Oh $#!+, potential disaster!

I was doing some routine maintenance, and scraping the edges of my DT with my wide metal scraper- to clean it up some.
I noticed the water level of my Dt down slightly.

Went to check the basement sump, and as I made my way down the stairs, I could hear pump noise, usually never makes that noise.

I go into the room/area with my sump and somehow, my drain return line from my overflow had come out of the skimmer area of the sump and drained on the floor!
Luckily for me, all the water ran over to the floor drain about 5 ft away!
I estimate at least 20g of DT water drained to the floor drain.
When my sump got too low, it just quit sending it back up and kept my DT level farily constant via my DIY intank overflow.

My DIY ATO, had the RO/DI feed turned off, so it drained about a gallon or two into the sump.
I shut the valve going from the ATO to the sump at that point.
I then siphoned the remaining 3-4g in my ATO resevoir to my mixing can, and put in the RODI feed and right now it's about about 9 gallons.
I put my Mag 3 in as usual to circulate, and my heater, and added some salt.

I checked my SG on my DT, 1.026, so no drop there.

I'm currently making some more water so that I can add at least 12-15g before I turn on the return pump again.

I obviously dont keep SW or RO/DI on hand other that what's in my ATO resevoir. I made what I use for WC's overnight, or that day only.

A few days ago I just changed 12g too.

So thankfully, I was home when this happened, everybody's fine, and I'll have the RP up and running again in a few hours time. Currently all my water movers in the tank are still going fine.

This is the first time that hose has come out of the area on it's own.
I'm going to fasten a line around the hose so this does NOT happen again.
Still not sure how it happened this time? I don't feel like I have mischievious spirits in my basement.

I got lucky, no water damage, no losses, etc.

I'm going to call this an UNscheduled water change!

 

wow, glad to hear you didn't lose anything. I had this happen once when i was away from home. Lost all my pumps... took me about 6 months to garner up the will to start again, thankfully i didn't tear down otherwise i'm not sure i ever would have gotten going again. Best advice after a disaster i got, don't do anything hasty. Even if you lose most everything there's no harm in letting the tank sit empty and just topping it off... Sometimes it just takes time for us to heal.

 

See, what you need is a controller to warn you when water levels drop drastically like this!

 

Maybe, but I'm pretty sure I caught it really quick this time too.
For the sump drop because of the drain line dumping on the floor, I'm not going to let this happen again. Still not sure why it did this time?

Unfortunately, I can't afford a controller right now, not even a good used one. Kinda sucks only getting 7/10's time at work.

 

Good thing you happened to catch it Todd. Seems unlikely that it came out by itself, but you never know.

 

Agreed. To be on the safe side, perhaps you should get your basement checked for mischievous spirits.

Seriously though, maybe a pic would help find the cause. Disasters always suck, but glad it wasn't any worse.

 

Jerry, you're right. I remember now I had emptied the skimmer cup this morning, and moved the drian hose to another area of the portion where it drains to, to kind of mix up the flow in that section or something.
What was I thinking?

I had it in an area that kept it too light, and the hose worked it's way out.
I think Proffessor Murphy and his laws had something to do with it.



I had put 12g of appropriate SG WC water in the sump to get my RP going again.
I then made another 11g, and used about 8 or 9g of it with appropriate SG, and all is good once again.
My SG didn't really move at all through this today.

In the interim, I trimmed the hedges, and mowed the lawn.
It's so nice that my riding mower has a beverage holder!

I naming this my unscheduled WC!

 

I bet you're really glad you re-thought the direct RODI connection with a float valve right about now.

 

Yes I am!

But it also only used about 1g of my resevoir cause I was home and caught it early too!- I got to use the rest of the resevoir for my SW mix.

Win Win