Sump Pump Advice Needed

[Bungy]

I am in the final planning stage of building my fish-house. I have recently been given a brand new central heating pump - now without going into too much detail this beasty is more than adequate to turn over my 800L 3 times per hour however I have one burning question that is CRITICAL to everything and that is in regard to the pumps cast iron construction - would this pose any threat to water quality?

ANY help in this regard would be most useful.

Thank you
Bungy

 

[rabbut]

First thought was yes risky, then, no not The Iron is a heavy metal that will disolve into the water. It will however oxidise adn coat over very quickly. Leave the innerds to soak for a few days in water in a warm place and job done After that, just go easy of cleaning, trying not to remove a layer of metal (oh yes, that is easy to do ) I'm not shure how you would plumb one TBH though, as I'm not 100% convinced that it will be submersible. It may need plumbing into a pipe from a bulkhead fixed into a hole in the side of your sump, rather than the usual sit it in the bottom and plumb into it

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Bungy]

Rabbut

Indeed thats exactly how it will work. It will be bolted to a piece of wood external of the sump with a pipe running into the final cleansed/filtered/heated section of the sump as the out-take. The other pipe of course will feed the filtered water into the tanks. Each tank/partition will have its own drilled overflow with bulkhead around 25mm out of which these will feed into a single larger return pipe back to the sump for re-filtering/heating. The uplift / feed section of pipework will be approx 22mm - this ensures that at no stage will I ever have too much water entering the tanks due to the slightly less diameter pipework than the overflows.

As for any potential threat to the fish through Iron letching into the water - I read an article recently whereby fish can gradually succombe to damaged gills through microscopic particles of Iron (these guys were actually trying to sell a device that gets rid of Iron from the water and thus overcomes this problem - which made me suspicious of its acuracy). Your response is comforting but im still not totally convinced that this pump will be ok - although clearly id like to use it.

 

[Schmill]

When I used to keep a pond many people used central heating pumps to move the water to and from their external filter systems. Of course then you are talking about probably a larger amount of water, but I'm not sure thats relevant if you still follow the same 'turnover / hr' rules.

 

[Bungy]

Schmill

Thanks for the contribution, I guess same rules apply regarding LPH but if the same water is being churned over and over then after a while in the same way as Nitrate builds up then Im assuming any toxins from the Iron pump will also build up but doing regular water changes must I guess limit this.

Still not sure.......MORE HELP PLEASE ANYONE...??

 

[Bungy]

I have only one week left to decide if to use this Central Heating pump or go out and buy a pond pump (more cost).....any advice from anyone in the know would be very much appreciated. I need to resolve this issue quickly because im cutting the glass and putting together the sump in a 3 footer this coming week and need to decide if to leave space for an internal pump or use this space for filtration if the external CH pump is to be used...!!

Thanks

Bungy

 

[Schmill]

Well, I guess at the end of the day there is your choice;

Option1) Use central Heating pump

• Cheap (already have the parts)
• Proven reliability
• Easy to replace (almost EVERYONE will have a central heating pump!)
• However, every time a fish get sick, or dies, will there be a nagging thought in the back of your mind of "I wonder if the heating pump has anything to do with it...", if so that thought is not likely to change no matter what anyone says on here.

Option2) Buy a specific 'for the job' pond pump

• More expensive
• Should be reliable, and if not should have a decent warranty.
• Not so easy to replace if your system is designed around a particular model, but make the system 'generic' enough and you won't have a problem.
• Peace of mind that the pump should be 'safe'.

It all comes down to how comfortable you are with it in your mind, (and how expensive that pond pump would be, although hopefully that would be a 'one off' expenditure), so only YOU can really make the choice.
I think I know which I would choose though now, and as a hint it would leave the heating pump free to use as a vacuum / refill pump