flood concerns

tuckerthecat

tuckerthecat

New Member
I just purchased a 72gallon reef ready oceanic systems aquarium. I live in a 2nd floor apartment & the person who lives on the 1st floor has a very expensive baby grand piano directly below my tank! The built in overflow box I estimate holds roughly 10 gallons, my sump is a 30 gallon tank, if I leave enough room in my sump to hold the 10 gallons from the overflow box in case of power outage will this prevent any major disasters? Is there any other way my set-up could flood? ( besides a tank leak or leaking plumbing? ) thanks for the help.
Jay
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
How is your return plumbed? The one thing that could happen with your return line is a back siphon of water from your display down to your sump when the return pump loses power. Basically, water gets sucked in through the return outlet and goes down through the return pipe, because the pump is no longer pushing it upwards.
Say for instance your return outlet is 2" below the surface of the water in your display. When your power goes out, the pump stops pushing water up, and all of the water above the outlet goes back down the return into the sump until air is able to enter the return line and break the siphon. In a 72 gallon tank, 2" is alot of water.
Fortunately, back siphoning can be prevented by plumbing a check valve into the return line, or by drilling a small hole in the return just below the surface of the water. The hole allows air to enter the return and break the siphon before the water level drops to your outlet.
 
harlequinnut

harlequinnut

Active Member
After you've done everything mention in the previous post, the best thing you can do for yourself is to do a monitor test run by cutting off power to your system and see if the water will stop short of a flood. Be very careful and be prepare to turn power back on if needed. HTH
 
bededog

bededog

Member
Maybe you could talk the person that lives below you into putting a large tarp over the piano when he/she isn't using it.
 
T

thomas712

Guest
hmmm. Isn't there someway you could also protect yourself with renters insurance?
Thomas
 
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