DWC air pump and valves

I honestly never use the checkvalves. Got them about 14 years ago and never used them once. As long as the pump is above water level you are good to go, never had a siphon happen this way. Best of luck to you!

It's a priceless piece of equipment.

i think flippinugget is just trying to bring everyone together with this question... harmony...

if a siphon can't occur, then it should be fine, but the peace of mind is priceless. accidents happen.. maybe fucking around with soemthing, move the pump, forget to put it back.. etc etc..

Good to have a check valve in place. make the system redundant not problematic.

Like others have said should use it, but maybe space is an issue for you. So I’ll give you this, hydrostatic pressure works when the fluid is higher than the release point. So if pump is higher than bucket it would be impossible for it to backfill when the pumps off. But if something happens, say pump falls or hose disconnects and falls lower, you will have a mess.

Always use as many preventative measures as possible..............things can go wrong quickly, why risk everything for a .00 valve??

Good practice to install and use the one-way valves. Are you accounting for an exhaustive set of scenarios when hoping that placing it above water level will protect it? I could sit and think of a scenario with a power outage and some capillary action or siphoning effect which would result in water destroying your pump. Just use the valves. And add the pump filter to your weekly OpSec list.