Mark Hyman
Community Member
So I had my first loss of my relatively new tank, and it was a bit crazy. I was about to do a water change and turned off my return pump. As usual, the water level starts to drop and there's a back siphon through the return line for a bit (return nozzle is about 1.5-2" below operating water line). Then I notice that only one of my percula clown pair is swimming around; they're buddies and always out & about together being curious. I panic a little and decide he was siphoned into the return line, so I turned the return pump right back on hoping to push him out. Flow picks back up to what seems like normal, no fish. I check the sump, weir, skimmer, even remove the pump and backwash the return line to try to flush him out (if he was stuck in there); no luck. So I did the water change and started everything up again. Voila, dead clown comes out of the return line. He must have gotten stuck in the line but not enough to overly restrict the flow (or get flushed out when I tried earlier).
I feel lousy about this but never even thought of it as a concern, and now my remaining percula is a widow/er. I'm only reefing again for a couple of months after a 20ish year hiatus, but I don't remember this being a worry for my old reef tank either. What recommendations do y'all have for a fix or best practice during water changes? Don't think drilling a hole in the return line as a siphon break will work with my current setup, as the Cade tank has the return line routed through the fresh water top off reservoir then routed into the display 2" below waterline. Cade apparently sells a check valve for the return but mine didn't come equipped that way and I've heard bad things about check valve reliability generally (but it's an option). I could potentially add loc-line to the return nozzle and raise the outflow closer to the surface (and maybe add a siphon break on that line too). I'm also going to call Algae Barn to see if they have any Cade-specific suggestions. In the interim, I can turn on feed mode on the return pump to ramp it down and let the level drop before shutting it off entirely, and/or stick a net over the return nozzle before shutting off the power. Maybe this was a freak occurrence, but I don't want a repeat and there's got to be a better solution. Thanks.
I feel lousy about this but never even thought of it as a concern, and now my remaining percula is a widow/er. I'm only reefing again for a couple of months after a 20ish year hiatus, but I don't remember this being a worry for my old reef tank either. What recommendations do y'all have for a fix or best practice during water changes? Don't think drilling a hole in the return line as a siphon break will work with my current setup, as the Cade tank has the return line routed through the fresh water top off reservoir then routed into the display 2" below waterline. Cade apparently sells a check valve for the return but mine didn't come equipped that way and I've heard bad things about check valve reliability generally (but it's an option). I could potentially add loc-line to the return nozzle and raise the outflow closer to the surface (and maybe add a siphon break on that line too). I'm also going to call Algae Barn to see if they have any Cade-specific suggestions. In the interim, I can turn on feed mode on the return pump to ramp it down and let the level drop before shutting it off entirely, and/or stick a net over the return nozzle before shutting off the power. Maybe this was a freak occurrence, but I don't want a repeat and there's got to be a better solution. Thanks.
