Last weekend I did a water change, added a couple heaping cups of kalk powder to my 30 gallon make-up tank, and dropped the ro/di hose in the make-up tank to fill it up. Of course I forgot to turn the water off and went to bed. Normally it would just overflow into my basement sump so no big deal. Except for some dumb reason I moved the output hose for the auto top off to a different location in the sump and didn’t realize it was below the top of the make-up water tank (freshly loaded with kalk powder). So during the night the makeup water tank gets filled by the ro/di and starts to overflow just as the auto top off pump kicks in and fills the sump. But with the pump hose too low in the sump, it creates a siphon after the pump shut off. It starts siphoning all that kalk into my sump and the ro/di filter keeps filling the makeup tank helping every bit of kalk get into the sump. Needless to say I lost a lot in my 200 gallon system. Including a beautiful blasto that I got from Phyllis in 2007 as a one-head frag that now has (had) almost 100 heads, ALL of my acans and chalices including an Alien Eye about 6" across, and a bunch of other corals. Most of the zoas survived though. So after doing several big water changes it looks like things are stabilizing. And somehow my two duncan colonies with about 50 heads made out fine.
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Perfect storm...
- Thread starter GregW
- Start date
wow bummer..sad to hear
Actually, it is pumped but it turned into a siphon when I moved the hose too low.
Thanks Mike. Everything that made it seems OK now.
I hate losing sentimental stuff that I've had for many years, like corals that I got from JerseyWendy, Mott, Jrod, etc - the guys that aren't around anymore.
Sorry to here this Greg
Sad news Greg. Glad you were able to salvage some stuff though.
Do you remember who you may have given some frags of things you lost? Maybe you could get some back?
Do you remember who you may have given some frags of things you lost? Maybe you could get some back?
malulu
NJRC Member
thank you for pointing that out...
i guess, i would have to find someway to prevent that...
just on top of my head, how about the OUTLET would be positioned HIGH & out of the water, so it would not have the siphon effect, would it work?
(the worse scenario would be the outlet tip may be dried up and clog up... but that would be fine, no harm done? )
thank you for helping...
Sorry for your losses Greg. Had something very similar happen to me a few weeks ago and had a kalk overdose because of siphoning. It was all my fault because I moved something and in my mind I said "dont forget to move that back" and sure enough it did. Ive decided not to do tank maintenance at night anymore for the simple reason that Im tired and make mistakes when that happens.
Steve
Steve
Don't mean to hijack the thread, but David... you could always attach a piece of pvc pipe to the corner of the sump, and have it terminate below water level and extend up higher than the sump rim. Then just let the outlet tube sit a few inches down into the pvc pipe. That will keep the kalk water from splashing around and still give you the protection against siphon since the outlet tube won't be submerged.
You could use any small diameter pvc, as long as it's big enough so that the tube you're using isn't wedged in and sealing it off (ie. make sure there is an air gap at the top of the pipe).
You could use any small diameter pvc, as long as it's big enough so that the tube you're using isn't wedged in and sealing it off (ie. make sure there is an air gap at the top of the pipe).
malulu
NJRC Member
George,
got it, make sense... (NOTE: i will try to find some transparent tube/pipe).
thx
Greg,
hope you don't mind... the Q/A on how to prevent kalk overdose is *sort of* related to this thread...
sorry for your losses... unfortunately i don't have corals to offer yet... may be few more months later i will have some bigger corals to offset some of your losses.
