Prodibio reef booster almost flooded my house

[BowedFloor]

Seriously!

Tried it for the first time today. Turned off my skimmer, Dosed 2 vials (lighter dose in my 180)

Notice after I put the first vial in, the tone of my drain into the sump changed. Ususally its silent, but it was making a slightly more gurgly noise. I noticed that all my macro bubbles were gone, and didn't really think much of it.

Go outside with the dog for a couple minutes, come back inside, my ATO is running. Hmm, why is my ATO running. Look at the water level in my DT, and it's getting real close to overflowing.

So I guess the product changed the viscosity of my water or something, which broke my durso stand pipe causing it to not drain at the same rate it always has for the past year, and yeah.

So be careful when dosing new supplements!

I corrected my drain issue by putting a short piece of pipe on my drain. it's noisy as heck now, but it seems to be working properly.

[HaZRaTTy]

I absolutely HATE my durso. I have considered so many times buying a new tank because of it. People state with the right sized standpipe and pilot hole that its silent and fool proof.

I have tried so many different which ways and still hate it compared to my last tanks herbie

That being said I will never have anything other then herbies on any of my upcoming tanks.



Can you take a picture of your durso please and give a little more info I don't see functionally how this happened and I can't wrap my head around it.

[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.