Anyone use thier main drain to feed equipment?

[Smite]

I'm starting to think about plumbing and layout under the hood for my 75g peninsula build. I'd like to add my turbo aquatics ATS to my bashsea sump. I got to thinking if I could tee of my main drain before my gate valve to feed it?

I'm running the Herbie with main drain, siphon drain and emergency drain. The ATS has a main and e drain as well so I'm not concerned with blockage but would like to know of anyone has done something similar. I think I've seen some do it with their UV sterilizes

Pictureless threads suck so here is my progress so far. The tank is UNS with marinedepot L external overflow and will be sps dominant.

 

[AlexG]

I built a custom DIY Protein skimmer for my last build that was gravity fed from the main drain line. I used a gate valve on the main drain into the sump to control the flow of water into the protein skimmer. It worked out great for as long as the system was up. I plan to use the same method of feeding the skimmer for my new build. If you go this route make sure you do some testing to make sure that there are not any issues with initial pump startup or with pump shutdown.

 

[Privateye]

For many types of equipment it's fine, but I want to mention that it is not recommended with UV sterilizers.

UVs need to be filled with water. Not only is the performance/dosage related to how much water is in the pipe, but bubbles can also scatter light.

Most of the time it will void your warranty as well, as the layer of water between your lamp and vessel actually protects the vessel from being degraded. Not as big a deal if you have a metal vessel, but dealing with saltwater I doubt most of us do.

Still, in this orientation the performance is enough for some, and the convenience outweighs their need for a warranty. It's just not a recommended way to use a UV.

 

[Smite]

I built a custom DIY Protein skimmer for my last build that was gravity fed from the main drain line. I used a gate valve on the main drain into the sump to control the flow of water into the protein skimmer. It worked out great for as long as the system was up. I plan to use the same method of feeding the skimmer for my new build. If you go this route make sure you do some testing to make sure that there are not any issues with initial pump startup or with pump shutdown.

Nice, it sounds like it should work for an algae scrubber as well then. I never thought about a skimmer off the main, that seems like it would be extremely efficient!

For many types of equipment it's fine, but I want to mention that it is not recommended with UV sterilizers.

UVs need to be filled with water. Not only is the performance/dosage related to how much water is in the pipe, but bubbles can also scatter light.

Most of the time it will void your warranty as well, as the layer of water between your lamp and vessel actually protects the vessel from being degraded. Not as big a deal if you have a metal vessel, but dealing with saltwater I doubt most of us do.

Still, in this orientation the performance is enough for some, and the convenience outweighs their need for a warranty. It's just not a recommended way to use a UV.

That's great to know and makes perfect sense. I still plan to run a manifold but itd be nice to be able to get my scrubber off of it.

 

[Weasel1960]

I built a custom DIY Protein skimmer for my last build that was gravity fed from the main drain line. I used a gate valve on the main drain into the sump to control the flow of water into the protein skimmer. It worked out great for as long as the system was up. I plan to use the same method of feeding the skimmer for my new build. If you go this route make sure you do some testing to make sure that there are not any issues with initial pump startup or with pump shutdown.

Am looking at ways to reduce some start up costs thinking about DIY projects and yours is interesting but have some questions. Why send the drain water to the skimmer before pre filtering it through a sock? Isn’t that just making your skimmer work harder and making cleaning it more often? If that’s the case why not send it all to skimmer and just send the skimmate to a sock with no cup? Just thinking out loud, have never actually used one before so still learning principals here.

 

[AlexG]

Am looking at ways to reduce some start up costs thinking about DIY projects and yours is interesting but have some questions. Why send the drain water to the skimmer before pre filtering it through a sock? Isn’t that just making your skimmer work harder and making cleaning it more often? If that’s the case why not send it all to skimmer and just send the skimmate to a sock with no cup? Just thinking out loud, have never actually used one before so still learning principals here.

In my setup the filter socks were rarely used as my experience has taught me they can do more harm than good in some cases. In fact the last filter socks I kept in the system were almost there as joke to see how large then sponges growing in them would get. Without diving into filter socks though there were a few reasons that I diverted the water the way I did. My skimmer was built from a 60 gallon inductor tank so the body of the skimmer was very large. The top of the skimmer was almost at the same level as the 3" main drain-line from the displays so the water entering the skimmer would create a back pressure on the drain-line slowing water down creating a potential of a display flood without carefully regulating the water flow into the skimmer. The gate valve would regulate this back pressure and allow some of the water to drain into the sump via the filter sock tray and the rest would go to the skimmer. It took several months to figure out the right balance of water flow into the skimmer along with several modifications to the water flow into the skimmer body. In part this was a bit of an engineering flaw on my part as the skimmer neck should have been lowered a few inches to allow a higher rate of water flow into the skimmer while minimizing back pressure on the main drain line. By the time I realized this flaw was present it would have been a major project to correct so I elected to keep it in place since the skimmer was working as needed for the system. As for diverting the skimmate to a filter sock instead of the skimmer cup it would be best to utilize a skimmer cup as skimmer foam would easily clog a filter sock to the point where it would likely overflow skimmer waste back into the aquarium without extensive maintenance. I plan to reuse my skimmer for my new aquarium system and continue to use a gravity feed. I will also resolve the back pressure issue and make a few additional improvements to turbo charge this skimmer.

 

[Weasel1960]

In my setup the filter socks were rarely used as my experience has taught me they can do more harm than good in some cases. In fact the last filter socks I kept in the system were almost there as joke to see how large then sponges growing in them would get. Without diving into filter socks though there were a few reasons that I diverted the water the way I did. My skimmer was built from a 60 gallon inductor tank so the body of the skimmer was very large. The top of the skimmer was almost at the same level as the 3" main drain-line from the displays so the water entering the skimmer would create a back pressure on the drain-line slowing water down creating a potential of a display flood without carefully regulating the water flow into the skimmer. The gate valve would regulate this back pressure and allow some of the water to drain into the sump via the filter sock tray and the rest would go to the skimmer. It took several months to figure out the right balance of water flow into the skimmer along with several modifications to the water flow into the skimmer body. In part this was a bit of an engineering flaw on my part as the skimmer neck should have been lowered a few inches to allow a higher rate of water flow into the skimmer while minimizing back pressure on the main drain line. By the time I realized this flaw was present it would have been a major project to correct so I elected to keep it in place since the skimmer was working as needed for the system. As for diverting the skimmate to a filter sock instead of the skimmer cup it would be best to utilize a skimmer cup as skimmer foam would easily clog a filter sock to the point where it would likely overflow skimmer waste back into the aquarium without extensive maintenance. I plan to reuse my skimmer for my new aquarium system and continue to use a gravity feed. I will also resolve the back pressure issue and make a few additional improvements to turbo charge this skimmer.

Thanks for the insight.