overflow question

[yellowlogi]

I just got a new 100 gallon and it came with a overflow and a sump. I understand that you have to put a hole in the tube to stop the siphon if the electricity goes out but what happens if the electricity comes back on? will the pump pump all the water from the sump into the tank and the tank overfow?? What do you do to make sure this doesn't happen. any advice would help. Thanks

 

[speg]

I dont really understand what you mean by 'put a hole in the tube'.. I hope you're not wanting to put a hole in your U tube....
A Overflow/Sump set up is such a insanely SMART idea. Once you get water siphoned through the tube and it goes into the sump and pushed back into your tank by a powerhead... there should be nothing YOU need to do other than weekly cleaning. If the power goes out the U tube will continue to siphon untill the water level lowers enough to just be even with the bottom of the tube. Then the siphon process will stop itself until more the water goes higher than the end of the tube (in other words, when the power goes back on). As long as you keep your sump at a not-too-full level you wont have to worry about any flooding.

 

[yellowlogi]

Thanks.. That is what i wanted to know. And no I was not talking about the U tubes. I am talking about the return tube. so when the power goes out and the water in that tube goes back down into the sump it does't start to siphon water out of the tank

 

[bgriff]

The hole goes into the return from the sump to break the back-siphoning that will occur when the pump stops. The overflows will also continue to overflow until the tank gets too low.. (Hopefully you have the kind that do not require to be primed and will start to overflow again when the pumps restart.) The trick is to make sure the sump can handle the back-siphoning until it reaches the hole, and the amount of water the overflow will continue to put into the sump until the main tank gets low enough. (The holes in the return should only be about 1/2 inch or so below the water level, the lower into the water, the more the sump will need to handle. You will most likely get a small jet spray out of the hole during normal operation.. so you need them just below the water line to avoid bubbles, and also in a good direction..
Once set, I would recommend performing your own power outage to make sure all is ok.. (and if not, you can restore power before you have a mess!!)