Preventive maintenance on your pumps. Learn from my mistake!

[MarkO1]

Last night I happened to notice above normal water elevation in my sump. Inititally I thought it was caused by a vacuum break in my water top off (allowing about an extra gallon or two of RODI into the sump) so I ignored it and went to bed. Well I learned this morning that my sump return pump froze up. Coincidentally, the small reserve pump I use for water movement in the display tank had frozen up as well. So I'm guessing the tank was without circulation for about 12 hours. That's ebough time to lose 3 Clarkii clowns and a Copperbanded butterfly . The remaining fish were stressing bad and some on thier deathbed, particularly my favorite, a Purple Tang who was barely alive, not to mention the 5 Chromis damsels all begging for air near the surface and a Yellow Wrasse that finally awoke from being buried in the gravel around 1/2 hour after the discovery.
It appears that the lack of water movement caused a depletion of oxygen in the tank. (Well at least that's my guess as everything is testing normal now.)
So please let this be a lesson to you all. Maintain your equipment often, partuicularly your pumps!!! All 3 of my pumps had an accumulation of what I assume is a calcium buildup that encrusted the rotor, shaft and housing. Over time the buildup causes the rotor to stop spinning. This has happened on all my pumps at least once, and unfortunately it happened to two of them at the same time. Luckilly my pump to the protein skimmer was still operating, so I was able to use it in a pinch for my return line. Fortunately, all my corals, shrimp, and invertibrates appear to be ok.
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Honda P50

 

[reefland]

Sorry to hear about your losses. You had two pumps fail on one night? Doesn't sound likely unless you recently added some additive or overdosed calcium / kalkwasser / buffer somehow which would find areas to precipitate on.

Good Luck,

 

[MarkO1]

I had been dosing extra calcium and alkalinity in the past week to bring them both up a bit. The pump I use for supplemental movement in the display tank may have crapped out earlier this weekend without my knowlege as it only moves a small volume of water. (It's connected to my UPS... kind of an emergency device to keep at least some water moving).
Anyhow, with the exception of the pump running the protein skimmer, they are all about 2-3 years old. Probably have exceeded their life expectancy.
I'm looking to replace teh return pump and the auxilliary.
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Religion Forum

 

[sawyerc]

thanks for your warning, we all get a bit lazy and need a reminder.

 

[Anonymous]

Elevated calcium condition when you dose calcium or use calcium reactor will surely case the buildup. For most powerhead, I usually take them apart every few month and use hot vinegar to clean it. there is no way to prevent this unless you thru away a perfectly good pump right before it totally freeze up.