Sump Plumbing

[drag]

im making a sump for my tank but i was wondering about the plumbing involved. is there some special type of glue for the pvc pipes and fittings or is the regular primer and regular glue safe to use?

 

[Musho3210]

i used the regular primer and glue, but some just skip the primer all together. Spaflex should use a different type of glue though, for it to be bonded longer.

 

[drag]

yeah i figure is pvc and regular glue is good enough for drinking water than it should be reef safe.

Any objections?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, quite reef safe, just use the regular stuff. I wouldn't gamble by NOT priming...

 

[drag]

Cool, How long should it take the glue to fully cure to where the chemicals wont harm the fish? .... i cant wait

and any special precaution like washing in fresh water before use or something?

 

[SkiFletch]

Cool, How long should it take the glue to fully cure to where the chemicals wont harm the fish? .... i cant wait

and any special precaution like washing in fresh water before use or something?

Read the bottle

Which will tell you probably something like its workable in a couple hours but full cure should be allowed 24 hours. No need to rinse it. All the bad stuff has already evaporated into thin air.

 

[andywg]

Yeah, quite reef safe, just use the regular stuff. I wouldn't gamble by NOT priming...

How strange. I can't recall even ever seeing a primer for sale over here, let alone ever thought about using one.

 

[SkiFletch]

Huh, for real? Well, over here I can tell you what happens when plumbers forget to use primer on 2" pipe full of propylene glycol and water... Perhaps we use slightly different solvent concentrations over here. *shrug*

 

[BigC]

I couldnt find primer either when I plumbed my sump. I just gave the pipe ends and connectors a real good clean, made sure there was no burr on the pipe ends applied the glue to both pipe and fitting, pushed together and gave a quarter turn. No Leaks
Regards
BigC

 

[drag]

ok, well i'm putting the final touches on the plumbing ( for now, i plan to add a 20 gal refugium later) hopefully ill post a pic tomorrow. i used a couple of unions so i can get it all apart for maintanance.

i did prime, thanks for the advice.

 

[drag]

ok as promised some pics...


eshopps overflow

eshopps overflows and return

my coralife 220 skimmer i did not add the bubble diffuser as the two bubble traps are working excellent.

i used 4 unions total so i can get everything apart for maintanance later.

skimmer and return pipe

return pump is a mag 1200 ( which turned out to be a little much but the ball valves fine tuned it great. i might make some of my own overflow boxes ( like the meleves reef exaple) to increse my turnover rate . i hope to match the 1200 flow as good as i can.as you can see the main valve is only abouy 1/4 open.

i plan to integrate a refugium later. so what do you think on the turn out?




1 maroon and 2 ocellaris clowns that get along fine in this 170 gal ( just like to throw that in )

and now for the next thing i need advice on is my lighting for this 170 gal tank( i know the galss is dirty )

ill post new topic for this one later on today. thanks again for all the advice.

 

[SkiFletch]

Looks good

Have you tested the power outage scenario?

 

[drag]

yeah the power outage scenario it worked great with about 3 gallons of spare space for more water after it was all said and done.

i had an idea after the overflows were trapping air bubble over time. late night at about 10:30 i was watching the 1939 old wizard of Oz rerun when bam it hit me . i thought what if the reason when i open the valve i run out of water in the sump is because theres not enough water to catch up in the display to drain. so i opened the valve slowly and added water to compensate for the loss and wow now the main valve is 3/4 open as to the 1/4 it was before. the drain is awsome fast, so fast that the bubble it was creating in the overflow now travel all the way though the other side. thats right no trapped bubbles.Dare i open it more

... now how do i quiet the noise???

 

[drag]

i added a pice of pipe with a 90 in the bulk head it seemed to cut the noise in at least half.

any more tips on quieting the overflow bulkhead?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, drill the 90 fitting at the top of the angle and either glue in some 3/16" tubing, or tap with a barb and attach some This will allow the drain to breathe and not make sucking sounds.

Also, you're supposed to run it close to the max rate of the box to keep bubbles out of the U-tube. Good thinking