Refugium water level won't stay consistent.

HEy,ijust set up a 20g refugium for my 125g tank. I set it up with the drain going directly into the fuge section and have the standard 3 baffle design to the return section. I have a ball valve on the return pump and cant seem to keep it level. Two days ago i cam home to find it sucking straight air. yesterday it nearly dumped all the water out. while im home -if im LUCKY- i have to adjust it every hour. im going on vacation for 3 weeks in the summer and have absolutly no way to have someone sit at my house watching this all day lol. Any help would be greatly apreciated becauseim at the point of tossing the whole thing out the window and going back to the wet/dry which never had this problem.

 

i'd say your ball valve is bad or you have some flaw in the design. how do you have it plumbed?? can you draw a sketch showing the valves position and the pump and all that??

 

Do you have an overflow? If not, that's your problem. Overflows let the whole system equalize.

 

yeah i just assumed you had one...that could be your problem, or i may not be properly sized if you do

 

If your return pump is sucking air, then it sounds like the draining of your DT into the fuge/sump is not keeping up. If you've throttled back on the return with a ball valve and are still having the issue, then either the pump is way too oversized for your scenario, or your overflow (if that's how you're doing it) is undersized.

In a properly plumbed/executed system, the return pump dictates the rate of return to, and drainage from the DT.

HTH. Good luck.

 

Yes, I have an Eshopps overflow that has a max flow of 800gph. Im using a catalina 1800 which, especially with the ball valve, is well under 800gph. One way or another, the pump is most definitely not dictating the flow. I have had it suck air before but I can just as easyily make it overflow the refugium. Ill try to draw a sketch when i get home but until then it's something like: Overflow drains into the pipe which goes over the fuge into the opposite side, water flows through to fuge over a baffle, under a baffle, and then over another one to the return section.

 

If you can please post a picture of the set up, once we understand your set up we can fix you up. How does this interact with your sump?

For what it's worth - I use a pump to go from my sump to my refugium, the refugium then gravity feeds back to the sump. so there is only one pump and one ball valve to tinker with....very stable, will never suck air, fluctuate levels or flood.

 

Ya it's not making sense. The main tank will only overflow what the return pump is supplying. If everything gravity feeds to the return, there is no way you can not be matched. Do you have sponge in your baffles, is there some sort of restriction between return and fuge?

 

This sounds like your problem right here! just wanted to reiterate, good job reef sparky.

 

....or your downpipe has a blockage