i NEED help fast!!!!

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turtlesrock

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Oct 9, 2009
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ok... i have a 100 gallon tank with a sump and an over flow that's made out of PVC. hopefully you guys know what im talking about. thae overflow looks like this=http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:...259-nice-cheap-diy-overflow-overflowmydry.jpg

so heres the problem..... when the power goes out the water drains to the overflow point.. right. and while its draining, for some odd reason, the suction stops. it stops when its getting close to the overflow point. so, when the power goes back on the water rises in the tank. but, the suction on the overflow is not working. so then i have to prime it again to get it to work. and what im afraid of is when i go on vacation and the power goes out the suction will not work. and if the suction is not working then the pump in the sump will not have any water to push. wich means the pump is running "DRY". the pipe that goes into the sump is not sumerged... so is that a problem.

please help me i only have 1 more day until i have to move the tank into the basement... it is in the garage for testing right now. PLEASE HELP!!



EDIT::::::I REALLY NEED HELP
 
An air lifter is a pump that sucks air and also water out of the overflow.

If you have the DIY PVC overflow and it does this each time there is something wrong with it, and an air lifter is only a bandaid that can just as easily go out and stay out with the power outage. They are notorious for their short life span.

With out pictures of the actual overflow its almost impossible to help. One thing to check it to see if there is a hole drilled at the top of the U where the overflow comes over the edge of the tank. If there is a whole there, is there a check valve? if there is a check valve is it functioning?

I am not 100% sure but I think that the hole on the top with the check valve service two prepossess one, to prime it, and second to allow trapped air out. It really sounds like that the air is getting sucked when the water level is low enough to let air get sucked into the intake.
 
If the siphon breaks and the side that is not submerged in the aquarium is open to the atmosphere/air... then the a'air lifter' will not create a siphon, it will only suck air into the side of the siphon tube that is open to the atmosphere...

If both sides of the siphon tube are submerged in water, then the air lifter will suck the air out at the top of the siphone tube, thus bringing the water level up in the tube until the siphon restarts...

But if the power goes out and the pump fails, so does the air lifter... so when the power comes back on there is a race between the water pump and the air lifter to see if the pump overfills the tank before the air lifter restarts the siphon...


But from what I can see in the design used by the author of this post, the intake will need to be primed eevry time the power goes out... before the power is turned back on... thus I would replace this overflow with a more reliable design...


I don't mean to sound like I am criticizing air lifters... as in some applications they are the perfect addition... but they are not the solution for every situation, and from what I can see this is not a situation they will solve the problem...
 
Design or construction fault.
I have run PVC pretzels before and they worked just fine.
No other parts were needed.
They would stop and start as they were meant to do, with only occasional outside suction of any air buildup, to regain full flow.
I don`t think I would trust a system that needed an out side source, aqua lifter or powerhead, to maintain or establish a siphon.
 
Suggestion: go buy a canister filter and run it with established media.

Deal with this filter problem when you get back.

If you try to jimmy rig your current setup, something may happen while you are gone and you'll probably regret it.

Play it safe or be willing to live with the consequences of your mistake.
 
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