Any good Plumbing Diagrams?

[tava716]

Hey all,

I am re designing my sump to add my G-3 skimmer and a 2nd 600gph return pump. Nay good diagrams out there for plumbing the return for a nice water movement in the tank?

Thanks!

 

[Krish]

I thought you dropped off of the face of the earth! (LOL) Did you get the skimmer yet? About nice water movement from a return, have you ever considered a sea swirl? I would have added one long time if my background wouldn't prohibit it from sitting properly. If you are using a 600 gph return pump there isn't too much you can do with it (atleast I never had much luck with that little bit of flow). If you use a squid, they say you loose about 50% of the flow. If you "Y" it, you'd only get about 300 gph out of each and that's only if your pump gives you 600 gph at the tank. If not, you will be lucky if you get atleast 200gph out of the 2 nozzles. 200 gph doesn't do much but stir the water IMO. You'd be better off to push everything out of 1 nozzle or run it through a sea swirl.

 

[tava716]

Thanks. I will check out the sea swirl. I actually will be using 2 600 gph pumps. I figured I would put 1 return in each back corner of the tank. Not sure if I should use a 90 degree elbo so the water shoots across the serface, or us a 45 degree elbow so it shoots down into the tank.

 

[Krish]

Not sure if I should use a 90 degree elbo so the water shoots across the serface, or us a 45 degree elbow so it shoots down into the tank.

I think shooting it down into the tank would be a better option (IMO) as opposed to using it for surface aggitation. I think the effort is better off placed on removing ditritus off of your rocks and into the water column to be hopefully removed by skimming or mechanical filtration. You can find other ways of creating surface aggitation maybe even by having a small side exit coming out of your 45 degree. Not so much as to impede your flow at your rocks, but just enough to stir the surface. If you were to go with the sea swirl, then surface aggitation would be covered.

 

[tava716]

I agree. I also have a Aquaclear 500 power filter that I use for mechanical filtraion. This makes a desent surface agitation. I need to figure out how to make a bigger sump than the 10 gallon aquarium I am currently using. It just is not big enough. It has to be no more that 10 inches wide, 34-40 inches long and 12-14 inches high. I will have to shop around this weekend. Maybe I can find a plactic container about 20 inches long that I cn put the skimmer, bioballs and a small refugium into and then hav it drain into another small container with the 2 return pumps in it. I don't know. All I know is, this is the last time I want to tear it apart and rebuild it. Wish I had more room in the home made stand that came with the 90 gallon tank. Attahced are photos of the 10 gallon sump inside the home made stand. you can see my problem with limited space........As for now, I will be cutting back on the amount of bioballs to make room for the skimmer.

 

[Krish]

Wow...That's really tight. You may have to have one custom built. So you've decided to keep the bio-balls then? I am keeping mine only because I can't (or should I say don't want) to do the 1-2lb per gallon thing with the LR. I don't think I will have a problem though with using the skimmer I am. Have you looked around for some sump ideas? I have a few sites saved on my computer home that can give you some ideas. You know, like I've learned, the more bio-balls you use doesn't mean the better. You may be able to get away with using less bio-balls. With that, you could free up a few inches in your sump to fit other things. I can't really tell though by the pic, but it wants to look like half of your sump is bio-balls. I'll try find those sites for you to give you some ideas.

 

[Krish]

Here is a link I've posted before somewhere on the forum that shows what can be done to glass tanks to make then sumps or refugiums. HTH
http://www.wetdryfilter.com/special_requests.htm

 

[tava716]

Krich,

You are right. Half the 10 gallon tank is bioballs. I plan on taking out half the balls and making 1/4 the 10 gallon tankk bioballs. I also thought of buying a couple of plactic ontainers and using them as sumps. One for the biobals and skimmer with a drain to another for the return pumps.

 

[Skimmy]

how much room do you have for a sump, is a 10g all you can fit down there?
can you fit a 20g?
2 pumps plus the g-3 and the sedra in a 10g? ouch!
so your planning on using 2 600gph pumps for returns? you should make one of them a spraybay that goes behind and underneath the rock pile, and connect the other to a sea swirl like krish said. they are kinda spendy but very cool. i might have a pic of the plumbing for a spraybar. is the tank acrylic or glass?

 

[tava716]

I am in the process of reconstructing the stand to fit a 30 gallon sump. Should be nice. Spray bar? how so?

 

[mungus]

Tagging along. Would love to see the pic of the spraybar as I am considering constructing one also.

 

[Skimmy]

arrgg, i cant find the pics i was looking for but i did have a few, first i was going to do like a "spray plate" if you will, but decided i couldnt live with looking at that at the bottom of my rock, so i went for the spraybar instead.
here's some pics to show what im talking about.
you can see the spraybar "plate" w/ egg crate on top, if you took off the egg crate and used the dark grey electrical conduit it might not be too bad, but as you can see i opted for just a bar that runs along the back of the tank.
you cant see it in the pics but there is a small hole to break the siphon right where the return tube starts to travel to the bottom of the tank.

 

[Krish]

Not a bad idea you had there skimerwhisperer. If only you could hide the egg crate.

 

[tava716]

Not a bad idea skimmerwhisperer. I like it!

 

[Skimmy]

thanks
the spraybars work best with bare bottom, which i eventually wound up doing in the 10g pictured, it blowes all the substrate away from the back if there's any in your tank. if you use the larger stuff it doesnt move around as much.
my initial thought was to have the "plate" on the bottom with the holes pointing up, then putting about an inch of caribsea seafloor grade aragonite around it to hide the plumbing. i figured that with rock on it and substrate around it it would be pretty well hidden. but it was too easy just to do it just with a single bar back behind the rock, and just as effective. i'll take a pic of the one im building into an overflow box for one of my customers, it's pretty cool.