herbie question

[ihavecrabs]

I have a sump pit in my fish room. I have 2 tanks plumbed into the pit. Both tanks have deep overflows with bean style silencers. The larger tank (250 gallons) has about a 6 foot drop and a 45’ horizontal run to the pit. The smaller tank (130 gallon) has about a 6 foot drop and a 25’ horizontal run to the pit. I have my gate valves right in the pit just about the water. Both tanks will settle into full siphon after a power cycle within 30-60 seconds.

So I have to ask.. Why a sump pit for your tanks? Is this to help maintain a cooler temperature in a warmer climate?

Very cool nonetheless

 

[KenO]

I don't think I've seen a sump pit before. Pretty cool! #reefsquad

I don’t have a basement, and I wanted a remote equipment room. I wanted the drain lines to flow to the room. The only way to make it work was to have the drain lines enter the equipment room lower than the floor. A sump pit was the only option. The pit is 4’ long, 4’ deep and 32” wide. I wanted it 36” wide, but the concrete guy made a mistake in his measurements, so it ended up 32” wide.

 

[KenO]

So I have to ask.. Why a sump pit for your tanks? Is this to help maintain a cooler temperature in a warmer climate?

Very cool nonetheless

See my response in the previous post. I do live in AZ where it does get hot. I’m still in the testing phase and my tanks are not running SW yet, but it will be interesting to see how the water temperature varies over the year.

 

[TheEngineer]

Temperature is an interesting part of this... have you been able to maintain it? The ground tends to be stable at around 55 degrees. That’s gonna sap a ton of heat from your tank.

 

[KenO]

Temperature is an interesting part of this... have you been able to maintain it? The ground tends to be stable at around 55 degrees. That’s gonna sap a ton of heat from your tank.

With the little testing I’ve done, it doesn’t appear to be an issue. So in AZ during the summer, water out of the tap runs warm. I haven’t measured the ground temperature, but I would assume it must also be pretty warm since the tap water is warm. When I filled my tanks with tap water for testing, the water temp was 88 degrees. The next morning the water temp was just under 78 degrees. After a couple of days of letting the tanks run the water temp in the tanks was just under 77 degrees. I keep my house between 78-80 degrees. I was running 3 of my 4 return pumps. I have 4 DCP-20000 pumps. 2 were running at 60 watts and the 3rd was running at 110 watts. So a total of 230 watts. Based on my testing I would think once the 4th pump is running I will be at 250-275 watts. I will be adding a frag tank setup and the pump will also be in the pit. That should add another 25-30 watts. So I will be running around 300 watts per hour with my return pumps. I also have 2 Reef Octopus Varios 6 pumps that will be running 2 closed loops on my 250 gallon. They consume 70 watts each when running at maximum. They are external pumps so some of the heat is lost to the air. My total water volume will be around 500 gallons. So maybe the pit might be a plus to help absorb heat from all the pumps. I just installed the 2 Varios 6 pumps today. I will be testing them and the 4th return pump in my next round of testing. I will post my temperature numbers after the next round of testing.

 

[ihavecrabs]

With the little testing I’ve done, it doesn’t appear to be an issue. So in AZ during the summer, water out of the tap runs warm. I haven’t measured the ground temperature, but I would assume it must also be pretty warm since the tap water is warm. When I filled my tanks with tap water for testing, the water temp was 88 degrees. The next morning the water temp was just under 78 degrees. After a couple of days of letting the tanks run the water temp in the tanks was just under 77 degrees. I keep my house between 78-80 degrees. I was running 3 of my 4 return pumps. I have 4 DCP-20000 pumps. 2 were running at 60 watts and the 3rd was running at 110 watts. So a total of 230 watts. Based on my testing I would think once the 4th pump is running I will be at 250-275 watts. I will be adding a frag tank setup and the pump will also be in the pit. That should add another 25-30 watts. So I will be running around 300 watts per hour with my return pumps. I also have 2 Reef Octopus Varios 6 pumps that will be running 2 closed loops on my 250 gallon. They consume 70 watts each when running at maximum. They are external pumps so some of the heat is lost to the air. My total water volume will be around 500 gallons. So maybe the pit might be a plus to help absorb heat from all the pumps. I just installed the 2 Varios 6 pumps today. I will be testing them and the 4th return pump in my next round of testing. I will post my temperature numbers after the next round of testing.

I had the same concern/question as Engineer. Glad to see things are going well with temp so far. Definitely following along.

My whole setup is in the basement and my 600w of heaters run a lot. My poor electric bill lol.

 

[KenO]

I had the same concern/question as Engineer. Glad to see things are going well with temp so far. Definitely following along.

My whole setup is in the basement and my 600w of heaters run a lot. My poor electric bill lol.

What temperature do you keep your tank at?

I currently run my other tanks (not connected to the sump pit) at 78 degrees.

Have you looked into a hot water loop from your hot water tank?

I guess if the pit was pulling too much heat from my tanks, I could put a layer of foam insulation. Right now the walls of the pit have just flex seal to make them water tight. If I added the foam I could add a rubber liner.

I was actually hoping I could run the tanks without heaters since I have a heavy pump wattage which will add heat to the water.

 

[KenO]

I think we strayed from the original intent of this thread. Maybe a moderator could move our posts to a new thread to keep this thread focused on what the OP started it for.