micro-bubbles problem

**Reefer0513** · 09-23-2010, 11:14 AM

I have found the culprit of my micro bubbles in my tank. I know it has been a long time since I posted about not being able to get rid of the micro bubble in my tank and many of you all respond by telling me to check my plumbing in my sump. So, I took your advise and redid all my plumbing to my sump and I still was having micro bubbles. I found out that it is the new pump that I put on. So my question is how do I prevent the pump from producing microbubbles.

**AZDesertRat** · 09-23-2010, 12:52 PM

Tell us about the pump and how it is plumbed.
In general you should never restrict the suction or inlet sie of a pump in any way, if its submerged try to leave the suction side free of any valves, fittings or sponges.
If it is external use the largest plumbing possible, keep it short and straight if you can so no restrictions. A valve can be added for maintenance but should remain fully open at all times when in operation.
It is safe and often wise to add a ball or gate valve to the discharge side of a pump to throttle flows back or fine tune the overflow and return rates. Again its wise to oversize the plumbing at least one size as it reduces head loss and lowers velocity.

**Phurst** · 09-23-2010, 01:09 PM

I agree with the above. The only way a pump should produce bubbles is if it's cavitating, it has a venturi (for intentionaly creating bubbles) or if it's external and the intake plumbing has a pinhole leak.

**Reefer0513** · 09-23-2010, 01:26 PM

I have it plumbed to a 110 horse trough and there is a ball valve and a 90 degree elbow before the hard plumbing is connected to the external pump. I replaced the plumbing to the pump a few months ago and I still am having micro bubble problems. what is the easiest way to find a pin hole leak? should I just replace all the plumbing leading up to the pump. For the most part the plumb is unrestricted and yes I am using one size bigger on the pump intake line, not because i did on purpose, but because my the ball valve I had laying around was one size bigger. Just to let you know I have two external pumps running on this system, but the only one producing micro bubbles is the bigger of the two. I know this because when I turned the pump off the microbubbles disappeared. I do have salt creep around the base of the pump could this be where the leak is coming from? Could the pump its self be the problem? Sorry about all the questions just want to get this fixed.

**Phurst** · 09-23-2010, 01:41 PM

A picture or diagram of the setup might help. What pump are you using. Salt creep usually means a leak somewhere, so that's worth investigating. Pinhole leaks are going to be at joints, so you can take putty or vasaline or something similar and coat the plumbing joints temporarily to see if any of them are allowing air into the system.

**CarmieJo** · 10-03-2010, 04:25 PM

Did you find where the bubbles are coming from on the pump?

**thesaent14** · 10-17-2010, 08:17 PM

if you show pics of your system i can probably will be able to give you some ideas

**mpcolson** · 10-19-2010, 09:08 PM

I had a micro bubble issue with Danner pumps, these leaks were salt creeps that were driving me nutty. I resolved them by using silicone to seal the face plate edges airtight. I found that they were leaking even after aligning the O-Rings and re-tightening the plates as suggested by manufacturer. The seal is easily removed for maintenance and resealed using a fresh silicone seal.