Prodibio reef booster almost flooded my house

[Acrowhora]

Did you use bioptim and biogest for 6 weeks prior to using reef booster?

[kien]

yikes ! That sounds scary. No matter what overflow style you choose, it seems to me like a good idea to always have an emergency drain pipe for you know.. emergencies.

[Skimmerking]

Not to sound dumb here, How does dosing that cause your pipe to break. its water flowing through if something is clogging it it woould not be from the Reef booster.

If you can explain this in depth cause i'm having a hard time picturing this.

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

Not to sound dumb here, How does dosing that cause your pipe to break. its water flowing through if something is clogging it it woould not be from the Reef booster.

If you can explain this in depth cause i'm having a hard time picturing this.

Mike, the pipe itself did not break. The siphon created by a Durso (i think that's how they work) was disrupted by the change in water chemistry (OP is guessing/assuming this). In other words, water was being pumped into the DT faster than it was draining. Higher (or would it be lower, i dunno) viscosity would slow the rate at which the water drains (if that is indeed the case in this situation).

[sphelps]

Sounds to me like your durso is setup wrong. The hole in the cap is too small or your return flow rate is too high for that standpipe. That would explain the issue as the durso is essentially running at full siphon or very close to it meaning it's sucking in a lot of air through the vent (hole in cap) then with the Prodibio added it created a more foaming effect in the drain pipe resulting in the slight back up you observed (same reason why you turn your skimmer off).

That's my guess anyway. You should try a larger hole in your standpipe cap or just remove the cap but chances are once you enlarge it or remove it you'll see it can't handle the same amount of flow, meaning it was previously overloaded. A typical durso setup should never run anywhere near full siphon unless you have a back up.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by sphelps

Sounds to me like your durso is setup wrong. The hole in the cap is too small or your return flow rate is too high for that standpipe. That would explain the issue as the durso is essentially running at full siphon or very close to it meaning it's sucking in a lot of air through the vent (hole in cap) then with the Prodibio added it created a more foaming effect in the drain pipe resulting in the slight back up you observed (same reason why you turn your skimmer off).

That's my guess anyway. You should try a larger hole in your standpipe cap or just remove the cap but chances are once you enlarge it or remove it you'll see it can't handle the same amount of flow, meaning it was previously overloaded. A typical durso setup should never run anywhere near full siphon unless you have a back up.

+1, both to the probably cause, and the solution. There's also multiple ways to set up the top portion of a durso, so I'm wondering if the way yours is shaped is particularly prone to trapping foam.