Tons of bubbles emerging from drain line into sump

[nekomi]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm having a huge microbubble problem in my display, and I think I can trace it back to the drain lines letting tons of bubbles into my sump. What can I do to keep these bubbles from making it back to the main display? My sump was based off of the Model F on Melev's page, so there is a bubble trap (3 baffles) blocking bubbles from one of the drains, but the other drain doesn't have a trap and tons of bubbles are making it into the return zone.

 

I can't really add baffles here because the pumps won't fit otherwise. Would an intake chamber (like the one seen here) surrounding the problematic drain be a good idea? How do I make sure that the intake chamber doesn't reduce flow (i.e., how do I make sure the slotted area is large enough to handle the drain output)?

 

On a related note, is there an easy way to find out if the bubbles are actually being caused by my return lines (air entering the lines on the way to the display) rather than by the drains? Adding an intake chamber would be a bit of work, and I want to make sure that it will solve the problem before I begin.

 

Thanks, everyone!

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

couple things to try.

 

some sort of sock/sponge to fit over the pump and/or some sort of sock/sponge to fit over the end of the drain.

 

fill your pump area with macro ( if possible) a pic would really help

 

get the air out of your drain. ie durso stockman etc etc

 

bio balls in the last compartment (you'll have to keep em clean)

 

 

you get the idea, ya need to remove/or find something to filter the bubbles before your pump.

 

 

best solution, route both drains to the side of the sump with baffles.