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Aquarium Advice FINatic
This morning I wake up to my wife saying, "Tony! Get out of bed! Your fish tank is making a weird sound." Bleary-eyed I crawled out of bed and walked into the living room to hear a horrible grinding-like sound. I looked at the sump and saw nothing wrong, but it was dim, so I walked over to take a closer look. The first thing I noticed was that my feet were wet. This was not good.
I looked at the sump and it was near bone dry. My system pump was making most of the horrible noise. I looked and saw the culprit pretty quickly. The hose going from my protein skimmer's pump to the protein skimmer had popped loose. I had sort of improvised a way to connect the two with a hose so that I would be able to fit them in my sump. Boy, was this a poor decision.
The protein skimmer's pump had blown all the water out of the sump onto the carpet and my system pump burned up as a result. So, I put just enough fresh water in the sump to get the protein skimmer pump to suck in some water. Then I hooked it up to the return hose so that there would be some water movement. At 10:00am sharp I was walking into the LFS to buy a replacement pump. I got a Mag-Drive 700gph pump and replaced brought it home to replace my system pump. Now everything is running again, and I have taken my protein skimmer out of my sump. I guess I'll have to get a smaller replacement, or a HOB, or just do without.
I don't know how long my system was running dry, but I'm praying it wasn't long enough to destroy the bacteria on my biomedia. I'd be devastated if my all-too-fragile longhorn cowfish were to go belly-up on me.
Anyway, that's my story for the day. Most of my friends wouldn't understand, so I'm putting it all on here.
I looked at the sump and it was near bone dry. My system pump was making most of the horrible noise. I looked and saw the culprit pretty quickly. The hose going from my protein skimmer's pump to the protein skimmer had popped loose. I had sort of improvised a way to connect the two with a hose so that I would be able to fit them in my sump. Boy, was this a poor decision.
The protein skimmer's pump had blown all the water out of the sump onto the carpet and my system pump burned up as a result. So, I put just enough fresh water in the sump to get the protein skimmer pump to suck in some water. Then I hooked it up to the return hose so that there would be some water movement. At 10:00am sharp I was walking into the LFS to buy a replacement pump. I got a Mag-Drive 700gph pump and replaced brought it home to replace my system pump. Now everything is running again, and I have taken my protein skimmer out of my sump. I guess I'll have to get a smaller replacement, or a HOB, or just do without.
I don't know how long my system was running dry, but I'm praying it wasn't long enough to destroy the bacteria on my biomedia. I'd be devastated if my all-too-fragile longhorn cowfish were to go belly-up on me.
Anyway, that's my story for the day. Most of my friends wouldn't understand, so I'm putting it all on here.
