Remote sump drain line question

[erichuyn]

Hi to all reading and thanks in advance for sharing you thoughts and knowledge!

I have a Red Sea Reefer 425XL and 'thanks' to a houseplumbing mishap we got new flooring from the insurance company. While this was happening I had the idea to put 4x32mm(about 1 1/4 inch) PVC in the concrete floor for reef tank purposes.

The idea was to have a return, a drain and an emergency just like the standard Red Sea setup. The 4th one would be for electronics such as an Apex etc.
However since the run is so long I now have questions concerning the emergency drain.

Normally it would just have a trickle through the emergency drain but wouldn't that foul/clog/grow/etc that drain line? I mean it's not like I can maintenance it all the time.
I've got all the valves etc so I can decouple the under floor run and run a pressure washer sewer cleaning hose through it but I'd rather not do that more than once a year preferably less than that.

Another option would be to adjust the valve so there's a steady, albeit slow, flow through the emergency drain. Don't know if that would change the chances of something overgrowing the emergency drain.

Last option I thought of is to merge the emergency and the main drain into 1 drain and then immediately split them into 2 again. Basically an X-pipe.

(I know this is metal and for a car, it's just a visual aid here )
That way I have good flow through both and still sort of 2 drain lines which should reduce risk in cloggingoverflows since there is 2.

 

[Timfish]

I would keep the emergency drain line seperate. It seems to me periodcily running some chlorinated tapwater (once a year?) would keep it clean.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I'm lost, is the under concrete plumbing going to a remote sump somewhere in the house?

If we're discussing return and overflow to remote locations, I have a buddy that did this same thing while the house was being built. One remote sump is feeding 2 tanks, furthest tank is probably 75-100 feet. I think his system has been up for 7+ years and he hasn't had to do any maintenance or cleaning of the underground plumbing. The only difference from your setup is that he employs the bean animal design (full siphon, open and emergency pipes) but the concept is the same, the open allows for a trickle to account for fluctuation.

I wouldn't be too concerned with clogging any time soon.