My diy 1 1/4" overflow is not keeping up with my mag 7 pump. The week old system has been running fine until today when I shut things down for a water change. I suspect the problem is an air leak where I siliconed the check valve to the top of the elbow. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
diy overflow question
- Thread starter skipper
- Start date
give us a little more information as to what the setup is like. What type of standpipe is it? Straight, Durso? Do you have and t's? Straight pipes can create a vacuum type of pressure which can cause loud water splash noise and even possibly restrict the flow enough to cause overflow. The scary sounding part is that you are using a siphon based system. Hopefully not... hope we can help.
Rivermud, check out http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15733 in the stickies at the top of this section. It will give you a good idea of what we are talking about here.
skipper, take it out, drain it well and remove the silicone from the check valve clean the area with alcohol and use epoxy to seal the check valve. If you want to , block one end and put a vacuum cleaner hose on the other end to create avacuum and draw the epoxy into the area around the check valve (it doesn't take much vacuum so be careful).
Dr Joe
.
skipper, take it out, drain it well and remove the silicone from the check valve clean the area with alcohol and use epoxy to seal the check valve. If you want to , block one end and put a vacuum cleaner hose on the other end to create avacuum and draw the epoxy into the area around the check valve (it doesn't take much vacuum so be careful).
Dr Joe
.
I copied the overflow from the diy sticky. It worked fine all this week, I turned the pump off many times to test the system. If I suck out air from the check valve (via air tubing) the waterflow improves and the system runs fine for about one hour. Eventually the water level raises in the tank because the pump outpaces the overflow. I resiliconed around the check valve a few hours ago, and am waiting for it to dry before turning the pump back on. That is my best guess for where the air leak is, which I think is the source of the problem. Any thoughts?
buy an aqua-lifter pump for 10$, youll never have to worry bout it again. and i agree epoxy is best.
General 2-part expoxy, just let it cure.
Another thought... Which check valve did you use? These were designed to pass air in one direction and stop water (slightly thicker) in the other direction. They can leak air backwards
. You can take the hose you attach to it and put a air shut-off needle valve in it to make sure this doesn't happen.
The valve with a visible spring inside seem to work better for this purpose
Dr Joe
.
Another thought... Which check valve did you use? These were designed to pass air in one direction and stop water (slightly thicker) in the other direction. They can leak air backwards
. You can take the hose you attach to it and put a air shut-off needle valve in it to make sure this doesn't happen.The valve with a visible spring inside seem to work better for this purpose
Dr Joe
.
I'm not one for knowing much about that overflow. It's similar to the standard pretzel except that it has the air release in the main section to allow for easy air removal. My guess is that you have an air leak in the system like you say. I didn't spend the time checking on how movable it should be but you could eliminate the joints as an issue by using pvc cement.
This looks like an offshoot of http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=503664&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
Where with the second variety, the air leak wouldn't kill the siphon since there is a gas release in the main down pipe which also reduces noise. Just my guesses and opinions though so please don't flame me.
This looks like an offshoot of http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=503664&perpage=25&pagenumber=1
Where with the second variety, the air leak wouldn't kill the siphon since there is a gas release in the main down pipe which also reduces noise. Just my guesses and opinions though so please don't flame me.
Yep, the pretzel is similar, just double everything. I prefer my redundancy separate 
. (I remember the first time I saw that one it was just a pic of the pvc, I got a headache figuring it out 
).
Rivermud, we never flame a fellow member... even a
, we don't even have one emoticon for it 
... .
Dr Joe
.
. (I remember the first time I saw that one it was just a pic of the pvc, I got a headache figuring it out ).Rivermud, we never flame a fellow member... even a
, we don't even have one emoticon for it ... .Dr Joe
.
make it so the pump falls behind the over flow not the other way around so the the water level wil just drop below the overflow until the pump pumps water high enough for the overflow.