Worst Nightmare has occurred

[Warnberg]

Well the sump has arrived and is about ready to be installed. Here is a pic of the new sump.

[Woodstock]

Nice!!

[cheeks69]

Now that's a nice sized sump !

[Warnberg]

Sorry, Here are the dimensions...

13 inches wide X 16 inches tall X 5 feet long

To give you an idea, thats a 8 foot long tank behind it and the skimmer is a Euro-Reef RC8-2

[Shells]

sorry about your mishap. =( dont give up!!!
I too had the same thing happen about a month ago. we had a really bad
storm and the power went out for 3.5 hours, during the night.. I too was dependent on a check valve, not realizing that they fail. I was lying in bed
when i heard what sounded like water running. Talk about a heart attack. My check valve failed and the water was now overflowing from the
sump, into the bottom of the stand and there was about 5 inches of water gone from the main tank. Luckily the sifon finaly brake and i was
able to scoop out water from the sump and put it back into the main tank enough to stop the sump from overflowing. I sat in the living room with the flashlight and my bucket ready. Luckily i didnt lose anything, I was really worried about my powder blue. He was fine. I didnt have a problem with temp. thank goodness. We drilled two holes in each return pipe about an inch from the normal tank water level.

[Shells]

ps, what kind of skimmer is that in your sump?

[boozeman]

schweeet!!!!
deffinetely big enough to fit all your goodies into!!

[lcstorc]

Now that is a sump.
Looking good.
Appears you are going to return from tragedy with an even better system than you had to begin with.

[boozeman]

btw, what are you using for a return pump?

[Warnberg]

All, sorry it took so long to get back to you all. Been installing and plumbing the new sump.

Shells, the skimmer is a Euro Reef RC8-2

boozeman, the returns are twin GenX 40's, there is only one bulkhead fitting in the sump when the pic was taken, had to steal one from the old sump before the install.

Thus far the sump is working perfectly, still have a couple of things to do before it is all done but so far so good. It's much better than the old design.

[Warnberg]

Well, the new sump ROCKS. It holds tons more water and it makes it much easier to change out filter socks. Now I have the calcium reactor under the stand as well so there is not so much clutter outside the tank. All is good so far, I have a few more things to do then I will take some pics and post.

Thank you all for the words of encouragement.

[Jorgens]

nice sump...I dyi'd a 55 gal and am upgrading to a 75 for your exact reasons. Sorry to hear your troubles....

BUT!!! now look at all the new goodies you get to play with. Must be kinda like starting over eh> allthe new gadgets!!

Good Luck on your endevor!!!!

(jealous of that 240g)

[docsls6]

Originally Posted by Warnberg

Well I woke to silence about 4 weeks ago, didn't hear the faint sound of water running or pumps pumping. I came out to find my 240 gal reef tank dead, nothing running, lights out, pumps off, and 8 inches of water missing. From what I can tell at about 2 am both breakers tripped (GFCI) and the pumps stopped, well one of the check valves on the returns did not seal correctly so it siphoned about 8 inches of water off. When I opened the sump of course it had overflowed and drowned the external pumps, plus filled the bottom of the stand with about 6 inches of water (at about 7 it would have spilled onto the floor). Luckily I had 40 gallons of water on the porch ready for my water change. I pumped out the stand, put new water back into the tank and got the power heads running for circulation, I checked the water temp and about fainted 94, could that be right? Looked at my leather, it was gone, looked at my frog spawn, it too was gone. I figured at this point I have to get the chiller running again, so I jerry rigged something to cool the tank. It took almost a full 8 hours to get the temp back down to 78. So after all this I have lost 2 prize corals I had been growing for at least a year, I lost the frog spawn, the leather is gone, I lost all but one of my ricordia, I lost my jaw fish and my 6 line, I lost all my porcelain crabs and peppermint shrimp...... so now I am trying to muster the will to go on, at this point the tank is a total mess, I have had outbreak after outbreak of algae, bubble algae seemed to come out of nowhere and it trying it's best to take over...... someone please give me the words of encouragement to continue this quest....

This is a trick my brother who services fish tanks taught me to stop floods like this. Where your water return lines enter the tank drill a hole in the highest sumerged point of the return and when the power goes off the tank will drain to that hole and then suck air and kill your syphon. No more flooding. Works like a dream on my 300 gallon which could flood my whole house without this little mod.

[docsls6]

I don't even use a check valve on my 300 and it moves around 1400 gph and the return line is 12 inches down from the water line. Never a flood or so much as a full sump.

[cioutlaw]

Another safty device I have put on the floor of my stand is a water alarm. It is battery powered & when it gets wet it beeps like a smoke detector. If you happen to be home it will let you know you have water in the bottom of the stand before the mess is too big. I also have the holes drilled at water level & it works perfect(so far).