Hi all. So I wanted to update as to the status of my pesky backwash overflow while filtering. It continued to get worse yesterday. The trickle turned into a full on flow. So in the words of Gordon Ramsay I "Shut it down!" At that point I was full on frustrated and not sure what to do.

I went back and re-read posts from you all to see if I could "see through the cloudy water" so to speak. I kept coming back to one thing: the spider gasket inside the Vari-Flo valve. My thought was this is the only plausible problem. I know that they are supposed to be sealed in place with some sort of adhesive. The reason why everyone says when you replace it to make sure you scrape the channel clean before putting in a new one with adhesive. Well don't you know the spider gasket inside the new Vari-Flo valve I installed wasn't sealed in place. I took the valve assembly off and the thing actually fell out. So I figured that was why there was a leak.

So last night my father-in-law called and offered his assistance to help diagnose the problem. I told him the above about the spider gasket and that at this stage I'm 99% sure it's the issue. He offered to come down and help, more for moral support than anything. We took it apart, took out the gasket, put in a silicone-based water approved sealant (approved for use inside aquariums) into the gasket channel, and reset the gasket. Guess I'll find out tomorrow if it worked.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and help. Greatly appreciated. I hope this is my solution.

Kevin