How a marine aquarium is created-Part 23: The water level - drain problem in the marine aquarium

26.11.2018

After almost exactly 3 months of operation, a phenomenon has occurred in our Aquamedic Armatus tank: the water level in the main tank rises inexplicably every day. Mostly this happens at night. This does not seem to be an Aqua Medic specific problem, as I have found and watched several opinions and videos on other systems such as RedSea or Eheim. But see for yourself how we are tackling this now with the help of Aqua Medic.

It was around the end of September and shortly before a hospital stay. Basically, it was splashing in the tank in the morning. I looked and saw that quite a lot of water was running over the emergency overflow. The 16-litre osmosis tank that had been installed the day before was half empty. As I know that we have about 5 litres a day to refill, this was clearly too much, i.e. about 3  litres more  in the system than the day before.

Naturally, we got the water level back in order. But a day or two later, the same phenomenon. At some point I started and communicated with Aquamedic. They themselves have 3-4 systems running on site and they don't have this phenomenon. But as it happens, you start and search the net for others who have problems with different systems.

What we could definitely rule out was the refill system. We simply turned off our system for a few days and refilled it by hand. The same thing happened, the emergency overflow overflowed in the morning.

On 01.11 the Aqua Medic company was on site.

In a first measure, the overflow was shortened so that no more fresh water can run in from below when more water is pumped up. We removed the Easy Drain system that had been running since July (ultimately a ball valve controlled from above) and installed a new one. The used one had Bioflime on it, of course, and a few small snails, but nothing serious.

Because it's clear that, for example, a snail sitting there or a lot of dirt can certainly lead to the same amount of water no longer draining away. This can also be caused by a dirty filter comb.

On 02.11, one day later, the same problem. More water on top again!

I kept researching and also asked professionals.

On the one hand, it can be air in the system, then cheap pumps that don't have cruise control can also cause such a problem. The "cruise control" automatically corrects the speed, no matter what voltage is applied to the mains.Good return pumps that have this can be obtained from Deltec, Abyzz or Royal Exclusiv, but they cost real money!

Furthermore, it can be said that some people who exchanged the diaphragm valve for a ball valve at RedSea had peace after all. Or others who changed from a ball valve to an angle seat valve.

Such a angle seat valve, for example, would probably be a good thing, with the Armatus in 40 mm, costing around 117 euros. In the first step, however, I will try a Speedy pump by Klaus Jansen, from Royal.

As you can see, I can't really pin down the problem to just one thing.

Here is the package that Aqua Medic sent me!

[image:17227]

[image:17228]

But now the video of us with the solution from Aqua Medic.

Here's another similar problem with a Red Sea tank, a Reefer 170, from User Seawater Channel Red Sea Reefer.

I would be interested in your opinion and experiences. Have you experienced something similar and how did you solve it? So what led to success in your case?

Best regards

Robert

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