Closed loop micro bubbles

[Anonymous]

well that sucks worse than a leak...

Oh well, plumbing is fun right?

 

[Anonymous]

I've been running the thing with micro bubbles for 10 days probably. Any ideas on how fast the pump could be damaged?

I'll assume a plastic impeller. It's probably not doing any damage to anything unless you can hear the cavitation (sounds like rocks rolling around in the pump). As strong as that pump is it will probably not be able to damage itself unless you really severly restrict the intake. My guess is based on coming back from a 2 week vacation to a large snail stuck to the intake in the sump. I don't know how the snail got there but after taking the pump apart there was no damage. It was cavitating so bad that it sounded like gremlins pounding on the inside of the pump with little hammers.

 

[Anonymous]

Well I replumbed the feed to the pump today- 2" flex pvc all the way to the pump. The micro bubbles are significantly reduced. Interestingly, they are still present to some degree. I have no idea why....

By the way, I though the Hammerheads and similar pumps Sequence made for aquaria were supposed to be quieter than their standard pumps.
My hammerhead is at least twice as loud as my trusty old 2900 SEQ21.

 

[GSchiemer]

Could the loc-lines be leaking air in?

Loc-line pipe is neither air-tight nor water-tight. I learned this the hard way. I had water seeping and spraying from 4 loc-line return lines and had to re-construct my plumbing so that the loc-line pipe was completely submerged. If you're using a low-pressure pump you may not notice the leaks but it becomes very apparent under higher-pressure.

I don't know if this is the source of your problem, but I did want to point it out.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Greg, I'm not sure. At this point it pretty much seems like it's either the loc lines or a malfunction with the pump.

It doesn't seem like much air should come in through the loc lines as I would expect them to have positive water pressure. The create a very minor bit of salt creep.

The bubbles aren't really bad now, but I might switch out the loc-lines with rigid piping to see if that makes a difference...

 

[Anonymous]

I'm glad it's better but I can't see how loc lines could do that. Perhaps some type of venturi pressure. I hope that's it, at least you can fix it easily.