Hey guys,
I set up a reef tank back in 2020, right before COVID. It's been a bit of a mess biologically (constantly battling algae), but mechanically, the system had been running fine up until recently.
A few months back, I noticed that my pump had begun being really finicky if I turned it off for a water change then turned it back on again. Sometimes it just didn't want to start and I had to try different outlets on the powerstrip. Before a major trip recently I took the whole thing apart, cleaned it, and reinstalled it, and it seemed to work.
Tonight, it died for good. It just stopped working, was hot to the touch, and even if I could get the propeller to turn for a short period of time, smoke literally started coming out of the unit. I tried messing around with getting an old cannister filter I had to jury rig water flow from the sump to the main tank, but that just wouldn't work. Then I remembered I still had a pump from my older setup (that I had running from about 2007 to 2014). The pump had higher flow than my "newer" one, with the only issue being the flexline was a shorter gauge, though I managed to get a water-tight line here by slip-fitting a bit of the smaller tubing inside the larger tubing.
But the whole thing was a big mess. My undertank area is really small/cluttered, and trying to reinstall the return line, I I must have jostled one of my drain lines, because there's a drip now.
The good news is this isn't even my main drain, it's a secondary, emergency line if the primary drain gets clogged. I moved every cord the drip could potentially travel out of the way, so the water just drips down into the sump, and it's not doing much of anything now, and should be safe for a few days.
The idea of trying to replumb a live tank makes me pretty uneasy. I do not see any evidence that I overtightened and cracked the glass, and since the opposite side is a drain, it's just pressure fit, so I can pull out the pipe at any time. I'm guessing something ****** up the bulkhead seal. Do you guys think I could get away with just draining/cleaning the overflow, and tightening this line again? Presuming, of course, that the overflow is still watertight (fingers crossed on that).
I set up a reef tank back in 2020, right before COVID. It's been a bit of a mess biologically (constantly battling algae), but mechanically, the system had been running fine up until recently.
A few months back, I noticed that my pump had begun being really finicky if I turned it off for a water change then turned it back on again. Sometimes it just didn't want to start and I had to try different outlets on the powerstrip. Before a major trip recently I took the whole thing apart, cleaned it, and reinstalled it, and it seemed to work.
Tonight, it died for good. It just stopped working, was hot to the touch, and even if I could get the propeller to turn for a short period of time, smoke literally started coming out of the unit. I tried messing around with getting an old cannister filter I had to jury rig water flow from the sump to the main tank, but that just wouldn't work. Then I remembered I still had a pump from my older setup (that I had running from about 2007 to 2014). The pump had higher flow than my "newer" one, with the only issue being the flexline was a shorter gauge, though I managed to get a water-tight line here by slip-fitting a bit of the smaller tubing inside the larger tubing.
But the whole thing was a big mess. My undertank area is really small/cluttered, and trying to reinstall the return line, I I must have jostled one of my drain lines, because there's a drip now.
The good news is this isn't even my main drain, it's a secondary, emergency line if the primary drain gets clogged. I moved every cord the drip could potentially travel out of the way, so the water just drips down into the sump, and it's not doing much of anything now, and should be safe for a few days.
The idea of trying to replumb a live tank makes me pretty uneasy. I do not see any evidence that I overtightened and cracked the glass, and since the opposite side is a drain, it's just pressure fit, so I can pull out the pipe at any time. I'm guessing something ****** up the bulkhead seal. Do you guys think I could get away with just draining/cleaning the overflow, and tightening this line again? Presuming, of course, that the overflow is still watertight (fingers crossed on that).
