Bad day with the heat and Equipment

[Neoz]

What a day I just had. I'm sure everyone has these days well today was mine. 2 unrelated disasters.

I added a clip on fan to my sump this morning before heading out to work because of the heat. My sump is under my stand. Come home this evening and turned on my VHO's which are ran by 2 Icecap 660's. Only to hear a loud snap :furious:! So when I go to investigate the noise and why my VHO's won't turn on I discover everything under my stand is soaked with moisture, from evaporation I believe. I think I might of just fried my 2 ballasts.

Next disaster. I decided to add a poly filter in my sump to catch the extra stuff floating, instead of using filter socks. So I also added that this morning. Only to come home and find water flowing over onto my floor :furious:. My skimmer was freaking out big time! I have a drain hose on my skimmer going to a 5 gallon old salt bucket to catch the crude. It over filled that onto my floor. Have no idea how much water overflowed. I know my ATO was empty and my return area of my sump was at the lowest point with the pump were it was blowing some air bubbles. Must of had something to do with that poly filter. Crappy freaking night...

 

[oneradtek202]

i feel ya, i have been very irritated with the hobby lately, but i just sat down today and tried to re-do some of my planning. hopin it works for me, and good luck to you!. thats a real bummer today

 

[dreaminmel]

Very sorry to hear of this Dave... Are you going to be able to salvage anything?

 

[Neoz]

Mel not sure about the ballasts. Probably going to have to send them out to Icecap. I'll look more into that tomorrow night.

I hear ya Brandon. I see your fighting some demons of your own right now. Good luck.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Ice cap is usually pretty quick with repairs. Still.... I'd be concerned about all that moisture and how it got there...

 

[shawna1972]

Wow,sorry to hear Yeah the heats been giving me issues this year as well had to install an air conditioner and still the tanks temp is higher than what I like it to be. Going to have to get some fans going soon

 

[aww_419]

How powerful is the clip on fan. Could it have been splashing the water around? My skimmer use to freak out when I put in a new filter sock or pad if the sock or pad wasnt rinsed out first.

 

[tmz]

Sorry to hear your troubles. Maybe the polyfilter blocked or partialy blocked the skimmer intake somehow. Really bad news.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

fwiw

fwiw

you can leave some lights off during a heatwave.

I've kept halides off over several of my Acros for more than a week (VHO's are still on). IME many other corals are much less sensitive to less light than Acropora.

500 without power in Greece, NY right now and Canandaigua is reporting a power outage. I hope Rich is okay.

 

[Neoz]

I think one problem was I didn't rinse the poly filter. Took it out of the bag and into the sump. It was quite a ways away from the skimmer so I don't think that caused it. Once the poly filter was removed the skimmer settled back down to normal.

I have cut my MH lights back to 2 hours a night for the rest of the week. My tank is sitting at 80.6 right now. Warmer then I would like but its what I have to work with for now.

No splashing from the fan. I think its just from evaporation from the fan and the cabinet doors beings shut. At least I hope so. Today I left the cabinet doors open and the moisture was no were near as bad. Left the sump clip on fan running 24hrs straight.

 

[tmz]

I use poly filter regularly and never rinse it. Never had a skimmer reaction . Puzzling. Could some precipitant from somewhere in the sump have broken free and clogged the venturi . That would reduce air intake and cause the skimmer to run lot's of water and splash quite a bit as it exits and falls, if your skimmer runs like that.Shutting the skimmer off will often backwash it out , leaving no clue as to the cause of the problem