Surge Devices And Sumps

[xxBarneyxx]

There is probably something I'm missing here but is it possible to get a surge tank and sump working on the same tank?

The way I understand it (which is probably wrong) is that you have a pump in your display tank that fills your surge tank to a certain point. When the surge tank reaches a certain level a float valve opens and the water rushes back to the main tank.

If you are using this with an overflow/sump though wouldnt it cause problems? If you have the overflow too high then the dropping water level in the main tank (as the surge tank is being filled) would stop it working. If you have the overflow lower to over come this you run the risk of flooding the sump if the return pump ever failed.

I probably wont go for a surge tank on my main system but was just curious if there was a solution.

 

[AK77]

Hmm I can see what you mean regarding the water level being pumped too low if being fed from the main tank. However, if the main tank is being fed by the sump, the water level wouldn't drop so far as to interfere with the overflow, provided the sump pump was rated higher than the surge tank pump. It would be as if the sump pump was only pumping a smaller amount of water, while the surge was being filled. You would just have to ensure that the overflow could handle the surge volume re-entering the tank so that it wouldn't cause it to flood.


Came across this. Thought it might explain the surge tank idea.

And this one too

 

[andywg]

The overflow will only ever have water going into it at the rate water is pumped out of the sump.

Your problem here will be the size of the return chamber in the sump. If you pump out of the main tank as well as pumping water in from the sump then less will overflow into the sump than is being pumped up, meaning the sump will be draining. If you pump too much out then the sump will drain dry.

Rather than a surge tank, look at stuff like a Tunze wavebox which creates a wave function.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah I was looking at the wave boxes as well which seem like a much easier option with a lot less potential for flooding the house

With a 120g uk sized tank and Wavebox 6212 would you still need to use any additional powerheads or would this do the trick? I was looking at 4-5 powerheads and wave controller anyway so the wavebox is no more expensive if I dont need anything else (and if I do then it probably wotn be a lot more overall for a big improvement).

 

[AK77]

Also reading on those links, it seem the surge tanks are pretty noisey too and sodding ugly. Be a nightmare trying to hide those unless you had some massive enclosure.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

The reason I was thinking of a surge tank is that I actually have a whole wall to work with so could build a cupboard to the side to hide it. I'm much to lazy though and have non-exsistant DIY skills so will go for the easy option

 

[andywg]

The wavebox would depend on how you run it.

If you have it connected to the included light sensor it will shut off once all your lights are off, meaning you would need at least a small amount of turnover (say 10x or so) for night time to keep the tank turning over. But you could always just leave it on permanently. I plan to soon supplement (once the slackers at Royal Mail remember to work for their pay) mine with another 2 Tunze 6045 (making 3 for 13,500LPH in addition to the wavebox) but I am looking at keeping nothing but hard corals, and almost exclusively SPS.

You can go mad and link the waveboxes to a tunze multicontroller (limiting you to the larger controllable powerheads like the 6055) and have 6 hours with the wavebox off (slack in the tide) and then 6 hours of waves to simulate the tide coming in.