Aqui Lifter Failed.....

[cwoods5]

Well bad news today (actually last night) I left town Saturday morning with my son and Father in law in charge of my pets and I got a phone call last night about 830 from son telling me that the sump looked real low and it was making a funny noise (keep in mind he's only 7, but this is mine and his project for the past 18 months) I asked him sevedral questions.

1. is the display tank full. answer. its a little low.
2. is the power on. answer yes
3. is the alarm clocks blinking in the bed room answer yes.

after he answered #3 i knew what had happened (the power had been off). i have hard wood floors and the water must have soaked through pretty quick to the crawl space under the house. I'm sure what is going to happen soon is the floor will start to show it quickly and i will have to replace the floor. I told them to cut all the power off the tank to keep the pumps from running all night dry and to plug the heater up only and they did. all the corals look pretty bad. If there is a funnny side this i had just told CHarlie that i was going to upgrade to a tank that was larger and pre-drilled. I quess my tank overheard me and decided to do crazy stuff.

Ok after all that my biggest question is have any of you ever had any real success with aqui lifters? I always have trouble when i test and cleans the ovedrflow box to get it to "catch up" pulling the water out. I have 1 tube in the utube about half way up (about the bend is) and other tube just stuck down on the (facing the tank) right side where the water actually drops off into the sump.

And to top everything off it dropped to 16 degrees last night (remember I live alabama and the weather is only below freezing about every 10 years and onoly for a day or so) and my ro/di unit froze. I took the canasters off and brought them inside (it is installed in my shop outside). Hopefully everything is going to be ok with it, but i guess i find out soon enough.

Suggestions on the lifter please....

I guess i will speed up my search on a predilled tank.... Or is this not the answer to power outages?


Thanks and sorry for the long post.

Good luck a work tomorrow CE. If this needs to be moved the equipment forum will you please do so for me...


Chad

[cwoods5]

One last think i left off. the water when it overflowed it got on my coralife timer and shorted out. I'm lucky it didn't catch the damn house on fire.

[Bloodydecks]

I'm confused. i can't visualize your set up.

Aqua lifter pumps to me are small centrifugal pumps that are used to either dose your tank or top off your sump due to evaporation loss.


Sound like you have a "hang over the back" type over flow box.

You lost power and your sump over filled, spilling water onto your floor that seeped into your sub basement?

Two things..you should use check valve on your return lines...

your sump should be able to handle the back flow via the over flow that will occur during a power failure. This is usually about 1-2 inces of water from the top of rim of your tank, to just below your overflow boxes "teeth" (grooves, slots in the overflow box).
The check valve will stop any back flow from your reutrn line which is normally lower then overflow.

If the temp drop was significant, your coral is most likely toast. ALso, how long did it go with out circulation. O2 levels may also be an issue in the recovery. Sorry for the bad news.

Hope all work out.

[kevinpo]

Hello,
The pre drilled (Reef Ready) tanks will restart without fear of overflowing in the event of a power outage. The Aqua lifter pumps are not terribly reliable.

Regards,
Kevin

[cwoods5]

Yes i use a over flow box, but what actually happened is the power went out and the sump filled up. I keep my sump low enough so that in case we have a power outage the sump will fill up but not overflow. the sump did what it was suppose to do but when the power came back on the return pump filled the DT and the overflow box didnt syphon back to the sump casue the Dt to overflow untilt he sump was empty.

[cwoods5]

I found this on craigslist and it has some conflicting/confussing words in it. please read the description and give me your thoughts.

All Salltwater Aquarium stuff For Sale

the main thing I interested is the line that says 100 gal with corner overflow. but above that line it says 24" x 24" x11". Anyway i saw this and wanted others thoughts before i drove over to check it out. i have asked for more pictures

[Parrothead]

remind me again what size tank you currently have, I know you can get a better deal on a new drilled tank than what he asking for that.

[cwoods5]

46 gallon bow front

[Parrothead]

Check this out, same price bigger tank, better foot print
Aquarium, 125 gal saltwater

[cwoods5]

now were talking. I emailed them to see if he still had it..

[Parrothead]

call the dude, he has 2 numbers listed,

[cwoods5]

Sold...... I will keep looking

[Parrothead]

How far would you be willing to travel?

[cdearing]

Hello,
The pre drilled (Reef Ready) tanks will restart without fear of overflowing in the event of a power outage. The Aqua lifter pumps are not terribly reliable.

Regards,
Kevin

Kevin,
What do you recommend to replace an Aqua lifter? I have the same problem everytime I do a water change, shut off the pumps and turn them back on. I have to get the Aqua lifter to restart by sucking on that nasty tube. Any suggestions?

Cwoods, Sorry about your troubles. I hope you can get it all sorted out!

[Parrothead]

Hey Ms. Dearing, long time no hear, hope your Holidays where wonderful, hows the new setup doing.

[cdearing]

Hey Robert,
I've been super busy the last couple of months and today I woke up to about 7 inches of new snow this morning so I'm hanging close to the crib today and thought I'd check in on reefland.
Tank is doing great. Still haven't added any fish. I'm not sure if I'm still cycling this great new totoka or if I'm not doing enough with my water changes. Having some cyano problems. Other than that, everything is great.
Happy New Year!
C

[cwoods5]

I don't even have good luck sucking on that nasty tube. it eventually works but i do alot of spitting. I agree long time no hear. have you updated your post with some new pics yet?

[Parrothead]

Well snow up there is expected, down here in sunny florida it's not but we have about a 30% chance on friday of seeing it, lately, last 5 days, and for the next 5, our high temps are usually our lows for this time of year, we are looking at 10 straight days of twenties and teens for the low each night, at least through monday.

Happy New Year back at ya

[cwoods5]

I had one problem with cyano and I put somehting in my tank and cut off the skimmer for 24 hours and it was gone. I can't remember the name of it (i will look tonight) , but it really worked great. Skimmer worked triple time when i turned it back on.

[Parrothead]

Careful with some of that stuff