Protein Skimmer Flood --- Solution?

[ufans]

I went away last weekend only to return to find gallons of water on the floor and a return pump dead in a dried up sump. Evidently, the skimmer went crazy and skimmed out the water overflowing the skimmate bucket and draining the sump.

I don't know for sure why the skimmer went crazy. I did do the big no-no and adjusted the skimmer a few days before leaving. I was also SLOWLY dripping Kalkwasser.

Anyway. Is there a solution to prevent this from happening. Maybe have the skimmate bucket plumbed to overflow back into the sump? I realize the main thing is to tune the skimmer, but I am looking for advice on how to prevent the flooding and drying up the sump.

Maybe put a float switch to turn off the skimmer when the skimmate gets too high?

thanks in advance
UFANS

 

[Anonymous]

All three of those sound like wise ideas to me.

 

[DK]

First thing is to get a pump saver from Champion Supply. It has saved my expensive pumps countless times at this point.

 

[shellshocked]

I think you have the right ideas. another suggestion - I don't know the skimmer type but another solution might be to take the air intake and put it in the jug that collects the skimmate. When the jug fills it will block the air intake of the skimmer - basically killing the skimmer.

 

[ufans]

Good one... thanks shellshocked

 

[Anonymous]

Look into the waste collectors from Myreefcreations. They will hold the skimmate and when the waste collector gets full resulting in the air escape hole to get closed my a ping pong ball (See the site) it will force the skimmer to stop producing skimmate. Saved me a bunch of times.
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[ufans]

Outstanding. Thanks Rob.

I like the idea and it worked great. Very simple. I just extended the airline hosing that fed the air to my protein skimmer into the skimmate container. Now once the skimmate gets to high the airline tubing will go under and start sucking skimmate instead of air which automatically stops the production of bubbles. The only bad side is that I am putting the skimmate back into the tank. I might just put a air stone on the end to help filter out the skimmate....even if it gets clogged that is a good thing because the skimmer will stop foaming.

 

[down&dirty]

Seems like a better option is a float valve in the sump so that once the water is beyond a certain level the skimmer shuts down. This will also dump some water back into the sump from the skimmer to help keep your main pump wet longer. Just cutting off the airflow to the skimmer prevents it from producing more skimmate, and hince you loosing more water, but if it is that close I would want to be shutting down pumps to keep them from running dry. I prefer my tank to be fail safe. So when water levels get to low pumps turn off. The only one I want to always run in my main circulation pump, but I don't have any powerheads so I have to keep the water moving with the main pump.

 

[down&dirty]

Seems like a better option is a float valve in the sump so that once the water is beyond a certain level the skimmer shuts down. This will also dump some water back into the sump from the skimmer to help keep your main pump wet longer. Just cutting off the airflow to the skimmer prevents it from producing more skimmate, and hince you loosing more water, but if it is that close I would want to be shutting down pumps to keep them from running dry. I prefer my tank to be fail safe. So when water levels get to low pumps turn off. The only one I want to always run in my main circulation pump, but I don't have any powerheads so I have to keep the water moving with the main pump.

 

[comatose]

If it's only for a weekend why not just turn it off and then back on again when you get home, turning it off for a weekend will have no effect on your tank.

 

[ufans]

yes. I probably should just turn it off if it is just a weekend, but probably not for a whole week.

I agree that the float valve is the "ideal" route, but the 4 feet of airline tubing is certainly easier. I am installing a auto-topoff system so that will take care of the problem of the sump running dry. I just want to make sure that the PS doesn't have an endless supply of water to dump all over my basement. Really, if i tune my PS I really shouldn't have a problem anyway.... I just want a fail-safe.

On another note... Just stopped by my LFS today and they were mopping up. Just about the whole store was wet. And I thought that I had it bad

 

[Anonymous]

Definitly get a waste collector

if you have a good skimmer, the waste collector will shut it down when it's full

if you have a cheap or poorly designed skimmer, the waste collector will not be able to stop the skimmer unfortunatly.