AquaClear Refugium-Overflow the tank?

[Colin]

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking about setting up an AquaClear 70 (old 300) on my 5G nano as a refugium.

If the power goes out, will the water in the filter syphon back into the tank and overflow it?

Thanks,

--Colin

[Xandernfs]

nope.....the pump will just stop working....no problems there

[Colin]

The reason I ask is that with another filter I had used in the past, when the pump stopped working the water in the filter syphoned back into the tank through the intake.

Thanks,

--Colin

[Illuminati]

Love the username

Were up to 3 Colins in the nano forum (You, me and Cshrader).

[bolrog]

the water level will even out in the HOB and tank

[Colin]

Maybe we could get our own "Colin" subforum here on RC. I'm afraid a third of it would be really boring though. LOL

Thanks for the replies bolrog and Xandernfs.

--Colin

[BiggySmalls]

my name is Colin































































JUST KIDDING

[Colin]

Update:

The filter will indeed overflow the tank in the event of a power outage.

Assuming the bottom of the intake is low in the tank, which they always are, the water will backsyphon from the higher end of the intake (the part in the filter) to the lower end of the intake (the tank). This will easily overflow a 5G tank.

My solution was to put a small hole in the intake tube a little below the normal water line in the filter. The water drops, air goes in and breaks the syphon. The downside to this is the filter will not prime back up with the power comes on unless you put enough water back into the filter to cover the air hole. That's better than having a massive water leak though.

--Colin

[Rosseau]

I've never had an aquaclear hold a siphon.

But definately water from the intake tube backflows... how far down does your filter empty its water? Mine tend to take the water level to about 3/4 of the filter.

[Colin]

I don't know how far it would have gone. I manually broke the syphon when the tank was about to overflow.

This is more of an issue on small tanks. The filter has a volume of 25% of the tank volume. It wouldn't take much.

--Colin