Overflow not working right

[CONSTANTNE]

Today I noticed that water wasnt dropping into my overflow. Instead the water is level with my tank water. I dont know what the problem may be. I have a strainer on the bulkhead in the overflow so I dont think anything went down. I have a small hole in the cap on the top of drain pipe which if i hold closed drops the water in the overflow box. Right now my ball valves are both fully open and the water level is still not dropping in the overflow. I used to have the valves half closed. Any help would be appreciated


Picture when I first started my tank. (return pump was off)

 

[calaxa]

Not sure what you are describing. I see a picture of your sump which appears full (which makes sense if return is off). The small hole on top of drain pipe is an anti siphon, which sounds like is working correctly. When you cover it, it siphons down which is correct. When open, siphon breaks. That's exactly what you want. Can you show us a picture of the tank and overflow?

 

[mgonz]

I'm confused as to what the problem you are tryin to describe. It seems to me that all your equipment is working correctly. The only thing that I can suggest is your total water volume is high. If you would like to see the water level in your sump try takin some water out of the system, that should lower the water level in your sump

 

[CONSTANTNE]

Thanks for the replies. The problem actually ended up correcting itself. Maybe something was in the plumbing causing it but now its fixed. What was happening was the water was draining at one rate and my ball valve wasnt working for some reason

 

[REEFLECTIONS]

if your having some type of venting draining problems you really should figure out what happened and correct it.... you never know if it will happen again when your not there to catch it, or what the ramifications will be.... jmo

 

[Brizjuan]

Ya I would deffinitely make sure that everything with your overflow and plumbing is in order because you will deff have a wet mess if the sump overflows.... Perhaps it lost siphon and back flushed into the sump through your return? Its hard to tell what happened by your description but glad everything seems to be ok.....

Brian

 

[duijver]

I had a similar problem when I was first starting this hobby out. I don't think this applies since you have been up and running for awhile.. but i'll throw it out there anyway.

My overflow box (HOB) has an adjustable skimmer box and my water level in my wet/dry could be adjusted by tweaking how high/low the skimmer box was in the tank. The overflow would suck more water out of the tank than my pump could handle so it would just sit at the top of the wet/dry filter appearing as if it could overflow any second (like yours).

I would check your return or maybe your pump was acting up. Since it's resolved the pipe may have opened up or maybe whatever was clogging/blocking the pump cleared up.

Or maybe none of the above.