Sea life wet/dry Sump drilled??

[Scoffer]

Got myself into another retard situation...

I know this seems a bit weird, but my new 75e AGA aquarium has a bit of a problem with overflowing the sump. Its a modification flaw of my own (thats the retarded part!) and now Im getting more backflow with powerloss than the SeaLife sump can hold. Ouch, made a heck of a mess too...

My Q is, what are the sumps made of? Plexiglass? I want to drill a 3/4" or so hole in the top of the water-return side and pipe over to a second sump, to hold the extra water in case of power loss. How do I drill into this thing?

This has been very disappointing, but I can't think of another fix. A small secondary water tank to catch the extra overflow....

Any help would be greatly appt'd!!!!

TIA

Scoffer

[somethingfishy]

I am a bit confused on what you are tring to do, which isn't suprising. If you could maybe clarifiy a bit more. I would have to say most sumps are acrylic/plexiglass which are drillable. Some homemade sumps are glass. If it is acrylic make sure you drill slow, if you go to fast you will melt the sump instead of drill.

If you could post a pic of the sump

[Scoffer]

Hey, I forgot to mention this. Probably important too.

I just got a CA 4000 (1300 gph)pump today. The old one was probably a 350 gph. Suddenly, alot more water flow! My sump emptied and ran dry in about 10 seconds!

Maybe my question should have been, can I, or should I, install some sort of check valve or ball-valve between the pump and the inlet tube to the tank? So water can't flow back in through the pump, which is a big part of the problem.......

otherwise, back to a second sump.

Ok, stfishy, heres the scope! I have a small (small enough though) grove cut in the top of the overflow panel inside the tank. It was for a good reason, then. But now I get a bit of extra water dumped into the built in overflow. Duhhh!! If only I knew then, ....yeah,right. 1/8" or so of the top layer of a 75g tank is a bit of mass!!

But not enough to overflow the sump, BUT when the backflow from the pump(inside the sump) adds to it, the nightmare comes true.(3 large beach towels later)

So if I can install a 1-way valve in the return line, that will fix the problem. If I can't, or block the intake stream, then I'll have to add a bit of over-run-da-tank room!


thanks for the help!! sorry so much damn trouble, nothing goes easy anymore!!

Scoffer

[somethingfishy]

Okay, I think I got it. You actually have 2 problems? Which I think are easily answered.

The first one is, you are worried that the return pipe, the one leaving the sump & going back to the tank, will form a back siphon when the power gos out. The easy answer is you can get a check valve. Also you can leave return out of the water, this could get messy and noise. There is also a trick with drilling a whole in the return line maybe someone can explain this.

Second, the pump you have is overkill. You need to either get a smaller pump or Install a ball valve. Keep in mind too much back pressure will cause a pump to fail prematurly. You should have a pump that is close to the overflow rate. This can be hard to figure out because of the head reducing flow.

Hope this help and dosn't confuse you

[Scoffer]

Thanks ! Yeah, I thought maybe getting a stronger than average pump for this tank would help with flow, it did. And then some. I go after a check valve tomorrow!!!!

Ill talk to the vendor about the pump, maybe we can work out a deal....

thanks again!

Scoffer

[somethingfishy]

you will probably still need a ball valve to fine tune the flow