Fun with power outage (dead return pump)
 

I got off work around 5pm, and a fellow reefer who happened to drive by my place told me that our area was out of power. Panicking, I asked my wife to check Apex on her phone while I drove, and sure enough, no power. I prayed that everything was fine, that no livestock was lost and no water damage.

Rushing home, we found that nothing was out of the ordinary, phew, so the waiting game began. I'd just kept stirring the tank and blowing it with the baster, and about an hour or so, the power came back on. "YES!" I thought to myself.

But to my chagrin, the return pump, a Jebao DCT12000, was not working. I tried unplugging and plugging it in the same/different outlets on the EB8 and normal power bar, but the controller would just blink its first 3 lights and the last, water was not being pumped.

I fired off an angry email to Fish Street where I had bought it a few months ago.

At the moment, I am running everything (both Gyres stir up water with surface aeration in the DT, so I guess it's not too concerning?). The skimmer is just running and overflowing in the sump to provide aeration.

Will it be safe for a few days until I find a solution (new pump locally, fix the Jebao, get a replacement, etc.) to run the tank as it is? Or should I rush off to buy a pump at JL or something?

Just out of curiosity, did you try flicking the impeller with something while it was plugged in?

yo, call me


778 779 3532

And after you call Tyler take your return pump out and clean it :) . Or you can bang on it with something, the impeller shaft is could be a little gummed up

I tried it, no activity at all.

I'll take it out for a bath tomorrow.

Swing by tomorrow and pick up one of my spare return pumps. You are welcome to use it until you can get yours up and running or replaced.

Anthony

Ha, well at least you have power. My twilight zone area is only due to have power by the 19th if we're lucky. 18 hours and counting so far.

I had my return pump died for 4 days before I found a replacement and plumb it together again, 40 sps was fine except 1 Sps died, no skimmers in tank, I just had the mp40 and a mp10 aeration the surface of tank water

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Ouch... this one has hit pretty hard, eh? Hopefully everything will be fine for you.

Thanks for the pointer. I guess it's now a moot point since Anthony has stepped up to lend me his backup today, and I'll probably have to pick up Tyler's Speedwave later this week. Fish Street is unwilling to step up to pay for the damaged pump/shipping. Not really that surprised.

When I build my dream tank down the line, it'll be all top of the line equipment, no expenses spared, so no more Jebao stuff haha.

I have an inverter running a circulation pump, bigger problem is the temp as a heater drains too much power.

But the last power out was 60 hours for our twilight zone area, who knows maybe hydro will do better this go around-we can only hope.