dead sump

I woke up this morning to the sound of silence. No sound of filters, air-pumps etc. The power had tripped. After switching the power back on i checked all filters and pumps to make sure they all came back on.
Content everything was back up and running i went about my business for the day. This evening i noticed the flow was odd in the marine tank which has one powerhead and a return from the sump split into two outlets.
You guessed it, the pump from the sump never came back on in the morning along with all the other equipment. In fact i would say that was the cause of the power tripping out.
I am lucky it didn't cause a fire since the heat from it was hot enough to soften the rigid pipe to the extent that i could pinch the pipe together with my fingers.
The pump is a Newjet and was my back up pump since the first one needs an impeller shaft which has been on order for the past two months in one of the shops .
I know after the 12 hours with no water running through the sump pretty much all the beneficial bacteria would be dead and to reconnect the sump to the tank would probably end in disaster.

This is my plan. I have connected a small pump at the end of the sump (where the water is usually pumped back to the tank) with some tubing going to the trickle filter (start of sump).
throughout this week i will start to do some water changes in the main tank and use the tank water to flush out the sump hoping to also build up the colony of bacteria again. I will be testing the water in both the sump and the main tank. Once i am happy with conditions in the tank and the sump i will reconnect the sump.
The tank only has a pair of Damsels so feeding will be verry little and i will cut back on feeding the corals for the moment.
About 1/4 of the tank is stacked with live rock so i think the tank will be fine as far a filtration goes. None of the rock can be removed to the sump to kick start it since every piece of rock has coral on it.

Is there an alternative to this or can anyone see any pit falls in my plan?

Darren.

Hi Darren,
your plan sounds good! i note you said the pipe was still hot when you squeezed it thus i would query the length of time it was off.

if when you found it the pipes were hot and had not cooled then the amount of time might be a lot less than 12 hours

i am thing that while it was off over night some thing dislodged and made it way to a position that caused this problem

thus some movement might be of benefit

i am not into marine's so my understanding is minimal

Nasty surprise to wake up to, but as you said I guess you were lucky not to have caused a fire. Surely there should be a thermal cut out on the pump?? I thought there had to be these days.

You plan regarding bringing the sump back sounds like a good one, but like Mickey I know nada about marines, so you will know best. Personally I don't see anything else that you can do.

Best of luck with it.

Micky you may have misread my post slightly. The power went off this morning about 8:30-9:00. This evening i discovered it was not pumping but was still powered up. I recon the pump caused the power to trip. The pump would have been switched back on for about 12 hours before i noticed. I couldn't handle the casing and the hard plastic pipe coming from it was so hot the plastic was soft. A bit like heating waven with a blow torch.

A sump for a marine tank works the same as for fresh water.
The spiral tube feather duster worms had come out of there tubes and were moving like jellyfish in the sump. I recon they were oxygen starved. Loads of dead copepods and other critters floating on the water surface.

thats terrible. looks like you were really lucky no other damage was done. Not an easy thing to explain I would imagine. Like the others I know little about marines but I do hope you get it sorted cause its a lovely tank. hopefully you will save it all. good luck

whats in the sump? (apart from a million mushrooms) what media?
what temp the the sump get up to?
any updates?

The sump is set up as follows. Trickle filter. The dry or trickle part is separate to the sump and drips from above. The media in this is sponge, bio balls and aragonite. It then drips down into the sump. First part sponge, bioballs, Siporax and some rubble. Then in the middle i have a refugium (Sean's favorite American saying) with Caulerpa. Then a section for heaters, and some polyfilter. The last section just has some rubble and yes you guessed it Fran mushrooms that i remove from the main tank.
I should have mentioned the sump is over the tank and not underneath. There is no pump in the sump or the tank so no over heating from the pump. The pump is outside and piped from the tank to the sump.

I cleaned out the sump and ran some tank water through it then refilled it. For the moment i am just running water through it. I will keep changing the water with tank water until i think it can be reconected.
The section that has the Caulerpa was still full of life so maybe this is enough to get the rest going again. The caulerpa produces oxygen from photosynthesis.
I have tested the tank and it is fine. The only problem is some scum on the surface. Even with a powerhead breaking the surface. I might stick a skimmer on it for the moment.

Hi Platy,
firstly thanks for sending he organic stuff I have not used it get but I am doing some research first!! hopefully Derek Doyle will start a thread on his own experience before the London 20120 Olympics.

The advantage of a trickle filter is it does not die when the power goes off, it only dies when it \"dries out\" one would expect some anaerobic activity below water level after 12 hours, I would start the pumps but instead of the water going back to the main tank pump it into a 25L bucket, then stop the pump then de gas the the water for one hour with a air stone, than net a fish out of the tank (naturally add a kettle of boiling water to bring it to 25C( the leave the fish in the bucket for 2 hours if no problems check for nitrite and a gasping fish( then add the water to the tank and restart the complete flow.

Admin Sean is showing his rocks off on the forum:laugh:
Thanks for the tip Sean. I will keep that in mind if i ever have this problem again.
I was thinking since there was a lot of dead floating critters in the wet section of the wet/dry that if i just started to run the pump i could end up polluting the tank.
The mid section seemed to be a bit of a saviour containing the Caulerpa for oxygenating, phosphate and Nitrate removal also has a deep bed for denitrification. This section was still full of life. But the last section that has some rock/rubble just in case the Nitrate got converted back to Nitrite also had loads of dead critters.
I don't add glucose to feed the denitrification bacteria, i just wouldn't know how much to add to this small 120L tank and i certainly wouldn't be wasting vodka on my sump.
I added a hermit crab to the sump yesterday and he is still alive and well. I will reconnect the sump over the weekend.

Hi Platty
As Sean said with the trickle filter system your bacteria should be fine. re oxygenate and you should be good to go. thats the only prob with external pumps of the smaller variety they pump a large volume of water for the size but as you found out they do carry a lot of heat.