Return Pump from Basement

[rockskimmerflow]

In other words, does the pressure on the incoming side of the pump translate over to the outgoing side of the pump?

Picture this: You plumb an external pump with flexible tubing both in and out. You have 10' on the in side and 20' on the out side. The pump is fed from a bulkhead to the pump sitting on the table next to the tank. Now, you elevate the out side tubing until the pump is just able to produce a trickle.

Next, you change nothing except to lower the pump to the floor. The height difference from the top of the tank to the top outflow tube hasn't changed.

Will the water still trickle out?

If you did the same experiment with a syphon, it would. I suspect that with a pump, it would not.

I suspect that the placement of the pump, in height, matters. Thoughts?

No, the head is whatever the water level is in the refugium to the upstairs tank. Placing the pump at refugium level or lower will not change effective head height. Thats the short answer

 

[ca1ore]

Correct, head pressure is simply the vertical distance between the surfaces of the two bodies of water. But, we also deal with friction, so even though head pressure remains the same, more pipe length means more friction losses.

 

[RedSox81]

I have about the same distance to pump from a basement dump and run an iwaki rt100 with Japanese motor. It works perfectly. I started with and iwaki 50 and was too small.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I have about the same distance to pump from a basement dump and run an iwaki rt100 with Japanese motor. It works perfectly. I started with and iwaki 50 and was too small.

Read his requirements for flow, he's running only a 30 gallon display just with a high head pressure. a 100 rlt would be such overkill at 16' of head it's almost comical. He'd have to throttle it back to like 5% open on a ball valve. I don't know of an iwaki 50? but they make a 55rlt which would still be overkill for his needs at 200gph or less. There are quite a few iwaki and pan world models that push 16'+ of head with quite low flow. Would save him a ton of power since the iwaki 100 rlt uses 400w and the ones that better fit his needs are 80-100w max. I'm guessing you have a much larger sized display than a 30 gallon running from a basement sump, which a 100rlt would be better suited for.

 

[Hampton]

No, the head is whatever the water level is in the refugium to the upstairs tank. Placing the pump at refugium level or lower will not change effective head height. Thats the short answer

Short and sweet. Thanks for the help.

 

[Hampton]

I bought the PX-100 and have been running it for about a month. It has zero problem pushing water uphill from the bottom of the basement floor up 15' (after a 4' drop from the refugium).

It is noisy, but it is under the stairs in the basement.

I have expanded my 90 gallon refugium. I have included the 30 gallon refugium below it. I couldn't see why not.

Also, I went with a reef octopus Elite 150 INT skimmer. Love it.

Adding a new thread outlining the system.

 

[Hampton]

Thank you all for your inputs.

 

[jda]

Do you happen to have a Kill-a-watt where you can measure the wattage at that head pressure?

PanWorld are great pumps.

 

[Hampton]

I tried to reply via email. This may show up twice.

I do not. The pump is not hot and doesn't seem to be working hard. This is what it was designed for and seems to be a perfect fit.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Do you happen to have a Kill-a-watt where you can measure the wattage at that head pressure?

PanWorld are great pumps.

I haven't ever used the 1oo px, but rather a lot of it's sister pump, the high flow 100px-x version, and that one throttles pretty well with regard to wattage. If I had to guess on his pump he's likely pulling roughly 95 watts at that head. Maybe a tad lower.

People used to tell me years ago when I first got into the industry that Iwaki style pumps didn't experience any wattage throttling under head pressure like a wet rotor reluctance motor pump would or even the Reeflo types with the large shaft driven impellers do. But I am happy to say that having a kill a watt meter has proved that old wives' tale wrong. For example the Iwaki 100rlt that runs my 300g salt mixing drum will pull about 390 watts at 10 ft of head with the outlet valve full open. If I begin to close that valve, once I hit about 25 percent closed I'm already down to 360 watts or so. The lowest I ever got the pump to pull wattage wise, before I literally stopped its flow with the valve, was about 294 watts at like 10 percent open on the outlet valve. Probably not great for the pumps health but I had to do it just to see what the shut off head wattage draw was for that pump.

 

[jda]

I have experienced it too and totally agree. I was just curious about the 100px at head... I have one, but have ran it on a skimmer so it was pretty much wide open and more towards the spec watts. I was never able to test it at head.