Skimmer went crazy after power outage

[rrasco]

Appears I lost power last night, not sure for how long, but when I got up my skimmer was going nuts overflowing. It's in-sump, so no big deal. Luckily I emptied the cup yesterday. Why would it go crazy? I'm assuming without water movement stuff built up and the skimmer had to work overtime once power was restored.

I am going to get a pretty massive UPS to run my return pump and ATO in this scenario.

[Big_Pun]

just happens sometimes could be a trapped air bubble in discharge tube . skimmers are weird

[klwheat]

My guess (based on prior experience with this...lol) is that the power outage caused the water level in your sump to increase significantly. Then, when the power kicked back on, the protein skimmer fired up with the water much higher than what you have it set for...and before the return pump could get the water levels back to normal...it was overflowing.
My sump level increases by about 3 inches with a power outage before the siphon is broken on my return plumbing. With power restoration...my protein skimmer is overflowing almost immediately...and it takes a good 30 seconds or so for the return pump to get the excess water back into the DT. (hope all that made sense)

[rrasco]

My guess (based on prior experience with this...lol) is that the power outage caused the water level in your sump to increase significantly. Then, when the power kicked back on, the protein skimmer fired up with the water much higher than what you have it set for...and before the return pump could get the water levels back to normal...it was overflowing.
My sump level increases by about 3 inches with a power outage before the siphon is broken on my return plumbing. With power restoration...my protein skimmer is overflowing almost immediately...and it takes a good 30 seconds or so for the return pump to get the excess water back into the DT. (hope all that made sense)

Good observation. I think that is what happened.

[reefreak]

Yeah i emptied some water out of my sump just in case lol

[Cammed_02]

My guess (based on prior experience with this...lol) is that the power outage caused the water level in your sump to increase significantly. Then, when the power kicked back on, the protein skimmer fired up with the water much higher than what you have it set for...and before the return pump could get the water levels back to normal...it was overflowing.
My sump level increases by about 3 inches with a power outage before the siphon is broken on my return plumbing. With power restoration...my protein skimmer is overflowing almost immediately...and it takes a good 30 seconds or so for the return pump to get the excess water back into the DT. (hope all that made sense)

this is what most likely happened. it's happened to me a couple of times, the skimmer fires up faster than the return can lower the water level in the sump.

[rrasco]

Agreed. I'm going to get like a 1500VA UPS to keep the return pump running for power outages. With that kind of UPS I should get good length of time I can run the tank offline with just the return. I talked to my neighbor who was up when the power went out, he said it was only a few minutes.

[klwheat]

Let me know which UPS you go with, and what you think of it. I've been thinking about doing the same thing! Thanks

[rrasco]

Will do. I have not decided anything yet. I use APC in my server rack at work and Eaton on all my client machines, so I know both of those are reliable enough for this. There is a cheaper brand out there, CyberPower, that I am looking into as well. I want to make sure I don't get something too cheap that dies out and turns off my return, that would be bad.

I'm trying to figure out how long a 1350VA 810W UPS would power a 41W return pump for.

[klwheat]

theoretically...I would think about 19.75 hours :) Where did you find that...and what price are you looking at for it?

[pfcreed]

what kinda skimmer was it by the way

[rrasco]

$110. Has pretty good reviews too.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3260290&CatId=234

[rrasco]

what kinda skimmer was it by the way

Bubble Magus NAC9

[pfcreed]

My swc 160 went wacco I couldnt take the micro bubbles so i unplugged it and havent plugged it up since :(

[rrasco]

FWIW, I just found this information on a battery backup thread on RC. I'm learning more about it, as the UPS I linked is 'simulated sine wave', the equivalent true sine wave UPS is $180.


If you want one to work with your motors, you will need one that uses a true sine wave power inverter. This is the trick to running the motors smoothly. The second best is a stepped wave inverter, or worst case (el cheapo) is the square wave. Avoid the square wave like the plaque, it works for some things (like computers) but definitely not for aquarium motors.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb164/20bigbang/Fish%20Tank/Inverter_Wave_Comp.jpg

The smooth curve is the true sinewave. This is represents how the polarity in our 120V wall outlets switches polarity at 60Hz. This is what our fishtank equipment was originaly designed to run with, so the UPS should match this.