gotta love turbos

[calkrog]

so i get up this morning, and as im walking down the stairs i can hear my jbj ato running. thats not unusual, but what was unusual was that it was not shutting off. so i go into the basement to investigate further, and i see that my tank has a nice infinity pool effect. yes, thats right, my tank is overflowing onto my berber carpet. I immediately unplug the jbj and start siphoning out water and try to figure out why my durso pipe is not handeling the volume from the pump. it turns out there was a turbo stuck in there. i dont know for how long the ato was trying to fill the sump as the pump was emptying it into the display tank and onto my carpet. my SG dropped to 1.020 and it appears the tank inhabitant are fine. i have now removed the turbo, bumped up my SG a bit trying to get it back to where it should be. but let me tell you that getting wet socks first thing in the morning is not great. my house is now like the tropics as im running heaters and dehumidifiers trying to dry my carpet and drywall. just thought i would share my great day with you all. hope you have had a better day.

Mr. Wet Socks

[Bartman]

That sucks. I had something similar happen about 6 months ago but the puddle wasn't very big when I found it. What are you doing to get the salt out of the carpet?

[amoreira]

It sucks definitely to have a flood. I've got my system set up to be "flood safe". My auto-top off is fed with a 10 gal bucket so that if I do lose the return, the autotop off would not empty out enough water to cause a flood. The osmolator has a timer in it too that shuts off the auto-top off pump if the level doesn't return after about 5 minutes. Also, my sump is partitioned off that the volume in the partition for the pump wouldn't cause a flood in the display tank. The pump would run dry, possibly wrecking it, but I wouldn't flood my house. One thing also, if your return pump shuts off make sure that you either have a swing check valve in the line from the sump pump to your tank otherwise it'll siphon the water from your display tank into your sump and possibly overflow there. Sorry to hear of your flood.

[Myka]

^ I was just about to say you must have the Tunze Osmolator with those nice safety features...then I read your signature. Yep! :) The Osmolators are very nice products. I also have one, and have no risk of overflow either as my reservoir is only 5 gallons.

[Chin_Lee]

that that suckes.
JBJ auto topoffs are supposed to have an auto shutoff after a predetermined number of minutes. Mine's set at the max (around 7 minutes) because my topoff is on a slow pump through a kalk reactor. this setting is adjustable and pictured instructions are on their website.
But in your case, it would seem that the auto shutoff malfunctioned are not working properly.

another method is to insert the float switch into a 35mm film canister with smaller holes drilled into the sides. this will prevent snails and hermits from interferring with the float while allowing water into the canister to turn it on/off.

[calkrog]

well my jbj worked fine. my standpipe was plugged not letting the main tank drain into the sump, so my circulation pump was emptying the sump into the main tank, and then the jbj would sense low level and top it up. and from what i can figure this was going on for about 20 min. i think somehow i have to setup a shutoff for my circulation pump in case my level in the overflow gets too high. for now i have banished my turbo's that like to hang out on the overflow to the sump, dropped the level in my pump chamber in the sump so the pump will run out before flooding the tank, and shutoff my jbj. i have also thought about doing a herbies standpipe system, that way if one gets plugged i still have the emergency pipe as a backup.

[mark]

Poor way to start the day.

If are planning on replumbing but happy with your Durso (sans snails) just add a straight standpipe to your overflow cut just short of your max level. Don't need to go the full Herbie (or second Durso) route.