AC3 saves me from myself...

[madmax7774]

About 1 month ago, I upgraded my AC jr. to the AC3. Being gadget happy, I log into it remotely a few times a day to look at the parameters. Well, I logged in today, to find that my lights were unexpectantly off. What the heck are my lights doing off in the middle of the day??? This couldn't be good. I left the office, and raced home to investigate. Turns out that my lights were off because my temperature had climbed sky high. Thankfully I put a catch statement in the program to turn off the lights if the temp gets too high. After backtracing the problem, It turns out that the mag7 pump I use to supply my chiller with a constant flow of water had seized, causing the chiller to shut down, causing the temps to soar, and shutting down the lights. Why was the pump seized? Pure and simple: laziness. I haven't cleaned the pump. It was loaded with calcium buildup, and the impeller had jambed. I have it soaking in vinegar, and hopefully it still works...

moral of the story: don't be lazy like me, clean your equipment !!!

[jamal]

i know what you mean about pumps seizing. my mag 7 did the same thing. hope you dont have to replace the impeller like i did.

[tonkadawg]

glad to hear you caught it before it got really ugly!

 

I clean all pumps and skimmer once a month in vinegar. Keeps everything nice and clean and working as expected.

[SkiCurtis]

Way to go with the high tech system. I will be there one day. I'm trying to upgrade my sump and pimped out aquariums is doing that for me right now. Naga is working hard.

curtis

[rottloverr]

When you guys soak your pumps in vinegar is it totally submerged? How long do you usually let it soak? Is once a month required or is that just a personal judgement call?

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[jason the filter freak]

When you guys soak your pumps in vinegar is it totally submerged? How long do you usually let it soak? Is once a month required or is that just a personal judgement call?

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

Depends if it's a submergable pump or not. When I do my power heads and mag drives they get a full bath. When i do something like a sequence dart, i use a ball valve to close off the output part dump vinager into the inlet to capicity and maybe add and airstone for "circulation" then siphon the whole amount of liquid back out, or pull out the drain plug interms of the dart and then let her rip a tiny bit of vinager isnt going to make a darn bit of diffrence in a system thats big enough to use a large external pump

[tonkadawg]

When you guys soak your pumps in vinegar is it totally submerged? How long do you usually let it soak? Is once a month required or is that just a personal judgement call?

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

 

yeah my pumps are all submergable, so they get dunked. I usually let them run for about an hour with the vinegar, then I pull them apart and clean them with a toothbrush - making sure to get rid of the CA buildup. Then I put them back together and run then in a bucket of clean ro/di water for about 45 mins. After that, back into the tank, good as new.