…or…do you know what happens when the hose clamp on a 2000 gallons per hour marine tank pump rusts and snaps?<\/p>\n
A basement full of salt water.<\/p>\n
Fortunately only a thin layer, because there are failsafe bulkheads that prevent a) the tank from draining below the top drainholes, about 10 gallons; and b) a bulkhead that prevents the sump from draining more than 15 gallons. And the bulkhead connector to the Iwaki pump, that is set 3″ from the bottom of the last of five chambers of the sump?<\/p>\n
Jane, from the living room: “The pump’s quit.”
\nMe: “Which pump?” We have: the front fountain pump, the back pond pump, the pump for the uv filter, plus two more pumps in the marine system.<\/p>\n
“Tank pump.”<\/p>\n
Expletives. I head down and discover not a snail jamming the impeller on the Iwaki, but the main hose FROM the Iwaki waving in the air in time with its gasps for water.<\/p>\n
And a quarter inch of water everywhere. Fortuitously (one cannot say fortunately) we already had the dehumidifier set up in the basement to handle last week’s flood (re the photographs and tapes)…so that was handled.<\/p>\n
So…we grab buckets, we count out salt by the half cup (half cup a gallon makes seawater) into the known-quantity buckets, and thank goodness I already had conditioned (reverse osmosis) water sitting in a 32 gallon trashcan. I cut off the automatic topoff, which was piddling fresh water (non-salt) into the tank in the dim conviction we were low on water through evaporation.<\/p>\n
And we start the salt water mixing: you are NOT supposed to put raw salt water into your tank: it’s supposed to sit and condition for 24 hours, as the many trace elements dissolve. Heck with that: marine fish and corals also need oxygen, and this system can’t run until I get that pump functioning properly, and the pump can’t pump without more water in the system. <\/p>\n
So I set the mag 12 to stirring it. That’s a 1000 gph pump. It’s overkill, but it mixed it to thorough transparency in 30 minutes. Not recommended, but neither is not breathing. Marine systems require a LOT of oxygen, and air exchange at the surface won’t cut it.<\/p>\n
So I mop, and mop. Jane gets the hose clamp replaced. We reconnect. <\/p>\n
Is the worlds largest hammer coral in captivity annoyed? Not in the least. It senses nutrients and it’s sucking water like crazy. The fish are happy. We seem to have dodged the bullet. I have 4 more gallons of salt water to put in and have started the ro\/di filter to produce more pure fresh water to use to mix salt. <\/p>\n
Sheesh!<\/p>\n
Every time I try to get a running start at this book, it’s Armageddon!<\/p>\n
At least this one is relatively easily solved. I took a thorough bath in salt water, so I ran a washing. <\/p>\n
All’s well so far. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
…or…do you know what happens when the hose clamp on a 2000 gallons per hour marine tank pump rusts and snaps? A basement full of salt water. Fortunately only a thin layer, because there are failsafe bulkheads that prevent a) the tank from draining below the top drainholes, about 10 gallons; and b) a bulkhead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-2065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-reef-tank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cherryh.com\/WaveWithoutAShore\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}