Overflow overwhelmed

I woke up this morning to the dreadful noise of my return pump slurping in air. I checked and while I had no flood (low water in return section), I did some investigating and apparently my sponge which covers the drain was clogged on the sides.

I tried cleaning it but theres all kind of CRAP in there I can't get to. I need a strong compressed air or something to clean it out?? Can I soak it in something to break up the crap?? Ideas?

Funny thing is I clean it weekly, which should be more than enough. Now I'm scared of it hehe.

 

Could you perhaps post a pic?
I find it hard to believe that the sponge is THAT clogged unless you are WAY overfeeding/and or there is a lot of bad stuff floating in the water that is HUGE and clogging the macro-pores of the sponge. Maybe the sponge you are using is too fine?!
I have three eshopps overflows on my tanks. I clean the sponges off once every other water change (about 1 time a month) and while there is some detritus that comes off, it would never be enough to reduce the flow back into the sump to the point where the pump is sucking air.

The other possibility here is that your water level in your sump has dropped low from either evaporation or removing water from your tank otherwise.

 

I'm at work so I can't right now. I noticed the water level at the rim, return kicking off air and level low, so I shut it all down. Then noticed the overflow box (drain side) was very full, above the foam part. Pulled foam out and it was glazed on the inside with gunk. I tried my best to clean it out, put back in and it's operating fine.

Hard to believe YES! It's not very fine, it's from lifereef also. The only thing I did different was clean the glass last night...which isn't abnormal except that it wasn't during a WC.

Evaporation wasn't the culprit because my water level in the DT was at the rim. The sponge was the issue. Very strange!

 

Water level in the DT will be constant. Water level in the sump return section should be where you see all of your evap. I am thinking you need to just top-off.

EDIT: Upon rereading your last post, you mean your DT water level was higher than normal? If that was the case, disregard the first part.

 

Sounds like you might want to consider switching to a sponge-less overflow like a Hofer Gurgle Buster or something like it.

Are you adding freshwater back in the system to account for evaporation?

There must be a HUGE nutrient/waste/detritus source in your tank as these sponges which are not fine in opening size do not clog unless OVERWHELMED with solids. The other possibility is that you are now flowing more water through your overflow than it can handle. Do you have a ball valve installed on the return plumbing of your sump pump?

 

I might consider that.

Yes I am.

When I turn on/off the return every other day for feeding time, a bunch of gunk from the pipes or somewhere else gets released, and then clears up, most likely on that sponge. I have a valve on it. Right now it's not throttled because I cleaned the sponge and it's working ok...for now.

 

Very odd - maybe getting some Eshopps overflow pre-sponges will do the trick? I have been using them with great success on all of my other tanks and have not seen any loss of flow due to accumulation of detritus.

Good to hear you got it working and that you are topping off with freshwater!!!

 

That pre-sponge is actually the thing causing my issues. I will look into alternatives because when I'm snorkeling in Fiji this summer for two weeks, I don't want any problems

Thanks for you help!