Well... we had a nasty storm the other day. The power was out for hours. I had JUST finished building and installing a
DIY sump for my 26 gallon bow front. It was running with the new
sump for just a month...and then... disaster! Well...in the eyes of my wife anyway....
I neglected to drill the return nozzles to break the siphon in times of pump failure or power outage. Because the 26 Bow front stand is not "roomy", I was forced to make a real small
sump. It obviously is NOT capable of handling extra overflow from the display tank. I had in and around 5 gallons of salt water on my wife's carpet in the family room! :shock:
Some pictures of the original configuration below:
Please folks, if your
sump can not handle overflow from the display in these emergency conditions you really should modify the return to include a siphon break of sorts. I knew that I should do this (and it took all of 2 minutes to do..after the fact) but I was lazy and didn't get around to it. Learn from my mistakes!
So... I am making a serious modification to that system and I will document it here for all to learn from.
My project includes drilling through the family room floor and running the overflow to the fish room in the basement. In there, I have an unused 75 gallon tank (scratched and abused) that will be my new
sump 
Imagine that... the display is 26 gallons..the
sump will run in and around 50 gallons. How much fun is that!!!
I am starting this weekend and will have pics and news for y'all soonest.
Have a stellar weekend!
Dave
