Follow my Oceanic 144g half circle reef tanks progress. 
Argh! Flood!
Posted 01/23/2012 at 08:30 PM by Aaarrrggg
Well I had a bit of a disaster yesterday...
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/flood2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/flood.jpg[/IMG]
It's hard to make out in the pics, but the floor is covered in about 1/2" of water.
It completely floaded the utility room and extended into most of the surrounding rooms, although thankfully not too far into each.
It actually could have been a [I]lot[/I] worse if it wasn't for this blog, as I discovered the leak when I came downstairs to snap a few pics for this update!! I heard a weird sloshing sound and opened the utility room door to find the RO/DI unit was spraying water all over the place! Not good!
After some mopping up, I investigated the RO/DI unit to find that a couple of tubes had come loose. One of them was part of the flush valve, so I dismantled it and discovered that it had TWO flow restrictors! The online instructions had said to add my RO/DIs flow restrictor to the flush valve, but unbeknownst to me, my valve already had a flow restrictor at the other end!! Perhaps the instructions were out of date? I removed the excess one and put it all back together again.
I have no idea if that was the cause of the leak (pressure build up?) or if I was just careless putting everything back together again, but needless to say I made double (triple!) sure all the tubes were pushed in as far as they could go this time around. Since then I've been obsessively checking for leaks... I really don't trust it now.
Another mini crisis was averted earlier in the day. I was checking on the skimmer in the morning when the LiterMeter happened to kick in and pump some new SW into the sump. As it did its thing, the skimmer began to pour water into the collection cup!
The pressure of the new water entering the skimmer chamber must have been enough to raise the skimmer lvl. I moved the fresh SW and RO tubes to the next chamber along, so hopefully that won't be a problem anymore.
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/moved-lm-tubes.jpg[/IMG]
The last issue of the day; my SG is pushing 1.026. Not the worst SG in the world, but still up from where it was at 1.025... which means something is off. I'm going to recalibrate the LiterMeter tomorrow. I was lazy and didn't recalibrate after adding the longer tubing outside, so hopefully that's all it is.
Oh, while I'm on the subject of the waterchanger, I finally added the last part; a [URL="http://www.marinedepot.com/Drain_Saddle_Adapter_Plumbing_Parts_for_RO_DI_Water_Filter_Systems-Captive_Purity-RO1319-FIRORARP-vi.html"]Drain Saddle Adapter[/URL]
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/ro-waste-plumb.jpg[/IMG]
I didn't talk about it before because I forgot to buy it when we first set the waterchanger up. This clamp plumbs the RO/DI waste line directly into the sink drain.
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/under-sink.jpg[/IMG]
Red line = RO/DI waste to sink drain
White line = sink water to RO/DI unit (I'm assuming a copper fitting is OK to use here as it's [I]before[/I] the RO/DI unit? Please correct me if I'm wrong!)
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/flood2.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/flood.jpg[/IMG]
It's hard to make out in the pics, but the floor is covered in about 1/2" of water.
It completely floaded the utility room and extended into most of the surrounding rooms, although thankfully not too far into each.It actually could have been a [I]lot[/I] worse if it wasn't for this blog, as I discovered the leak when I came downstairs to snap a few pics for this update!! I heard a weird sloshing sound and opened the utility room door to find the RO/DI unit was spraying water all over the place! Not good!
After some mopping up, I investigated the RO/DI unit to find that a couple of tubes had come loose. One of them was part of the flush valve, so I dismantled it and discovered that it had TWO flow restrictors! The online instructions had said to add my RO/DIs flow restrictor to the flush valve, but unbeknownst to me, my valve already had a flow restrictor at the other end!! Perhaps the instructions were out of date? I removed the excess one and put it all back together again.
I have no idea if that was the cause of the leak (pressure build up?) or if I was just careless putting everything back together again, but needless to say I made double (triple!) sure all the tubes were pushed in as far as they could go this time around. Since then I've been obsessively checking for leaks... I really don't trust it now.
Another mini crisis was averted earlier in the day. I was checking on the skimmer in the morning when the LiterMeter happened to kick in and pump some new SW into the sump. As it did its thing, the skimmer began to pour water into the collection cup!
The pressure of the new water entering the skimmer chamber must have been enough to raise the skimmer lvl. I moved the fresh SW and RO tubes to the next chamber along, so hopefully that won't be a problem anymore.[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/moved-lm-tubes.jpg[/IMG]
The last issue of the day; my SG is pushing 1.026. Not the worst SG in the world, but still up from where it was at 1.025... which means something is off. I'm going to recalibrate the LiterMeter tomorrow. I was lazy and didn't recalibrate after adding the longer tubing outside, so hopefully that's all it is.
Oh, while I'm on the subject of the waterchanger, I finally added the last part; a [URL="http://www.marinedepot.com/Drain_Saddle_Adapter_Plumbing_Parts_for_RO_DI_Water_Filter_Systems-Captive_Purity-RO1319-FIRORARP-vi.html"]Drain Saddle Adapter[/URL]
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/ro-waste-plumb.jpg[/IMG]
I didn't talk about it before because I forgot to buy it when we first set the waterchanger up. This clamp plumbs the RO/DI waste line directly into the sink drain.
[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/under-sink.jpg[/IMG]
Red line = RO/DI waste to sink drain
White line = sink water to RO/DI unit (I'm assuming a copper fitting is OK to use here as it's [I]before[/I] the RO/DI unit? Please correct me if I'm wrong!)
Total Comments 2
Comments
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as far as your connections under the sink. the copper is fine, but keep an eye on it every so often, even more as temp changes. even your waste line should be checked once and an while for blockedge(will buiild up back pressure). i showed these pics to my brother inlaw who's a license plumber for 20 years now and likes for set up, but he said you should point the connections toward the back wall a little so you can clamp or fasten the lines to the back wall in some fashion so to decrease the stress on the connection. although its not much , but he said's it will flex over tiime and may cause leacks. exscuse the miss spelling, i have rum in the system. mine, not the tank! lolPosted 01/29/2012 at 09:38 PM by wlatino30 
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Thanks for the info! That was really sweet of you to get your brother-in-law to have a look!
I'll see if I can twist them around and clamp them somehow. I'll be sure to check on them occasionally too. Thanks for the heads up; I totally would have forgotten about them otherwise and I reeeeally don't want another flood. If the pipe from the sink to the RO/DI came loose.... ergh... well it doesn't bare thinking about! <shudder>Posted 02/10/2012 at 01:01 AM by Aaarrrggg
