Refugium Disaster

[eggoz]

Finally, all the pipes were glued, pump installed, and everything was good to go. Well, almost. At first it worked fine, water was being sucked out, and pushed back into my tank. Then I started to realize my mistakes. First the holes I drilled caused the water level to stay that low. Not what I had in mind. Then came the gargling sound. The water being sucked out was being sucked at such a high rate, and the water level is just high enough that it makes the loudest gargling noise ever. And that wasn't even the disaster. While attempting to fix this, the pipe fitting that was gluded to my tank, fell off and water started going everywhere. Quickly, i put my finger in the hole to stop it. Then I threw the pump in reverse and sucked out the water. I guess you can say I fixed the gargling problem.

I don't know where to even go from here. Any ideas?

Before and After (http://pavilionhome.dyndns:88/Content/Share/fish/ref/)

[the tiler]

Your link does not work

Jason

[eggoz]

Sorry about that.

http://pavilionhome.dyndns.org:88/Content/Share/fish/ref

[Ophiuchus]

Wow, thought I was alone in having these kinds of complications.:rolleyes: Allright, first off, the water level in the tank... The holes drilled are just fine, so dont even worry about it. What you need to do is turn the elbow on the output (down to sump) up the the level desired in the tank. Now the noise- build a durso to let the air get sucked in seperate from the water. Durso's plans can be found all over RC, just search for durso standpipe. As far as the fitting, standard pvc is just looking for trouble when used to plumb through glass... get the proper sized bulkhead for that. Get a bulkhead with the OUTSIDE diameter of whatever size hole you have drilled.
Hope this helps, don't give up yet... it only get's better... I think:confused:
Daniel

[eggoz]

Man, that was a great post. After I stopped cursing, I was going to buy me a bulkhead and start from there. But, its Sunday, and everything is closed. So i cursed some more.

But thanks for the tips. Yeah, I was thinking about adding a valve to the pipe leading to the refguim. It seems to be sucking water out way faster than I thought it would. But I will look into durso's first. And I'm going to find me a good plumping place tomarrow to get some bulkhead. Thanks again.