Sump in Garage questions

[matts125]

I am tired of all the noise heat and loss of space from all my equipment in the house ans under my tank! so I am in the works of plumbing my tank to the garage I have a 120 gallon cube (30x30x30) the tank I have for my custom sump is a 120 acrylic tank (48x24x24) so here are a few questions I have concerns about:
First my garage is insulated but the garage door is not. how large of heater do you think I will need to run on this system and also how large of chiller would you recomend as well. next should I build a small room say 8' long by 4'wide by 7' tall and have fress air vents from outside? would this help the tank with temperature issues? also my garage steps down about 3 feet from the floor in the house and is about 15' from where my tank is, how much will this affect my return pump (Genex pcx30) and my closed loop pump (ampmaster 3000) should I upgrade the pumps to keep the same flow I have now?

also if you have any other suggestions for me please let me know..

Thanks for reading and sharing your Knowledge!!!

Matt

 

[Meche]

Well if noise was no longer a concern, and since you have a large surface area sump, I would load it up with air flow and dump the chiller. I'm sure the extra RODI filter bill will be smaller than the Chillers e- use.

PVC is very smooth so 30' of straigh line will not cost you too much pressure on your closed loop, but 3' extra of vertical distance will put a hurtin' on your open loop pump. Check the flow vs head graphs to see if it will work.

edit: can you change out the nozzle from 1.5" to 2" on your CL pump? That will also help mitigate the losses seen from the 30' run.

 

[davidabrown66]

tagging along, b/c I'm looking at doing the same.

 

[matts125]

Bump..............

 

[Brenden]

I just plumbed my sump in the garage last week. I know air flow will not cool my water enough in the summers here. Not sure what temps you deal with in the summer. I have a new commerical lobster chiller that was given to me by my brother so I am not sure what size to tell you to get.

 

[danno14]

Do you have anything in the garage that you don't want to rust? If so, by all means build a room! Vent it to the outside, but I would hesitate to vent from the outside-in. All it would take is you or your neighbor fertilizing the lawn, and bad things could occur. As far as pump needs, much of it depends upon what flow you are trying to acheive, actual rise, elbows vs. sweeps, etc. I would suggest using 1 1/2 or larger pipe and sweeps for the size tank you are connecting. Good luck!

 

[class clown]

Hey Matt - as you know I have all of my stuff in the garage. I love it. my temp stays much cooler in the winters and I don't have to worry about any spilage or overflow.

I have noticed some rust in the grage on the pipes and such - for this reason, I'd recomend a seperate room. I know you're pretty handy, so that probably wouldn't be a problem for you.

my setup is a 55 gal w/ 45 sump. I have 2 250w heaters and a /10 hp chiller and am fine. Not sure if you can just double that for a 120 g or what (i.e 4 250w heatrs and a 1/5 hp chiller).. but that might give you some start.

Sorry -not familiar with those pumps so can't help you there, however I can tell you that I had to upgrade pumps when I moved everything out to the garage b/c like you, it was a few feet down and about 10 ft away from where it was under the stand.

 

[matts125]

Thanks guys, some very good points brought up there! I am well on my way to the drawing board! keep the suggestions coming!

Matt

 

[IAP Brian]

Matt, the PCX 30 isn't a pressure pump. The 40 is but if you are adding another 3' of head then I would look into a PCX 55. They are very good pressure pumps with a slight increase in flow.

The Ampmaster 3000 is a very good pump but will drop a bit with an extra 3' of head. You can contact Dolphin and find out if you can get 2" unions to fit. The newer style pumps are duel rated 3000 w/ 1 1/2 unions and 4000 with 2" unions. Otherwise a new wet end for the motor will upgrade your 3000 to the duel status and you can run @ 4000 to make up for the head loss.

 

[class clown]

The one I use is a Iwaki 40RLT pressure rated. Not sure if it would be enough for your tank, but I bet it would do just fine.

check it out - Mike is selling one too for a good price.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=267290#post267290

 

[chris&barb]

build a platform for the sump 3' high and forget about additional head lose. that will also make cleaning and water changes easier

 

[class clown]

now that's a great idea. my back sure wishes I wouldv'e thought about that too ;-)

build a platform for the sump 3' high and forget about additional head lose. that will also make cleaning and water changes easier

 

[matts125]

build a platform for the sump 3' high and forget about additional head lose. that will also make cleaning and water changes easier

If I do that then how is the over flow supposed to drain to the sump? I am still working on defying gravity....

Matt

 

[chris&barb]

If I do that then how is the over flow supposed to drain to the sump? I am still working on defying gravity....

Matt

you lost me on that one. you said the garage was 3' lower than the house floor, and you were going to have a head increase of 3' because of it. so if you build a platform for the sump you will be back at the inside floor height. unless your tank is on the floor you should have about a 4'+-drop still, right?

 

[davidabrown66]

Not to hijack the conversation, but to ask an additional plumbing question to the garage.

If you run your tank overflow water to an external source like a sump in a garage from your living rm. via gravity from overflows, can you run your plumbing from the top of your tank (overflow) to below your sump level first (like crawl space), then horizontal for however many feet, then up to your sump if your sump is still below the tank overflow level,and still have it gravity feed into your sump?

In other words, my overflows are 5' off the ground, and it's on the first flr of our house, and the garage is on the same floor, and the flooring in the garage where I want to put the tank is the same height as the flooring my tank sits on. My future remote sump would be the same level as it is now, but I want to run the plumbing below sump level first into the subfloor, then horizontally to the garage (about 55 feet), and back up to the sump which is still 5' below where the water initially has exited the tank. Will this gravity application work to the sump?

Thanks!

 

[burning2nd]

im not 100% sure, But i would think

you dont really need to build a hole room.... Just make some heavy air exchange in the garage...

ceiling fan+ large CFM vent fan

 

[Meche]

If you run your tank overflow water to an external source like a sump in a garage from your living rm. via gravity from overflows, can you run your plumbing from the top of your tank (overflow) to below your sump level first (like crawl space), then horizontal for however many feet, then up to your sump if your sump is still below the tank overflow level,and still have it gravity feed into your sump?

Yes, you don't even have to worry about maintaining a siphon.

The Ampmaster 3000 is a very good pump but will drop a bit with an extra 3' of head. You can contact Dolphin and find out if you can get 2" unions to fit. The newer style pumps are duel rated 3000 w/ 1 1/2 unions and 4000 with 2" unions. Otherwise a new wet end for the motor will upgrade your 3000 to the duel status and you can run @ 4000 to make up for the head loss.

Brian, that pump is connected to a closed loop, so there would be no head loss. However, I do agree, that the step up to the 2" line will help a lot with the minor losses accured by the 30' of extra length.

edit: err... no head loss due to an increased vertical rise.

 

[matts125]

Not to hijack the conversation, but to ask an additional plumbing question to the garage.

If you run your tank overflow water to an external source like a sump in a garage from your living rm. via gravity from overflows, can you run your plumbing from the top of your tank (overflow) to below your sump level first (like crawl space), then horizontal for however many feet, then up to your sump if your sump is still below the tank overflow level,and still have it gravity feed into your sump?

In other words, my overflows are 5' off the ground, and it's on the first flr of our house, and the garage is on the same floor, and the flooring in the garage where I want to put the tank is the same height as the flooring my tank sits on. My future remote sump would be the same level as it is now, but I want to run the plumbing below sump level first into the subfloor, then horizontally to the garage (about 55 feet), and back up to the sump which is still 5' below where the water initially has exited the tank. Will this gravity application work to the sump?

Thanks!

Well that answered my question as to how I could raise the sump up 3' thanks...

Matt

 

[snobanker]

Don't forget about toxins in the garage, like if you do any wood finishing or auto work in there....just a thought, since someone was mentioning how refinishing their floors killed their tank....of course you should be doing that stuff in a well ventalated area anyway, but you never know...

 

[IAP Brian]

Brian, that pump is connected to a closed loop, so there would be no head loss. However, I do agree, that the step up to the 2" line will help a lot with the minor losses accured by the 30' of extra length.

edit: err... no head loss due to an increased vertical rise.

How do you figure that there will be no extra "head" with an additional 3' of vertical rise? not to mention the additional run length. Closed loop pumps gain the benefit of gravity but I don't see how an additional 3' lift (on top of an allready existing 2 - 4') would not add additional resistance.

"Head" may be simply defined as any resistance to the flow of a pump. When pump manufacturers list the head pressure, they are referring to the vertical discharge pressure head. Described in very simple terms, a pump's vertical discharge "pressure-head" is the vertical lift in height (usually measured in feet of water) at which a pump can no longer exert enough pressure to move water. At this point, the pump may be said to have reached its "shut-off" head pressure. When you look at a flow curve chart for a pump, the "shut-off head" is the point on the graph where the curved line becomes horizontal as the flow rate at that point is zero. The higher a pump's head pressure, the more powerful the pump.

Here's a pretty good article on head with links to calculate.
http://www.aquariumpros.com/articles/headpress.shtml