Why junk is in water after pump comes back on?

[jamal-188]

Every time I turn my sump pump off for a few seconds/minutes and restart it a bunch of white colored junk blows back in the water? Is it just junk that collects in my plumbing and is ripped loose when the water starts back up? I guess this means I should probably clean all my plumbing.

 

[mrrrkva]

Could be a number of things. #1 junk settles in your sump when u turn pump off, when you turn it on it stirs up water and junk pushing it thru your tank.
#2 calcium deposits and what not break off your impellor and plumbing when you turn it back on. I wouldnt worry about it too much

 

[reefrunner69]

Sounds like bacterial slime that has coated the inside of the pipes. When the pump is turned off it loosens up a bit and when you turn it on out it comes. In addition to what mrrrkva has said, combination of all of it. It's kinda cool how just a little change in flow for a few minutes will stir up stuff you never knew was there.

 

[TheMadNucleus]

Yeah - agreed. This is likely mostly bacterial slime. I recenlty cleaned out a Velocity T4 at a friends installation - the impeller was covered with this stuff. We used a tooth brush and scrubed the whole inside of the impeller housing and impeller. When we started the system up - voila - very little 'white stuff.'

So you may want to consider cleaning out your pump - the white discharge may be an indication that it's time.

Amazing how tough those bacterias are considering they stick to that impeller and the thing is turing like 1750 RPM - Yikes - how do they do that.

Tom