alert. The first email states "Sump Water Low: Alarm State" and the second email states "Sump Water Low: Alert Condition no longer present." My ATO fires 3 to 6 times a day but I've only gotten this email alert once this month. I've only been using it for a couple of months. Last month, I only received this alert three times where I feel I should be getting several of these per day.


I'm wondering if the ATO is filling the sump faster than the system can determine it needs to send an email? This isn't a huge ordeal by any means as I don't feel I have to have these alerts but I enabled this feature so I could review the emails and check dates/times they were sent to get a better feel for how often these things tend to happen. I am aware that I can track the ATO on/off in the logs and I have been doing that. Just asking here about the email alerts as a learning opportunity because later, I plan to have many, many more pieces on my Hydros and this may be something I actually need for a change.

If any of you can provide clarification on this issue or explain why this may be happening to me, I sure would appreciate it.

Thanks!

Magus

 

[Danny]

It may be that the ATO is reacting so fast that it never sends a notification. One way to find out would be to manually turn off the ATO while you are going to be there and see if you get an alert. There was another person that thought that was how it was suppose to work and the onltime they would get the alert is when the ATO tank would go empty. They setup a second tank and were getting the alert each time it would go low. My guess it was taking longer once the ATO started to refill till the sensor turned off. Most people don't have an alert setup on that sensor since they will be getting it repeatedly. It is best to set a max on time on the ATO and set it not to run past max on time.

 

[magus]

It may be that the ATO is reacting so fast that it never sends a notification. One way to find out would be to manually turn off the ATO while you are going to be there and see if you get an alert. There was another person that thought that was how it was suppose to work and the onltime they would get the alert is when the ATO tank would go empty. They setup a second tank and were getting the alert each time it would go low. My guess it was taking longer once the ATO started to refill till the sensor turned off. Most people don't have an alert setup on that sensor since they will be getting it repeatedly. It is best to set a max on time on the ATO and set it not to run past max on time.

Yep, that's another way I can test for sure. And, since I work from home, I can pull this off soon and very easily. I'll disable the ATO pump and give that a whirl.

But yes, I can imagine folks wouldn't typically want to get email alerts when that sensor reports a status of "Dry" for sure.

Also, good advice on the max on time. I already have all of those advanced settings configured. It took me a few days to get them dialed in but those settings do work and I appreciate you offering that tip.

Thanks!

Magus

 

[magus]

Well, just in case anyone happens to visit this thread and want to know the outcome...

I did disable my ATO and allowed the water to evaporate from the tank. I was getting the email alerts every thirty minutes like I was supposed to. I left ATO off for a few hours because there wasn't that much of a drop in water level/salinity. I turned the ATO back to "Auto" and, after "Min Time Off" passed, the ATO turned on and filled the sump.

This morning, I've checked and noticed that I stopped getting the emails again.

So it is correct that the ATO is simply filling the sump and triggering the sensor to "Wet" before the email gets sent.

Thanks for recommending a method for troubleshooting. Now that I know how this works, I'll be disabling the alerts for that sensor and know how it will/should work for other devices later.

Thanks!

Magus

 

[Don]

As a general rule you don't want to enable any alarm on the ATO Sensor. Wet and Dry are both normal conditions for this sensor. Instead enable the alarm on the ATO output. It will then send you an alarm if it runs too long or fails to run for too long.

The alarm on the sensor is for things like a second high level sensor that should never trip or a skimmer cup level sensor.

 

[magus]

As a general rule you don't want to enable any alarm on the ATO Sensor. Wet and Dry are both normal conditions for this sensor. Instead enable the alarm on the ATO output. It will then send you an alarm if it runs too long or fails to run for too long.

The alarm on the sensor is for things like a second high level sensor that should never trip or a skimmer cup level sensor.

I had it set up this way for testing purposes but have changed it back now and, that said, have no alerts for my ATO Water Level Sensor. The alert is configured for my ATO Pump and the Advanced Settings for it.

Thanks, though, for the tip!

Thanks,

Magus

 

[magus]

Oh boy, I hate to kick a dead horse but I had something happen here and thought I would share as it's directly relatable to this thread I started.

I work from home and the other day, in the earlier part of the morning, I realized my ATO container was running low on water. I was busy with work so decided to turn the ATO pump to "OFF" in Hydros and knew I would, when I got off, fill the ATO and turn the pump back on. At lunch, I finished eating and realized I still had some time to myself so filled the ATO then instead of waiting until the end of my shift.

On the following afternoon, my wife and I were trying to watch a movie and I could hear the tank making noises. Got up to check it out and realized that I had never turned the ATO pump back on. The return chamber in the sump was low and the return pump was starting to gargle a bit. The ATO container, on the other hand, was quite full and ready to go. LOL. I opened Hydros and turned ATO pump back to AUTO and, soon after, the ole' pump kicked in and started filling the sump.

I know we talked about not setting up alerts for the wet/dry status of the sensor. I went back in and thought I could set it to "alert if dry for ## minutes and/or hours" but it doesn't work this way. I could just set it to alert if dry like I did in my testing but thinking that won't help me prevent this from happening down the road either. I say this because the ATO almost always refills the sump before the alert goes off anyway but...unfortunately, not always and that means I would, from time to time (and certainly more often than I'd like), get false positives.

But, the main point here is that when you set a device to "Off", the alerts for "Max off time" no longer apply. Hahahaha. It was silly of me to forget to turn the ATO pump back to Auto when I filled the ATO container.

The best way to handle this, maybe, is to use another sensor lower in the sump and, if that sensor also goes dry, Alert, Alert, Alert, Alert!

Only coming back to add this here because, like I said, it was directly related to what we were previously discussing and to note that I learned that "Off" bypasses the "Max off time". I should have realized that.

Thanks!

Magus

 

[Danny]

You can alway setup a generic output with the ATO sensor as an input make active when dry. Then go and set a maximum on time on it logner than what it would normally be on at any one time. If that output stays on past the maximum on time and you have an alert set for it then it would send you an alert. Hope this helps.

 

[magus]

You can alway setup a generic output with the ATO sensor as an input make active when dry. Then go and set a maximum on time on it logner than what it would normally be on at any one time. If that output stays on past the maximum on time and you have an alert set for it then it would send you an alert. Hope this helps.

Ah, awesome. That sounds like a goods solution. I'll try configuring that soon! Thanks!! And...you just saved me from blowing money on another sensor and tying up one of my ports.

 

[Danny]

Ah, awesome. That sounds like a goods solution. I'll try configuring that soon! Thanks!! And...you just saved me from blowing money on another sensor and tying up one of my ports.

It is a good idea to have a sump low and a sump high sensor especially if you do AWC. I also use my sump high sensor as a shut off for ATO, AWC and the skimmer. I use the sump low sensor to shut off AWC.