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 like Apex cables 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 since it so long now 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 or if it's even possible to set without it generating too much noise etc.

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.

Anyone have experience with these longer runs and the emergency drain(s), any thoughts in general or options I've missed?

 

[Suohhen]

It is actually more likely a drain with a higher pitch will clog as the water will tend to outpace solid matter. Also I am not sure the drain rate changes much with a higher pitch. Flow would be dictated mostly by pipe diameter and head pressure. Having 2 drains isn't really necessary depending on how much flow could be going through during an emergecy. I mean we flush poop through drain pipes all the time. In general keeping drains clear flushing periodically is much better than a trickle but ofc it can make much more noise potentially.

 

[erichuyn]

I should clarify I'm mostly concerned if the emergency pipe is not getting some flow that anything in there will become foul and stagnant.
Any solution to that would then mean flow through the emergency drain of some sort?

 

[Suohhen]

I should clarify I'm mostly concerned if the emergency pipe is not getting some flow that anything in there will become foul and stagnant.
Any solution to that would then mean flow through the emergency drain of some sort?

P trap, cap or valve or the like to prevent odor. ABS will help as well. It is incredible how slick the inside of ABS gets with a slime coat. If you are set on 2 lines you can put 2 Ys back to back. It really is next level having a drain on your tank. Very cool

 

[erichuyn]

I think I have to clarify again the drain I'm talking about is part of the original Red Sea system.
It has a drain and emergency drain going into the sump.
The potential problem however now with the very long run of the emergency drain I'm worried about this.

Not planning on plumbing it to the sewer, although that might also be a solution. This however would be very tricky with monitoring loss of saltwater through the emergency etc...

So I could now:
- run the emergency drain into a different container with apex monitoring to prevent overflowing. With this solution I don't have to worry about the content of the emergency drain.
- put a little flow through the emergency drain in the hopes it won't foul up if there's some flow.
- make this X pipe idea and have flow through both drains in the hopes it still functions as emergency overflow etc etc.

 

[Suohhen]

I think I have to clarify again the drain I'm talking about is part of the original Red Sea system.
It has a drain and emergency drain going into the sump.
The potential problem however now with the very long run of the emergency drain I'm worried about this.

Not planning on plumbing it to the sewer, although that might also be a solution. This however would be very tricky with monitoring loss of saltwater through the emergency etc...

So I could now:
- run the emergency drain into a different container with apex monitoring to prevent overflowing. With this solution I don't have to worry about the content of the emergency drain.
- put a little flow through the emergency drain in the hopes it won't foul up if there's some flow.
- make this X pipe idea and have flow through both drains in the hopes it still functions as emergency overflow etc etc.

Oh my bad I am not familiar with this system. So it is basically a Herbie overflow. The idea with that drain design is to limit noise at the drain. You can merge the drains together after the tuning valve and 1 1/4 pvc is certainly big enough to handle the flow.

 

[erichuyn]

Just another thought, would merging the drains introduce noise though? I mean with a X-pipe and all there would be more noise wouldn't it?
It's split for a reason I think...