plumbing help

[Garth Schafluetzel]

ok so i redid my setup and everything is going fine expcept the fuge i added is getting to much water from the tank and the pump cant keep up im at my wits end on this one im to the point were im just going to put a gate valve on it and just keep a good eye on everything but if any one is in the north chat hixson area today and wants to stop by and offer there 2 cents it would be gratefully appreciated

 

[bkv1997]

garth:

I'll stop by tomorrow if you'll give me a time and an address.

Brandon

 

[ironman]

I cant invision your setup to give my opinion. If you are running a seperate tank as a refuge are you gravity feeding the drain? Is the refuge higher than the source you are returning the water to? If that is the case you should be able to regulate the volume of water with a valve to only allow the amount of water to enter the refuge that the refuges drain system can handle. Im sure if brandon can swing by there tomorrow he will help greatly.

 

[gflat65]

I'd love to speculate. Sounds like maybe a connection problem between the sump and fuge? If the plumbing between the two doesn't allow for free flow, it would run the sump side dry (assuming you had the fuge upstream from the sump), while leaving a rising level in the fuge (the fuge to sump plumbing becomes a bottleneck). When making a flow through connection like that, I make the add-on plumbing connections a larger area than the ins and out, if possible. What I mean is to calculate the area of the inlet pipe (pi rsquared) and compare to the outlet or connection piping. If you have 1" going into the fuge, come out with the equivalence of 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" pipe. You have to use nominal ID for this.

Of course, but Tee'ing of off the fuge feed line, you can valve off the amount going into the fuge, bypassing to the fuge somewhat and reducing the bottleneck. If the case I have described above is similar to the actual case, this might be an easier fix. It shouldn't drain faster than you can return it if everything is working on gravity with pumped return, so it sounds like there has to be a bottleneck.

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

brandon im off today i just got woke up to dry pumps my power head came out and pumped about 10gal on the floor i have a ball valve i can throw on but i sent you a pm with the address and you are welcome anytime today. and every one thanks for trying to help its realy hard to try to invision from a description i know

 

[bkv1997]

Yea garth from the sounds of it you are trying to do something that just ins't going to work, but i'll stop by around 10:30 this morning.

Its one of those things i'd rather lay my own eyes own before giving recommendations.

 

[bkv1997]

garth i'm stuck at work..... i'll give you a call when i leave.

Brandon

 

[gflat65]

Its one of those things i'd rather lay my own eyes own before giving recommendations.

That takes all of the fun out of it.

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

well i have a couple ideas to try out i realy think we made a little progress in the right way and i have to fix the noise though lol i understand what yoursaying about the pump pulling air in now because when it clears it sound like a waterfall lol there will be a trip to lowes in my future tonight

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

and thanks for your time today brandon i would have never known about the becket

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

well as long as my buddy gets here in time i should have everything worked out Brandon i ended up using a 20 gal i had sitting in the floor it fit better on that table but im just waiting on a ride to lowes

 

[bkv1997]

cool..

glad to see someone in the club actually appreciates me tweaking their skimmer..

I don't know what it is about me and skimmers.. my favorite part of the hobby

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

yeah i would have never known that man my buddy left me high and dry tonight so ill be finishing the work tomorrow ill be taking out thos 2 90degree bends in the skimmer and ill have the fuge back up and gowing in amatter of an hour but it wont be quit and not splashing untill tomorrow but it will be flood proof for the most again.

 

[Garth Schafluetzel]

spock to soon it is operational and will work great i believe but i didnt push on of my elbos in all the way and its got a small leak but i figure that if that and putting T's on the drains is all i have on the list tomorrow ill be alright but it will be a pain to cut and reglue the connection

 

[ironman]

Brandon should come up with a new screen name. like skiman, or orcab, or bnorca. LOL