Sump help

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by Glennrf38

Now onto the problem. When I turn off the pump, the water from the tank drains back through the pump. Ant ideas on how to stop it from doing that? is there some sort of anti siphon valve out there or what?

The best strategy is to have a big enough sump that it will catch your backflow but there are a couple things that you can do.

You can get a check valve which is a little piece of gear that goes into the return line between your sump and the tank, it only allows water to go one way and so it functions as your anti siphon. The problem is that it isn't a question of if this thing will screw up but when, the answer usually being at the worst possible time. Not advisable to rely on it.

The second thing you can do put a siphon break in your return line. This is a little hole that is punched in your return just below the normal water level, small enough that it doesn't have a lot of water going through it. When the pump shuts down the water level begins to drop but when this hole is exposed you get some air sucking through the hole and this breaks the siphon. Problem is that when you really need it to work there will probably be a chunk of debris that covers it or a snail parked on top of it or some other stupid thing. You can mitigate this by making a few holes but again it's not really a great idea to rely on it.

If you can't change your sump you'll have to figure out what level of uh oh you are willing to live with.