8gal salt water on floor- CLEAN YOUR ANTI-SYPHON HOLES!

[esmithiii]

Tex- thanks. Good info. Wife feels better now since she left the FW reservoir valve open and flooded the floor w/ fresh water. Now we are even.

 

[Red Rover]

We're having this same conversion over at reef central. I'm not trying to direct people over there, but someone posted a good idea on an anti syphon design that won't clog and doesn't use check valves.

Check it out...

The post is from DRT...

http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=145321

 

[esmithiii]

Excellent idea.

Ernie

 

[MandarinFish]

my brand new $30,000 mahogoney floor and killed virtually everything in the tank. I should have posted a pic of my wife with my shotgun in her hands!
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You're telling me you made a floor out of rare tropical rainforest wood?!?
8O

THEN DESTROYED IT?!?!!?

Your karma probably nearly dictated that you should have been shot.

Mahogany is *way* environmentally irresponsible.

The tank sounds nice though. Well, now that it has water in it again anyway.

:wink:

 

[texman]

I also feed my fish and dogs some Blue Whale meat once in a while. It is a real treat for them, after nothing but whooping crane meat and sea turtle eggs.

 

[texman]

Oh yes Mandarin, by the way, don't worry about my floor - I had my supplier in Costa Rica cut down another 10 acres of 500 year old trees to find me a few which I can use to replace the floor.

 

[t gallo]

temporary canister filter, why. :?

 

[texman]

I had a nice Eheim cannister filter sitting around, with compartments perfect for filling with activated carbon. So instead of doing what normal people do and hang a bag of carbon in the sump, I filled the cannister with carbon and put it on the floor beside my tank. I then put the inlet hose into the tank and taped it to the hood. Started up the cannister filter and put the outlet hose back in the tank and taped it. Went to bed, and in the morning, woke up smelling dead acropora on the other side of the house. Ran into the recroom where the tank is and wiped out after slipping in the 1" deep water covering all 2500 square feet of my recroom mahogany floor. Tank had 1" of water left in it. The outflow hose had come un-taped and landed on the floor, now acting as a "power-siphon". The inflow hose had lots of slack in it and slowly dropped as the water level dropped to just above the bottem. Half of my pumps (including 2 Iwake 100's burned out with no water in the sump. Almost all of my 50 or so rather expensive fish dead. At least $25,000 in dead corals plus clams. I had to pinch myself to make sure that I was not dreaming. I then crumpled on the wet floor and cried! I have since rebuilt my tank and floor, and took the cannister filter to the ranch and put some buckshot in it, to make sure that I never do something that stupid again. Top that in tank disasters!!

 

[texman]

OOPS - duplicate!

 

[Anonymous]

Ernie,
It's not at all uncommon to have return pipes low in the tank, as your does. My return goes down about halfway in my 80g. When I built the return, I drilled 2) 1/8" holes just below the waterline. I then drilled 1 hole just above the water line but at a 45degree angled towards the water. In 2 years it's never clogged, the other 2 have. Because the angled hole is so close to the water, it's silent.

Since my tank was never drilled for an overflow, my original cpr back box used to scare me on a regular basis, that and keeping the thing clean. I finally decided on the Lifereef box and sleep much better. I also installed a cutoff switch in my sump should the water level drop suddenly, assuming the back box had failed and the tank was flooding.

Regards, Eric

 

[MandarinFish]

I gotta know, Gottaknow.

How did you install a cutoff switch in the sump to handle a disaster?

I have the double Lifereef overflow, but it would mean death if there were disaster.

Can you detail how you set this up.

 

[Anonymous]

I run both my return pump and skimmer pump through relays. It works like this. In the portion of my sump where the return pump is, I have a reversible float switch that is made of nylon. I built a holder out of pvcp that is positioned down below the water line. When the float is up(water normal in sump) the contacts are closed. Through this circuit runs 12vdc. and goes to the pump relay. The power is supplied by a 12vdc transformer. The same 12volts holds a set of contacts closed in the relay. These contacts are seperate from the 12v circuit, and switch the hot side of the outlet, controlling the pump. I have the float positioned 2 inches below the minimum level I maintain in the sump. If the water level drops, the float drops down cutting the power to the relay which in turn cuts the power to the top half of the outlet(the little connector tab on the outlet was removed)and the pump shuts off. The main tank can hold the extra water if this happens and prevents a flood.

 

[MandarinFish]

Gottaknow - I'm going to take your description to the hardware store and see what sense they can help me make of it. I'm not technically gifted, but it seems like a smart addition.

Texman - you got me beat on tank disasters (and I thought the time my sea cuke got eviscerated by the powersweep, poisoning most of my fish to death was bad).

CITES lists mahogany as threatened. Not saying it isn't beautiful, but it certainly is exploited and not eco-friendly.

I'm sure it looks great though. I wouldn't use it myself, but it is nice wood.

But I don't blame you for shooting the cannister filter. It *is* a miracle your wife didn't shoot you.