Ballast bags keep emptying on their own
 

I've got a 2013 x25. I got the wakemakers piggyback ballast kit and have 750 lb fly highs piggybacked into the rear. I noticed that they will fill to full but then after even just leaving the boat sit at the dock for a few hours they are about 1/2 full. Maybe a little Fuller. So I did some reading and think maybe it's because all the plumbing is below the level of the ballast bags. So I ran the fill drain hose that is coming out of the hard tanks old vent and went up under the rub rail as high as I could then back to the the fill/drain hole on the bag. Still have the same problem. Didn't seem to help a bit. It's not leaking anywhere. No bilges kick on and there's nothing wet back there. Only fix I have so far is to put ball valves in line but that's a pain esp if you want to tweak some in between riders or sets. Anyone have any answers here? Wakemakers acted like they had never heard of this problem but I know it happens to more people. The running the line higher was a suggested fix on team talk because apparently that's how they come stock now but it didn't help my situation. And they told me to check my impellers on the pumps and they are all good. Any help or links to helpful threads that I must have missed would be awesome!

so you have reversible pumps that are siphon draining through the pumps? and impellers are fine? definitely weird.

for aerator systems, you'd install a check valve to keep them from siphoning. draining through another hose and pump.

can you confirm your hard tanks aren't leaking?

Yea they are the stock mastercraft pumps. I believe it's the jabsco ballast puppies. I don't think the hard tanks are emptying because no water is found in the bilge. Occasionally I do have the bilge spit water but I attributed that to the water rolling up over the back because on the x25 with those back seats the gunwale is pretty low and water easy rolls over it. Maybe I need to do some more investigation on the hard tanks. Aside from filling them and watching the bilge while sitting still I don't know how else to check it. The amount of water that bilges does not seem like near enough for what the bags empty. It's almost half of each bag so that would be a lot of water.

if you refill, same thing?

Yep I periodically refill through out the day.

It could also be "gravity" emptying when you're running the boat and the force of the boat being at an angle is pushing the water out of the drain hose. I put a ball valve on both my drain & vent hoses. Not hard to do either, and worth it. I know it can be a pain to not adjust the wake on the fly with the dash controls, but there may not be any other choice in your situation.

Yea I had ball valves in before I did the re routing of the hose up. Under the rub rail so I may have to put them back in. I think it is gravity but this happens to me when the boat is at rest as well

ball valves would be easier than trying to chase down leaks. you could at least eliminate siphoning.

teach your crew where the valves are and what they do. make them easily accessible and easy to understand. likely be happy to flip one for you every now and then

What color are the impellors?

Didn't they have a problem with a certain color impellors allowing water to slowly pass by them.

Yea ball valves will be my work around but I just want to know how the stock systems do bags like that. All the MC gen 2 boats have them. I can't imagine they empty. .

And I believe they are green.

I would put my money on worn out impellers letting the water syphon back through. The green ones are the softest


http://www.mastercraft.com/teamtalk/...p/t-58210.html

I installed ball valves last night. I'm going to replace the impellers anyways when I get time. They are a pain to get to.

I would just replace one and see if that help that tank.

Good idea. Which color is supposed to be the best

You want the green impellers. Black is the super old impeller which leaked. Black was replaced by yellow which was better. Yellow was replaced by green.

Here is the kit with the O-ring and lube: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Here is the impeller only: https://www.wakemakers.com/jabsco-ba...-impeller.html

Not that uncommon. Back in the day on our Xstar we used to just run the pumps on fill all day.