Not Again...Please Help?

I have no idea how, but it happened. Somehow, someway my u-tube siphon broke at some point in the day yesterday pushing maybe 2-3 gallons of water up and over my DT and back onto my carpet. I come home to an empty sump, and rio 1700, mag 7, mj 1200 all running dry for who knows how long.

It's been exactly 1 month and 1 day to date, after a sump seal breaks and puts a few gallons of water in my stand and thus, on my carpet. And now I get the joy of breaking down the entire setup, wet vaccing, shampooing and drying the carpet and then setting everything up yet again. UgH! . At least this time i was prepared with the necessary equipment to get it done in one night.

My 10G sump was originally setup with baffles, sectioning off the return section to ensure that I couldn't overflow the DT. Since upgrading from a HOB Remora to an Ev-120, I lost a lot of sump space I once had, and as such, had to remove the baffles. To counteract this, I ran the sump with maybe 4-5 gallons. Just enough to submerge the return pump and the mag for the skimmer. With this new setup, I had just enough space left in the DT to account for the baffle-less sump pushing all 4 or 5 gallons up to DT without it overflowing. What I did not take into account was the ATO empying my freshwater resioviour back into the sump and thus over the rim of the DT.

I would really like to know how I can counteract this from happening again. Even if i had a larger sump with a baffled off designated return section holding only a bit of water. How can I ensure if it runs dry, that my ATO wont keep running and pumping all the fresh holding water over the top again? I'm currently using this ATO.

 

Thats the reason I wont hook my tank up to an ato. I use a drip jug that last a few days.

 

Yea, I'm seriously considering ditching it if there's now way to counteract the said issues. The drip jug idea sounds like a winner. How does it work? You just keep a jug suspended above the sump with a controlled drip rate? I've got a lifter pump that has a pretty slow flow rate, could I just throttle that back a bit to work?

 

I use drip jugs also....not as a top off, but a way to add Ca, Mg and bicarb. They are easy to do. Never thought of the ATO in this light before. Interesting.

 

I just have a 5g jug that sits under my tank on a frame that I built with 2x4. I used a ball valve to let it drip to my evap rate ( which is a drop every 5 sec.). But you have to figure out why your tube is not holding.

 

Indeed! I know the standpipe was pretty low in the overflow box. So much so that only the bottom 1/2" of U-Tube pipe was submerged at any given point. Maybe this could be the problem? I saw that the water level would fluctuate a bit in the overflow box and even tested what would happen if the water level went significantly below the u-tube by lifting the tube up a tiny bit over the waterline and the siphon held fine. Granted I only did this for a few seconds.

I think to start, I'm going to raise the height of the standpipe a bit in the overflow box, thus raising the level of water so the utube is deeper underwater. Additionally I'll keep the DT waterline a bit lower this next time around while taking the ATO offline and manually topping off for a couple weeks and keeping an eye on it and see what happens.

Are there any pumps that will automatically shut off when they run dry? I'm currently using a lifter pump with a very slow GPH ratio to top off. I'm thinking if the return pump triggers itself to shutoff, as long as I only keep a few gallons of water in the freshwater tank, the ATO pump can run it dry without overflowing the sump.

Or I need some way to trigger a power strip to turn off should the water level reach a certain height. The return pump and ATO pump and skimmer pump could then be attached to this device. I think this would cover all the basis. Does anything like that exist? Perhaps some sort of programmable controller?

I dont know, any thoughts?

 

Are you sure that your front box isnt coming loose and floating up a little and cutting off the water flow? If you had the back overflow just flowing on the ground, it would still suck water out the display until no more water would enter the box. So i dont think its the tube loosing suction. Maybe you dont have enough flow goin in the front box and causing it to empty. Or maybe your ato kicks on to late and your sump runs dry.

 

Great Idea. The box is actually pretty high as it is. The waterline is just above the bottom of the top trim. I don't think it came loose though as I firmly tighten the nylon screw with some pliers and needed them to unscrew the box again lastnight.

When I came home lastnight, the inside overflow box was still filled with water, to the top actually, and the back one was filled right up to the standpipe. The Utube was semi-floating but unprimed somehow.

Well, the front box is being fed with a Rio1700 pump about 3 1/2 feet up. I figured I was getting around 400 GPH at that rate. I assume that would be enough to keep the front box filled. During operation it was about 1/2 filled all the time. When I cut the power to the pumps to feed or do maintenance or something both sides get very very low. The tube is BARElY kept primed on each side but so far I haven't lost it yet. I don't think I had a power outage yesterday either as all the clocks were fine and the individual breaker wasn't tripped. Though maybe it was some freak occurance as we did have thunderstorms all day..?

We do have a cat that has easy access to the tube from the stairs but I can't see at all why he would go after it. I'm hoping by raising the standpipe a bit, maybe I can keep the water level higher in both boxes when the power gets cut. Other than that I am completely stumped :disappoin

 

I have this on my return pump. If it senses water on the floor it turns off the pump.
http://www.plumbingsupply.com/waterwatcher.html

Have you thought about while you're in the process of doing all the cleanup of just getting the tank drilled? That eliminates the source of a lot of potential floods.

 

I guess this is proof to those that say "U-siphons will NEVER break siphons!" as false. If there is a way to suck the air out of the U-tube, that would prevent floods. I would suggest one of 3 things:
1. Drill your tank and eliminate siphon driven overflow boxes completely.
2. Get a CPR overflow with an airlifter pump. I have this and have never had a siphon break in 6 years of use.
3. Drill a hole in the U-tube and glue a 1/4" airline nipple into the hole, then connect and airlifter into that. Any air that gets trapped in the tube will get sucked out and prevent floods.
Sorry this happened to you, I know how spills can be.