Plumbing tank and sump

[Defect]

Another question from me, I am wondering if it really is as simple as it sounds. Attach PVC to bulkhead in the bottom of the overflow. Then attach some flex PVC to return pump up to the return. Done? I want a ball valve for the overflow plumbing.

 

[wuuzzzuuppp]

Yep pretty much that easy. You will want either a check valve or to drill a couple small holes in your return line (up in the display close to the water line) so it doesnt syphon all the water out of the display onto your floor =/

 

[Mike J.]

Do not depend on a check valve - big period. Also, although I have a hole drilled in the return right below the water line I've learned not to depend on it, too. It's best to keep your return close to the top of the water or at least high enough where it won't overflow the sump.

 

[Whys Alives]

You probably don't want a ball-valve on your overflow. I assume you mean your drain line. It's risky to restrict your drain line. A ball-valve on the return line is definitely a good thing to have tho, if that's what you meant.

 

[Defect]

You will want either a check valve or to drill a couple small holes in your return line (up in the display close to the water line) so it doesnt syphon all the water out of the display onto your floor =/

Also, although I have a hole drilled in the return right below the water line I've learned not to depend on it, too. It's best to keep your return close to the top of the water or at least high enough where it won't overflow the sump.

Whaaaaa? I guess I dont understand where I would be drilling a hole and now im worried about flooding everything! lol.

 

[Eric B]

What they are saying is drill a tiny 1/8" hole somewhere at the upper part of your return line usually above water line. It will suck air from there if the power to return pump is loss and prevents tank water from flowing into your sump until the end of the return breaks the siphon. I usually drill mine on the under side of the pvc 90 fitting on the return so that the water shoots into the overflow. Hope that answers the question that you had.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Melevsreef.com | Acrylic Sumps & Refugiums

Ball valve would be put on the return line, but it would be a T off the return line back to the sump to fine tune return gph.

 

[Mike J.]

When the power is off the return pump quits running and all the water above the nozzle is going to drain back down into the sump. That's why my sump runs half full. You can drill a hole in the nozzle of the return right below the water line to break the siphon, but I've learned not to depend on that little hole.

Another consideration when setting up a sump is that I have my return section small enough that the pump will run dry before overflowing the main tank if your overflow gets clogged. Once I came home to the return pump running dry and the water was actually on the top of the frame, but didn't run over. That was too close for comfort so I lowered the water level in the sump a 1/2".

 

[Defect]

Alright, I think I got the concept of the tiny holes now and it makes complete sense. Ball valve only on return line. I think I get it now.

Thanks,

Aaron

 

[AZDesertRat]

You do not want a check valve or a ball valve on the overflow, both will get you in trouble.
The overflow should be 100% unrestricted, the return pump determines the flow rate not the overflow.
A check valve is a false sense of security and can and will fail. It does not have to be a catastrophic failure, even a trickle will flood in time. As long as you keep the return close to the surface so an air gap is created when the power goes off and you maintain sufficient freeboard or extra room in the sump you will never experience a return related flood ever. An air gap is the best form of backflow prevention known to man and cannot be defeated nor requires any cleaning or maintenance like check valves and drilled holes that still fail 5 minutes later. No drilled holes!

Melev has the best article on sumps but he is wrong on the tee and returning water to the sump. Not only is this noisy but it is also very inefficient, makes the pump work harder and consumes more electricity. Place a ball valve in the return line to the tank and regulate flow by adding head, which lesses the work the pump must do and reduces the power consumption, usually making the pump more efficient and quieter.

 

[Bad Company]

Also, your overflow will be stupid noisy if you allow water to cash to the bottom, then find it's way into the bulkhead. Will it work? Yes. but you will probably grow tired of the noise. google "herbie overflow" or "bean animal overlow" for safe, reliable, quiet drains. Also on your return, plumb the outlet high in your tank. If the power cuts off, the water will drain back to the sump until the whole outlet is clear of the water.

In the pic below, my eturn to the tank is on the top right. When I shut off the return pump, my water level drains out of the display lovering the water level in my display by about 1.5". this is fine, as my sump can handle that additional 5 gallons or so. Whenever you plumb your system, think about the following:

1. What happens in a power outage? They can easily happen.
2. How will I replace my equipment? This is inevitable over time.
3. Can I change the fittings on my return or drains? You may want to tweak you system.
4. Can I later change the height of my returns or drains? For flow, noise, safety, etc.
5. Will there be room for my equipment? Skimmers, algae scrubbers, ATO etc take up room
6. What happens if a snail plugs a pipe? This can easily happen as well. They go EVEYWHERE.
7. What happens if I need to replace my sump? I had to rebuild my sump twice because I was learning to use silicone... Valves, geometry, and unions made his elatively easy.
Try to think about all the "what ifs" and have a plan or two.

Good luck!

 

[Defect]

So if I point the locline towards the waters surface there will be no need for holes drilled correct? I could drill the holes for extra protection I suppose. My overflow lets water in 1 1/2 inches from the top of the tank as where my return is 3 1/2 down from the top of the tank so even if I drilled holes in it, it would still lose 2 inches of water which is about 4 1/2 gallons of water. If I put the locline at 1 inch below the water surface I would only lose 2 1/2 gallons. Then the other problem comes into play which is the return returns to much water and sprays out the top. So.....normally how much extra water volume is in a sump? Heres a picture of my sump. It is 20x18x15

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Defect]

Also, your overflow will be stupid noisy if you allow water to cash to the bottom, then find it's way into the bulkhead. Will it work? Yes. but you will probably grow tired of the noise. google "herbie overflow" or "bean animal overlow" for safe, reliable, quiet drains.

Looked at those systems your talking about but it looks like you need atleast 2 holes in the overflow which I dont have. So can I put a peice of PVC running up the bulkhead and split it with a T and just have a backup about 6 inches above the main drain hole? I dont even know if I can attach PVC to the bulkhead I have here.

 

[Whys Alives]

You do not want a check valve or a ball valve on the overflow, both will get you in trouble.
A check valve is a false sense of security and can and will fail.

While I largely agree, failure is not a foregone conclusion. I spent over 5 years proving it. Test thoroughly and replace annually, and avoid if possible.

An air gap is the best form of backflow prevention known to man and cannot be defeated nor requires any cleaning or maintenance like check valves and drilled holes that still fail 5 minutes later. No drilled holes!

Too true. I had a drilled hole on my HOB aquafuge and nearly destroyed the acrylic when my heater ran dry due to back siphon. The hole had become completely encrusted with coraline. Lesson learned.

 

[Ginu]

Looked at those systems your talking about but it looks like you need atleast 2 holes in the overflow which I dont have. So can I put a peice of PVC running up the bulkhead and split it with a T and just have a backup about 6 inches above the main drain hole? I dont even know if I can attach PVC to the bulkhead I have here.

I'm not a guru on this matter but from experience, you need to create a full siphon which is controlled by the gate on the main down-pipe ... the second down-pipe should be a straight emergency down-pipe and in case something gets stuck in the gate, the emergency picks up the load making wicked noise. if you connect a second pipe to the main siphon, i don't see how you can properly create a siphon.

Honestly I would look into getting a second hole drilled in there since it doesn't look like the tank is setup yet... I just changed my setup to a herbie and its dead silent... totally worth the time although I'm not satisfied with the setup as my return has to come over the tank; Id much rather have a overflow with three holes drilled, one for the herbie, one for the emergency and one for return.

With that being said look into ghost overflows by Reef Savvy... amazing overflows and it doesn't take much away from the tank.. Downside here is getting your hands on one and getting two holes drilled on the back of the tank (assuming you have the right type of glass on that panel to drill holes).

 

[AZDesertRat]

Go with a simple Dusro or better yet Stockman style standpipe. They are as simple as it gets and the Stockman is almost impossible to plug or foul with its shrouded design. It takes up much less room in the overflow box too and has been in use for 15 or more years successfully. If you are not big into DIY the Maggie Muffler is a ready made knockoff of the Stockman design.

My sump is a standard 30 gallon long AGA aquarium with home made baffles. In normal use it is around 8-9" deep where the skimmer works best so has plenty of extra room to contain the maximum 3.4 gallons of backflow from my 3/4" submerged returns in a 5 foot long 100G reef.

 

[Ginu]

You do not want a check valve or a ball valve on the overflow, both will get you in trouble.
The overflow should be 100% unrestricted, the return pump determines the flow rate not the overflow.
A check valve is a false sense of security and can and will fail. It does not have to be a catastrophic failure, even a trickle will flood in time. As long as you keep the return close to the surface so an air gap is created when the power goes off and you maintain sufficient freeboard or extra room in the sump you will never experience a return related flood ever. An air gap is the best form of backflow prevention known to man and cannot be defeated nor requires any cleaning or maintenance like check valves and drilled holes that still fail 5 minutes later. No drilled holes!

Melev has the best article on sumps but he is wrong on the tee and returning water to the sump. Not only is this noisy but it is also very inefficient, makes the pump work harder and consumes more electricity. Place a ball valve in the return line to the tank and regulate flow by adding head, which lesses the work the pump must do and reduces the power consumption, usually making the pump more efficient and quieter.

There are quite a few things I don't agree with your post above:

1. I think you're confusing a check valve and a gate valve... why would someone want to put a check valve on a overflow?
2. you would want a gate valve on the overflow main pipe to regulate the siphon through that pipe matching the return if the OP would be to run a herbie or bean animal where a emergency line is present and in this case the overflow main down pipe needs to be toned down to create a dead silent siphon with no air being sucked in it
4. a durso or standman down pipe needs air to function, which will not be dead silent no matter how much tinkering will be done to quiet the thing down. the noise can easily change as the pump gets clogged with detritus, small snails/snailshells and just normal use in between cleanings.


Check valves on the other hand are iffy and I suggest using them in conjunction with other fail-safe methods(or don't use them at all) to insure the tank doesn't create a disaster during a back siphon in-case of a power outage. Now with that being said the reefer should have a sump big enough to withstand all the siphoned water when the return nozzle is at its lowest point(I've had my return nozzle lowered due to a few things)...
Making sure the sump is adequate in size will go a long way and not for the volume of water running in the sump, but for the total volume which the sump can withstand in case a extreme back siphon for water-ever reason.

Go with a simple Dusro or better yet Stockman style standpipe. They are as simple as it gets and the Stockman is almost impossible to plug or foul with its shrouded design. It takes up much less room in the overflow box too and has been in use for 15 or more years successfully. If you are not big into DIY the Maggie Muffler is a ready made knockoff of the Stockman design.

My sump is a standard 30 gallon long AGA aquarium with home made baffles. In normal use it is around 8-9" deep where the skimmer works best so has plenty of extra room to contain the maximum 3.4 gallons of backflow from my 3/4" submerged returns in a 5 foot long 100G reef.

Are you sure a 3/4 submerged return = 3.4 gallons in a 5ft 100gal tank if it would be to back siphon? Ive had large snail push down my return and I can tell you that was more than 3.4 gallons of water which got back-siphoned into my sump which was luckily more than enough to take the water as I run around 20 gallons of water in a 36 gallon custom sump...and currently I have a 4 ft 75gal tank

I've run a durso, standman and herbie overflows and I can tell you the most efficient and quietest is the herbie style overflow not to mention the tuning capability of a herbie is superior and extremely easy over the other two.
Basically a herbie is a full siphon with an unobstructed standman pipe as a emergency

Alright, I think I got the concept of the tiny holes now and it makes complete sense. Ball valve only on return line. I think I get it now.

Thanks,

Aaron

If you keep the tank the way it is now, you have no choice but to run a durso or standman pipe in the overflow (keep in mind Herbie and Bean Animal are superior style of overflows)...and since your tank is not setup, I recommend taking the time to do it right as it will be much much harder to change something once the tank is all up and running. I would check with local reefers to see how their overflow is setup and I suggest looking and listening to at least 2-3 tanks running a durso or a stockman and one running a herbie.

 

[AZDesertRat]

Nope, not confusing a thing.
Look at post #1, the OP mentions installing a ball valve in the overflow which is a bad idea.
Post #2 mentions using a check valve in the return circuit, again a bad idea.

The Herbie and bean animal complicate an extremely simple siphon overflow and are no more silent than a Stockman and much larger so take up valuable real estate in the overflow box. With a Stockman the siphon holes are shielded by a 2" PVC coupling so almost impossible to plug the entire circumference. The air intake noise is taken care of with a simple drilled hole in the cap or plug on top with a short piece of airline tubing fed down into it. Extremely simple and very very reliable and effective. Been using one for over 10 years now, tried many others but keep coming back to the Stockman. No cleaning, no tuning, no flushing effect and dead silent,


OK some math now, remember length x width x height divided by 231. My tank is 60" long by 18" front to back and the overflow is 3/4" below the surface. So 60x18x.75 = 810 cubic inches and there are 231 cubic inches in a gallon of water so 810/231= 3.50 gallons. Thats 3.5 gallons that can possibly siphon back to the sump before the overflows are exposed to atmosphere and the siphon breaks. I misspoke by 0.1 gallons. We all know water cannot jump uphill so it cannot be defeated and that is the maxmum backflow in my case. I keep around 9+ gallons of freeboard at all times so I can sleep soundly at night.

Herbie and Bean are not superior overflows, that is strictly a matter of opinion and not based on fact or science. Try whatever yu want or feel comfortable with, none are wrong or right, just different and fun to play around with. It helps when you have several side by side to play with for comparison. I also suggest visiting as many properly set up tanks as possible and don't take one or two peoples opinions as gospel.

 

[gcrawford]

Herbie is the way to go for certain situations if and only if you have two drains. A ball valve at the bottom of one of the drains tuned properly will fill the hose or pipe and will be totally silent. The second drain can have a stockman, which is how my 75 is set up. It has a small trickle coming out and will take the entire flow (although noisy) if the ball valve restricted drain gets clogged. The gurgle would be an automatically audible alarm, although it has never clogged.

-g

 

[Defect]

Question, my return bulkhead is 1/2 inch. Do I have to use 1/2 inch plumbing for the entire return plumbing because of this or can I use 3/4 inch like the overflow?