What is the usual cause of micro-bubbles?

[budsreef]

That's a good idea. I could do that without much trouble.

dawgdude;213371 wrote: If you have an extra sponge or filter fiber then put it near the intake and see if that helps.

 

[budsreef]

You mean to the intake of the pump? If I still have the problem with the real sump I might need more info on this. I'll order the glass baffles tomorrow and hopefully have a real sump for this thing soon.

Skriz;213377 wrote: I used to have the same problem. I added a tee with 2 90 degree elbows pointing downwards. This stopped the vortex and forced the pump to take water from the bottom of the sump (no bubbles).

 

[skriz]

Budsreef;213388 wrote: You mean to the intake of the pump? If I still have the problem with the real sump I might need more info on this. I'll order the glass baffles tomorrow and hopefully have a real sump for this thing soon.

yep, on the intake. The bubbles in my sump are not at the bottom of the water column; they're mid to top. I was having 2 issues:
1-the pump was causing a votex which pulled in air from the intake.
2-the pump was taking in the bubbles from the sump.

By adding a 90 degree elbow pointing down, I was able to stop the vortex. Also, the water that the pump was sucking was from the bottom of the sump and had no bubbles. So, no microbubbles in the display..yaya! :yay:

I used a tee and had 2 elbows to give more area.

 

[budsreef]

Cool, thanks!

Skriz;213391 wrote: yep, on the intake. The bubbles in my sump are not at the bottom of the water column; they're mid to top. I was having 2 issues:
1-the pump was causing a votex which pulled in air from the intake.
2-the pump was taking in the bubbles from the sump.

By adding a 90 degree elbow pointing down, I was able to stop the vortex. Also, the water that the pump was sucking was from the bottom of the sump and had no bubbles. So, no microbubbles in the display..yaya! :yay:

I used a tee and had 2 elbows to give more area.

 

[FutureInterest]

From my understanding if your overflow is surging then you need to increase the air aperature. The faster the flow through the pipe the larger the hole has to be.

I had to drill mine out to about 5/8 till the surging stopped. Also you can reroute the sound of the air hole using vinyl tubing. It makes the overflow so absolutely quiet you can't hear anything at all .

 

[budsreef]

I'm guessing that would have the same effect as closing down the size of the overflow pipe which is what I did with the ball valve. It is so quiet now I don't hear it over the fan in the light.

FutureInterest;213415 wrote: From my understanding if your overflow is surging then you need to increase the air aperature. The faster the flow through the pipe the larger the hole has to be.

I had to drill mine out to about 5/8 till the surging stopped. Also you can reroute the sound of the air hole using vinyl tubing. It makes the overflow so absolutely quiet you can't hear anything at all .

 

[FutureInterest]

Yes slowing down the flow to match your air hole will accomplish the same thing. I'd still prefer to match the air hole to the flow... simply because I've read a few stories of people attributing floods to using ball valves to tune their overflow. I think if you keep it clean though you should be fine.

 

[budsreef]

Jin, I agree. It took a lot just to try turning the ball valve. Luckily, I barely had to close the ball valve so maybe I won't need to drill a very large hole. When you drilled the hole bigger did it remove the nipple sticking up and is there a purpose to having it?

FutureInterest;213495 wrote: Yes slowing down the flow to match your air hole will accomplish the same thing. I'd still prefer to match the air hole to the flow... simply because I've read a few stories of people attributing floods to using ball valves to tune their overflow. I think if you keep it clean though you should be fine.