YUCK how do i NOT siphon my skimmer?

When I turn off the power strip to my tank it shuts my return pump off thus the water in my tank goes under the skimmer level and it cant take in more water.

To restart the pump I have to take this old dirty tube put it into the tube that goes from the skimmer into the overflow about half way up on the over flow side. I then turn the power strip on and blow on the little tube i put into the big one and suck hard to make the siphon.


Is there ANYWAY I don't gotta do this? I threw up last time LOL (my wife was standing there while i held the little tube and she's taken the tube out of the bigger one while i held the lil tube up because of water all the time im dry heven then run to b room to get sick LOL

 

Maybe its early, but I just cant visualize what your talking about. Is your skimmer fed from an overflow, or are we talking about a HOB overflow (surface skimmer) with a U-Tube? why are you turning off the return so often?

~Will.

 

(HOB) overflow

 

bttt

 

Oh, so it's not actually you skimmer, it's the overflow. I just use a small piece of airline tubing, never sucked up any water, although you do need to get the hang of it. If you really want to, you can buy an aqualifter and cut a whole in the tube, attached a small value and the aqualifter will automatically restart the siphon.

 

God thats gotta taste bad. I once siphoned anti-freeze, not good. I had the dry heaves for about 30 min non stop. tasted that stuff for a week after that. I would try GuitarMans idea and go with the aqualifter. Unless you like life on the edge and the gamble of maybe ingesting more tank water.

 

thats what i love about my cpr overflow

 

Why is it losing siphon in the first place? I have HOB overflows and they hold up just fine during water changes and general maintenance. Did that tubing come with the overflow? You could look into replacing in with a "real" U-tube, I'm pretty sure they sell them on e-bay. Just make sure to get the same size tube that the bulkhead on the bottom of the box is made for (if its a 1" drain, get a 1" U-tube).

~Will.

 

If your overflow box doesn't maintain a siphon when your power goes off you are risking a flood if your power ever goes out for even a short time and then comes back on, the box will lose the siphon but your pump will start back up and will flood.
I would look into a higher quality overflow box or do some searches on solutions for restarting siphons, I believe some people use aqualifter pumps somehow to keep the siphon going but I'm not familiar enough with the process to know more than that.

 

Can you just attach a small powerhead with some tubing and plug it in for a second to get the suction going, and then detach it?