Iwaki Pump rekt my floor

[Oscaror]

This has been an abhorrent week :tsk:

A lot went wrong but I'm not gonna rant about my personal life. I'll just get down to the aquarium stuff.
My Iwaki pump kicked out one morning, and I turned off my overflow so the sump wouldn't overflow. I turned the pump bak on to see if it worked, it did, and I turned it off again. I left for a robotics team meeting (wait what's a robotics team?) and when I got back my mom was screaming at me because the sump had overflown! The water level was very low in the DT, too low for the overflow box to suck it out. I literally had no idea what could have happened, but I think I get it now. The check valve must have jammed open, and the pump when I turned it off in the morning it must have created a suction when the water dropped (because of the jammed check valve) it created a suction, and slowly sucked the water out of the tank. Because the return tube goes down one third of the DT's depth thw water was one third gone.

Do you think this is possible? Please answer!

 

[kschweer]

Sorry to hear about this Oscar. It is definitely possibly and happens to a lot of people. I for one never rely on check valve, in fact I don't use one on any of my tanks. What you want to do is set the return just under the surface of the water so that only a small amount can drain back to the sump so it doesn't overflow.

 

[Oscaror]

What you want to do is set the return just under the surface of the water so that only a small amount can drain back to the sump so it doesn't overflow.

That's the plan!
Everything's still alive though so that's good.