Water level issues - common causes?

Punchanello

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Hi All,

This has got me stumped...I have an internal overflow with a herbie style set up that has a gate valve to control the water going down to the sump. It's an all in one Cade Pro-Reef which is very similar in set-up to Red Sea. I am running a DC Sunpole Magnus 9000 lt/h return pump (not my first choice but that's another story). I think this is sold as an aquamaxx on the US market.

Everything worked ok for a while but it has got to the point now that pretty much every day it will work and keep a steady water level for up to 24hrs then suddenly increase the level in the main tank, draining the sump and dumping all my gravity fed RO water in to the sump.

I have always found it difficult to keep a consistent level which seems to require millimetre by millimetre adjustments. But this is just a new level of irritation.

I have tried and checked -

- the return and drain piping and valves. No snails or blockages. All seem clean.
- return pump. all clean.
- removed my entire manifold altogether and replaced pvc return plumbing with soft tubing to remove hard corners (this may have improved things but not fixed it).

I'm not sure what else could be wrong. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it normal to have to make mm size adjustments to get a consistent level? Does everyone else have to readjust the gate valve after you temporarily change the water level by putting your arms in the tank or at water changes? Are DC pumps know for sudden fluctuations in volume?
 
Last edited:
Hmmm... you shouldn’t be seeing that. I run a herbie setup and my return flow increase by 15% during the day and I never have to touch the valve.

Can you post pictures of everything? I can’t think of a reason this is happening off hand.
 
Thanks for the reply. Here are some photos
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