waster disaster & question about external pumps

So this morning 20 minutes before I had to go to work my son and I hear the sound of a lot of water. The fear I've always had happened, the clear pvc tube came off the Rio 2800, a flood erupted onto the carpet and power strips, I got zapped while unplugging things because the GFCI on the wall didn't trip because it didn't get wet. Luckily the negative temps and tons of snow last night kept my 10yr old home from school so he could deal with the mess.

Luckily I got my RO/DI system yesterday and I had some water made up.

I'm going to order some of those hose clamp things so this doesn't happen again.

It brings me though to something I've been wanting to ask about... external pumps. I can't seem to comprehend how to use one with my existing setup. Do you just set it outside the sump then plumb it into the sump or something? Does anyone have pics of their setups with external pumps?

Thanks,
Anne

 

Actually yes you set them outside the sump the one I have can be run in or out but if it is run outside there is a different cover that comes with it to put on.

I'll see if I can get a pic..

 

I guess I just don't get how you properly plumb them into the sump...

 

I have the pump that is circled the peice that I circled you would take of if you run it in the sump, the peice thats on there now is for running outside the sump you would have to run 2 lines to it one from the tank and one into the sump.

 

I found this in the photos:


you could just run the pvc up and over the edge instead of drilling like in the pic.

 

I've had a quiet one pump like that but I took it back because it was terribly loud, but aside from that, your pic does not look like the quiet one, what's the huge white thing on it, and the big black part by the wall???

 

Ohh the second pic isn't my setup lol, Its someone elses I found in the photo section just to give an example.The black thing is the pump(it's a bigger one then the quit one) the white thing is where the water comes in and out(it came with that pump).which pump where you looking at getting?

 

i think you are talking about the pump, and its inlets. looks like that guy mounted to a piece of wood to keep it from rattling i am guessing.

 

I have a different skimmer pump now. Better to have one big pump. I'd like to build a manifold and have one big pump running everthing.

 

I could not find the picture of my external pump before I changed it over, but my sump had a bulkhead already attached to it, I then used PVC to plumb the pump to the sump and flexible tubing from bulkhead from tank to pump

There are plastic clamps that you can apply to your pump you have currently so you would not have to go through all the problems of replumbing your tank.

Sorry for the mess though.....

Did you by chance prime your RO/DI filter prior to using it? You should run the filter for awhile prior to collecting the water. For example mine I had to discard the first 75g ( think it was hours of water I wasterd) of water when I first bought mine.