Help - Leak in uni-seal - how to fix without dismantling setup

Ok well the discoloration is one of two things...heat or rust inside the pump.

Cant be its a brand new pump. It does get hot but my fan draws the air to the outtake fan over the HID light.

Yours is about the umpteenth story I've heard about leaky uniseals. I use bulkhead fittings- and the makers of Undercurrent systems have followed my lead. That should say everything that needs saying about them.

I swear by these, never at them;

jensen71 said:

Cant be its a brand new pump. It does get hot but my fan draws the air to the outtake fan over the HID light.

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The pump would be too hot to touch to discolor the hose. If it ever got this hot its pretty much fuct.

The rust could have come from a power outage...water flows back into the airpump if its not mounted higher than water level.

jensen71 said:

Cant be its a brand new pump. It does get hot but my fan draws the air to the outtake fan over the HID light.

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If your air pumps are running hot you need more air stones or larger air stones.

..or, toss the airpump altogether. I've been running mine topfeed for years with great results, no airpump at all.

I'm using 9inch red frog diffuser rings. It doesn't get any better than these puppies. I was initially using 4 ft flexible diffuser tubes in each bucket but it became a pain to manage and anchor down once the air pump is turned on. The diffuser rings are weighted down with fender washers and the plants have been thriving in their nute bath.

redi jedi said:

The pump would be too hot to touch to discolor the hose. If it ever got this hot its pretty much fuct.

The rust could have come from a power outage...water flows back into the airpump if its not mounted higher than water level.

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So should I try to return it for an exchange?

Try a simple test first, remove the hose to your stones and let the pump run. If it runs cool, your diffusers are too restrictive.

While the pump is running hold some tissue up to the discharge and see if its spitting out rusty water.

jensen71 said:

Okay, I figured it out, the Y filter was clogged with nutrient and clay sediment. I had to clean the filter about 4 times this afternoon and now its working fine. Thank god for simplicity. Here's the 2 bucket setup with outtake in rear returns to a ball valve and then a Y filter and then a return to the water pump which pumps filtered nutrient through to both buckets via hosing to a tee bar to each bucket near the top of each bucket which water falls to center of each bucket or at least that's what it is doing.

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them see through homer buckets might cause future problems.but the set up looks great!!! do the air lines get warm at all?

A little bit. But these commercial air pumps run hot anyway.

redi jedi said:

If your air pumps are running hot you need more air stones or larger air stones.

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Why? How does more air stones or larger stones dissipate heat from the pump?

It allows the air pump to "breathe easy". The biggest source of heat is the electric motor...not air being compressed. The air the pump is moving is also removing heat from the motor. So if you restrict air flow, you restrict cooling.

So if you have 10lpm airpump, you need airstones that can flow the same amount...roughly.

redi jedi said:

It allows the air pump to "breathe easy". The biggest source of heat is the electric motor...not air being compressed. The air the pump is moving is also removing heat from the motor. So if you restrict air flow, you restrict cooling.

So if you have 10lpm airpump, you need airstones that can flow the same amount...roughly.

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The same amount or more! Use the large cyclinder air stones and you are more than safe lol.

Vumar said:

The same amount or more! Use the large cyclinder air stones and you are more than safe lol.

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Maybe...hard to say without any numbers. But the first thing most people do, when they want more air. Is get a bigger pump and use the same size stones.

ttystikk said:

Yours is about the umpteenth story I've heard about leaky uniseals. I use bulkhead fittings- and the makers of Undercurrent systems have followed my lead. That should say everything that needs saying about them.

I swear by these, never at them;
View attachment 3484368

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So if I need more water flow through my system am I forced to go 2" uni-seals? or do multiple 1" threaded bulkheads?

Vumar said:

So if I need more water flow through my system am I forced to go 2" uni-seals? or do multiple 1" threaded bulkheads?

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I went with several 1" bulkheads for each tubsite to prevent a clog from affecting flow. In the case of my 27 gallon tuffboxes, I used four per. I found I don't need as much flow through the tubs anymore with topfeed, so two per tub would probably be sufficient in that case.

If you NEED 2" holes between tubs, you should ask yourself if the aquatic attraction you're building needs a waterslide, cuz it's overkill for plants!

By the time the clog occurs, is it safe to assume that since it is coming from one bucket that the water pump will stop working or will it continue to pump to an active top feed delivery system which would overflow the nutes in that one bucket? The only way you could avoid a mess would be to create overflow tubing among the buckets so that the water level always remains the same among all the buckets. I had that setup in my original buckets which have become new net pots in case I'm lucky enough to experience that kind of root growth and need an extra 1-2 gallons of bucket space to continue feeding nutes to the roots until I need to start flushing. Actually, it wouldn't overflow, just come pretty close to it.

ttystikk said:

I went with several 1" bulkheads for each tubsite to prevent a clog from affecting flow. In the case of my 27 gallon tuffboxes, I used four per. I found I don't need as much flow through the tubs anymore with topfeed, so two per tub would probably be sufficient in that case.

If you NEED 2" holes between tubs, you should ask yourself if the aquatic attraction you're building needs a waterslide, cuz it's overkill for plants!

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So if I went with x4 bulkheads per tote how can I ensure my flow rates are even/consistent with the rest of the system.

Vumar said:

So if I went with x4 bulkheads per tote how can I ensure my flow rates are even/consistent with the rest of the system.

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lol...you can buy the spin tight bulkheads from Current Culture.