Freshwater Sump

[WoodenChair]

Dont forget to come back to us with pictures of everything your building.

I cant give someone this much help sumping without seeing the finished product.






-Chairman Wood

 

[myenigmaself]

Don't worry, I won't leave out a single detail. I'm just waiting to hear back from marineandreef.com to make sure the parts I order will fit together. The whole barb/hose thing is a little confusing, so I want to make sure my pieces will go together before I actually order (should I be using a 3/4" barb for a 1" pipe? the 1" doesn't specify if it's the inner or outer diameter so I'm assuming outer, but I'm not sure). As soon as I get that hammered out and my tank and glass back I'll start another thread. I also need to figure out where I can get a 1/2"FPTx1"FPT reducing coupling and MPT elbows. I'm just going to look locally so I don't have to waste money on shipping.

Thanks again for all the help

 

[WoodenChair]

my original thought was to buy the pieces online and just match numbers. But the world of PVC is pretty out of control, i too had to actually drive to the store and physically touch and assemble stuff there and bring it back, but now that i have, i feel safe ordering parts offline.



-Chairman Wood

 

[myenigmaself]

I made my first purchases today (beyond the tanks and stand of course)! I found a bunch of parts a lot cheaper at the local hardware store, but they also didn't carry a lot of the pieces I needed. It looks like I'll be making my local purchase, and two online purchases from two different retailers. I get double binged by shipping, but unfortunately I couldn't find one place that carried all the fittings I needed (and I ended up not getting the free shipping since my order size dropped by buying some stuff locally, but it still made sense as I saved almost $5 a piece on each ball valve alone).

Today I bought:
10' of reinforced nylon 1" tubing (it was only a few cents more than the regular tubing, so I figured why not)
3 threaded 1" ball valves
4 threaded 1" MPTx3/4" FPT reducing couplings
1 threaded 3/4" MPTx1/2" FPT reducing coupling
4 steel hose clamps

Remaining:
10' of tubing (they come in 10' segments, so I figured it would be prudent to test my tube before I bought more)
1 Pondmaster Mag Drive 7
4 1" thread x thread bulkheads
1 3/4" FPT x 3/4" Hose Barb Adapter
3 3/4" MPT x 3/4" Hose Barb Adapter
1 3/4" MPT x 3/4" Hose Barb Adapter 90degree elbow
6 1" MPT x FPT 90degree elbows
3 1" nipples
1 tube of aquarium-safe silicone

I should be getting my tanks back tomorrow or the day after. I just waiting to hear back from one of the retailers to make sure schedule 80 nipples will fit with the schedule 40 FPT elbow joint. If I get the thumbs up I'll push the button and everything will be ordered.

 

[three-fingers]

Sounds cool, will be watching this thread .

While everyone's here, can I hijack slightly (it is sump related ).

I've been looking at charts and the like online to try calculate how fast my tank would drain given a certain hose diameter.

My question is, can you have too big a pump in a sump? Or does it not matter what size it is as longs as it pumps faster than the tank drains?

I was thinking something in the region of 2000-3000 lph for a 700l tank.

 

[rabbut]

You want the pump slower that the tank drains after head-height allowances, or the tank will overfill and make a mess of the carpet

You set the water level with either a weir or the position of where you drill the holes in the tank. The water can only drain to the level of the weir or holes, so it will fill to above that level, start a syphen and drain down the the hole/wier level before stalling out and the process then repeats, unless you use a calfo, then you have the duroso taking just less then the return pump is pushing, and a hole in the back then takes the excess down without a syphen forming and caursing loads of noise There are other ways to do it, but that's my perfured.

All the best
Rabbut

 

[myenigmaself]

I also found an overflow calculator (given the size of your pump it tells you how big the overflow pipe should be):
[URL="http/www.reefcentral.com/calc/drain.php"]http/www.reefcentral.com/calc/drain.php[/URL]

If you already have the drain and know the dimensions you could fiddle around with the numbers to see how big of a pump you need.

As rabbut said, remember to take the head (vertical pumping required) into account in your figures. For Mag Drive model pumps I found this chart telling you what your actual flow rate will be given the pump and head. You may find it useful. This is manufacturer specific, although the general idea is the same across manufacturers.

 

[three-fingers]

That makes sense, what was I thinking?

I was thinking of a sump as like a big canister filter...but then, if canister filters were open, they would leak...lol.

Cheers guys .

 

[myenigmaself]

FYI, I started workin' on the tanks:

[URL="http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=276116"]http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=276116[/URL]