How bad is 2 gallons of SW on the floor.....really?

[Anonymous]

OK, so I checked to see what my tank will do in a power outage. My sump holds all the water from the main tank...almost. Unfortunately I have a small leak in the seam of my overflow box about 3" down from the top. What this means is that eventually my tank will drain down to the height of the durso standpipes, very very slowly, however. In the first minute after turning the power off, virtually all the water enters the sump, with about 2" to spare. However, after leaving it off for over an hour, the water will eventually flood the sump by about 2 gallons or so.

I figure in any power outage that long, I will have plenty of time to either get home, phone a friend, neighbor, etc. to simply siphon 3 gallons of water out of my tank. My other option is to drill a small hole at the very top of the sump and have it overflow into another container if the water level should ever get that high. Third option is to not even worry about it, since I don't live in a place where the power goes out for that long (at least not without knowing about it in advance :roll: ) Fourth option is to try and resilicone the box. I don't know how well silicone bonds to silicone.

Oh yeah, raising the dursos is not an option.

 

[taikonaut]

>... I figure in any power outage that long, I will have plenty of time to either ....

My experience is that it usually happened when you are 800 miles away, on your vacation....

you have several solutions yourself. Another one is to have an internal overflow box for the sump with ~2 gal capacity, so that you will have a control over where to spill the saltwater, instead of a few ouce over your powerstrip, and have your whole tank fried and house burnt down....

 

[jsbradbury]

From what I've read silicone doesn't bond well onto silicone

 

[Anonymous]

ck,
I have the strips raised up above the level of the sump. I always do this so I don't have to worry about the strip getting wet.

I guess I'll just have to create a "second sump". After thinking about it a bit, it will be ideal. I will put a 1/2" bulkhead at the top of the sump, and connect it to a 5 gallon container. I'll keep a small pump in the container, and I can use the container to mix water and pump it directly into the sump, rather than trying to siphon it or pour it in. On the off chance that the power goes off for a long time at the same time I'm mixing up water, well, I guess I'm screwed.

 

[WannaBeReefer]

Just a thought,

I was lucky enough to obtain a battery backup unit from work, I plug crucial equipment into this. (1 heater and return pump) The unit is called APC Back or Smart UPS and the one I have ( APC Smart UPS 1400) should give me about 2 hours of run time when the power goes out. I never tested it so its just a guess.

If you work for a company that has a nice size computer data center, go down and talk to the people in IT, they may have a unit that died and is never going to be used again. TAKE THESE!!! Usually it is just the battery that needs to be replaced and it cost about $60 online. I was lucky to get mine this way and was even more lucky when I called APC and was told the unit was under warranty and where would I like the new battery shipped!

 

[PeeJ]

thats odd...there was a recent test done on the ups systems. The person that did the tests said they were highly unimpressed with the results. i recal somehwere in the minutes rather than hours. dont really know for sure though

 

[DougBak]

Run time of a UPS depends on what's plugged in. If you try to plug in all your pumps, powerheads, lights, etc, runtime will be REAL short. If on the other hand you only plug in your main return pump, runtime will be much longer.

 

[Anonymous]

Well I'm going to have to drill the hole in my sump, and have a second sump. I just received my Euroreef skimmer and realized how high the water level will have to be in order to maximize skimmer performance. My only concern now is that, in a long power outage, my sump will overflow into a 'holding chamber' and stay there when the power comes back on. This means the pumps will start sucking air and run dry. I don't know if this is better or worse than a wet floor...

 

[hdtran]

Can you just put the sump inside a big rubbermaid? That way, the power goes out, the main tank drains into the sump, the sump overflows into the big rubbermaid? (This is getting a bit rube-goldberg-ish... I can just see it, then, a float switch in the big rubbermaid, so when the power comes back on, the big rubbermaid is pumped back into the sump, etc...)

One more thing--wasn't this the sexily drilled acrylic overflow? That should be solvent-cemented, not siliconed. If you can find exactly where the leak in the seam is, you can do a butt-ugly repair (does require draining the tank, yet again, below the level of the leak). Then, just squirt some thickened solvent cement at the seam.

If you know a dentist (long shot here), you can get a UV lamp (generally fiber optic fed) and UV-cure acrylic. Gob the acrylic on, shoot it with the UV lamp. Auto parts stores also have a plastic repair kit for repairing cracked turn signals; also UV-cure acrylic. Exposure to sunlight is what does the trick for that.

 

[1937 Waco]

Well, 2 gallons is not bad. I had 200 on the floor once. That really sucked.

 

[Anonymous]

Hy,

The makers of the aquarium said NOT to use acrylic glue when putting in the overflows because the tank was bowed (it's a used tank). I don't know of any way around this. I've tried to glue non flat surfaces before, and they definitely won't be watertight.

The rubbermaid is exactly what I would do, but there's no space for it. The sump and refugium are taking up every inch of the stand. I hadn't thought of a float switch--I guess I'll just do that on the remote container.

 

[jsbradbury]

1937 Waco:
Well, 2 gallons is not bad. I had 200 on the floor once. That really sucked.

Damn!

 

[Anonymous]

since you siliconed the overflow on before, just goop some extra silicone over the old. It helps if you rough up the old silicone so the new has some teeth to grab onto.

 

[dizzy]

Matt,
Once again good old epoxy can solve your problem. Clear 100% silicon doesn't stick very well to acrylic. I'm assuming that is what your overflow box is made out of. Pull down the water level in the tank by draining some in a clean plastic trash can or buckets. Next pull on the silicon in the corners near the suspected leak. If it is loose just pull it on out.(It may be necessary to trim with a razor blade or exacto knife). Dry the area and apply some of the epoxy stick that is used for frags or plumbers epoxy. Inside the box it should not show and this should stop your leak.

 

[Anonymous]

I have an older backup battery thingie that I think is what Mr. Pea is talking about. If you want it you can have it. There's no way I can use the thing on my machine in my bedroom, I can't STAND the bloody beeping.