Q regarding sump water level

[caretaker]

Hello,

I am currently taking care of someone reef tank--feeding them and making sure the RO water is ok--and I woke up to discover that the water in the sump had risen to slightly beyond the parameters they should have.

I immediately filled the water jug that feeds the sump, but the water level is still a little high.

What should I do about this? Will the water go back down to normal? Do I need to do something.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[SeanT]

That doesn't quite make sense. If the sump water level is too high 'adding' water to the top off jug would just...add water. Is the MAIN TANKS water level low?

If not just give it a day or two and evaporation should take care of the excess water.

[caretaker]

Acutally, it is the tank next to the sump that is overfilled right now. The sump is to the right of it and has various crabs and urchins.

Here is the setup for clarification.

Underneath the tank there are two little glass tanks. The one on the left has just water and tubing, the one on the right is the sump with tubes running into it. In front of both of these tanks lies a big blue bucket with tubes connected to the left small tank. When I woke up I heard a draining noise and found this big blue bucket empty and the water level in the left tank to be slightly over the level it is supposed to be at. Now the water is even higher.

Please someone respond to this quickly.

[richo]

Caretaker,

I'm real sorry that it is going to be very difficult for anyone to offer advice because there are so many different varieties of tank setups out there and we may be steering you 180 degrees from correcting the problem. Regardless, I am willing to take a stab at it. Do you know if the tank is drilled with output lines coming out of the back or if it has a siphon overflow with an acrylic box hanging on the back? The reason I ask is because I have a 110 gal with a siphon overflow and sometimes the siphon slows down due to bubles in the overflow or something is clogging up the overflow drain. In this case, the sump from the bottom starts to get lower and the water in the main tank starts to backup and rise to the top of the tank. If this happens, I immediately turn off all of the power and try to figure out the problem. 9/10 times it is easily resolved by removing a snail from the overflow or repriming the siphon overflow by sucking the bubles out while restarting the siphon process. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then I would refer to the local fish store and see if you can find someone with some experience in fish tanks to take a look and try resolving the problem before it makes a big mess or you will have to shut down the whole system until the owner returns which could cost him some corals etc. By the way, if the sump is filling up then most likely the pumps are not sending back to the tank as fast as it is falling down which could mean that a pump's input is clogged or a pump is malfunctioning etc. etc. - so many things that it could actually be though. Good luck and I hope this helps. - R

[caretaker]

I understand the difficulties in answering this problem.

I am truly grateful for all the responses.

Thankfully I have contacted someone the owners know and they gave me the advice I need.

Again, thanks for the replies.