Sump Acting Weird

[tomstanks]

One of my tank's sump is acting weird. The pumps pumping the water back into the tank are sucking the sump dry. It is like I can't add enough water but the tank level creeps up and the sump stays nearly dry. Perhaps the prefilter sponges are blocked? However, If I turn one sump pump off the sump over flows. Perhaps one side is blocked? Any ideas?

 

[SkiFletch]

Sounds like the overflow is not functioning properly with either a partial or a significant blockage. When you added water and raised the display water you were adding more to the system. Then when you shut the sump pump off the slow overflow drain eventually caught up and overflowed the sump as it drained the excess water down into the sump.

I assume this is a one sump, one pump, one overflow setup?

 

[tomstanks]

Sounds like the overflow is not functioning properly with either a partial or a significant blockage. When you added water and raised the display water you were adding more to the system. Then when you shut the sump pump off the slow overflow drain eventually caught up and overflowed the sump as it drained the excess water down into the sump.

I assume this is a one sump, one pump, one overflow setup?

1 sump, 2 overflows, 2 return pumps.

 

[l337dave]

Sounds like the overflow is not functioning properly with either a partial or a significant blockage. When you added water and raised the display water you were adding more to the system. Then when you shut the sump pump off the slow overflow drain eventually caught up and overflowed the sump as it drained the excess water down into the sump.

I assume this is a one sump, one pump, one overflow setup?

1 sump, 2 overflows, 2 return pumps.

what pumps are you running at what head and how big are your overflow lines?

you can T off the return from one of you pumps (with a ball valve) back into the sump. This should give you sometime to figure out what has gone wrong.

out of interest why are you running 2 pumps?


dave.