Don't Make The Same Mistake!

[denverjon]

Talk about being absent minded. I have a 10 gallon trash can that I use to hold my r/o water. On Friday, I disconnected the water line running from the r/o unit because I needed to fill a bottle of two-part solution. Instead of reconnecting the line, I placed it directly in the sump for a minute. Well, of course I forgot about it and sure enough on Saturday I discovered a huge flood in my basemant. I was able to clean things up over the weekend but I'm a bit perplexed about what happened.

When I discovered the flood, the water was actually running over the top of my aquarium as opposed to out of my sump. This has me confused - there was plenty of room left in my sump and yet why would the water level rise in my tank? I was always under the assumption that if something like this happened, my tank's water level would stay consistent while the water level would rise in my sump. Shouldn't my dual overflows have been able to handle the access water?

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Sorry about your accident and that is weird!

 

[wysiwyg]

wow srry o hear about the flood its never fun when that happens. as to your situation i would have assumed your sump would have flooded not your tank weird

 

[Reefing8EZ]

I think if the sump was completely full then there was no place for the water from your overflow to drain to. Just an assumption.

 

[denverjon]

That's what's so strange about the whole thing. My sump had plenty of room in it to hold the water. I had someone suggest that maybe one of my overflows had gotten clogged and wasn't able to keep up with the water being pumped back in.

 

[mallorieGgator]

The pump is pumping water into the tank faster than it can return to the sump. Either you have a large return pump and the plumbing is too small for it or you have some blockage in your plumbing somewhere. Sorry to hear about the mess!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

 

[CRW Reefer]

Sorry about the mess but more importantly how is the tank?

 

[sexycorals]

Sorry about the mess but more importantly how is the tank?

True.. How's the tank. ? Low pro baller collector / coral nut here.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Sorry to hear about the accident. Its very simple, but most will not notice. The higher the level in your sump, the more water gets pumped out of the pump J. The extra water pressure helps the pump perform better.

 

[Steelerfan747]

Sorry to hear about your mishap and thanks for sharing. That is really weird. Please let us know if you figure it out.

 

[CJO]

Sorry to hear about the accident. Its very simple, but most will not notice. The higher the level in your sump, the more water gets pumped out of the pump J. The extra water pressure helps the pump perform better.

Somewhat true. Assuming that the sump is below the tank, a few inches of head won't do much compared with the several feet it has to pump vertically. I'd say that there is definitely a mismatch between the return pump and the overflow- whether it is an oversized pump, an undersized overflow or a clogged pipe, I don't know. I'm guessing it would have been a mess either way. Hope your tank is large enough to handle the 10 gallons of water without too much of a salinity change.

CJ

 

[denverjon]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I was able to clean up the mess without much damage to either the basement or the tank. My salinity dropped to 1.020. I lost one sps colony, so I consider myself lucky because it could have been much worse. I've been running my tank for 1.5 years without a problem, so I've got a feeling that one of my pipes might be clogged.

 

[zoous]

I had a similar issue. I was adding water to the sump and the water was rising in the display tank and the water in the sump was still going down. I realize one of the overflow pipes was not draining the water because there was no suction and believe the downward water pressure was not strong enough or there were bubbles in the overflow pipe. I definitely would had water overflowing from the dispay tank.