Not again

[clownfreak]

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of falling water (my tank is in my room) to find that the Octopus BH-100 collection cup has overflowed and taken 2-4g of water out of the tank and onto the floor. This has happened 3 times within the past year. Any ideas on how to fix this? Everything in my tank is HOB so if it leaks the skimmer is usually the culprit. Are there any low priced alarms that will also cut power to the skimmer when they go off?
Thanks in advance

 

[ginger7286]

Not sure, first I would see if you can adjust the flow into the skimmer. Second what are the dimensions to your tank? pump size, gallons, etc.?
Is this something that happens at any given moment or should you check your collection cup more often?
Can you increase the size of your collection cup? If not, can you add an overflow outlet and drain in to a secondary collection cup. I'm not so sure about an alarm shut off/power cut off, I am sure there are people in here that know much more about that than I. Good luck

 

[disc1]

There are several options for what they call a wet floor switch. You could put one on the floor, the outside of the cup, or the lid of the cup. They go off whenever they get wet. You can get them so you can hook them up to a controller to have it shut things off.

I would put a drain line on the skimmer. You never know when a coral is going to slime up or something else breaks loose in your tank and make the skimmer go nuts.

 

[clownfreak]

The skimmer does it somewhat randomly, the cup was probably pretty full this time but it skimmed out close to 3g. It's in a 25g tank and I forget what kind of pump it is. Because the tank is small I will be moving everything to holding tanks for a few days and then taking everything apart, cleaning, changing this and that, and letting the floor dry out.

 

[betamed]

def get an alarm. they are inexpensive and would have minimized a problem like this.

 

[clownfreak]

An alarm would have minimized the result this time, but the time before this time no one was home. If no one is home an alarm is useless, unless it cuts power/sends an email or text to me. I will get an alarm but am hoping to find one that will cut power to the skimmer when it goes off.