90 Gallon Plumbing

M

Mikeb76

New member
Hello Everyone,

Well I've got to the point of plumb my tank this weekend. Looking for some help to make sure I do it correctly. This would be my first plumbing job. :-)

On my 90 tank both of my bulkhead holes are 1" (1-3/4" OD). Do I use a 1" pipe for both drain and return? Or does the return need to be 3/4" all the way from the return pump? I seen some kits with either 1" and 3/4" as a set and another both are 1" D/R. I'm going to use a Mag 18 as my return pump. I would like to have a Water change line (3/4" to barb) and two Reactor lines (3/4" to barb) and a line to run to the Refugium . See diagram below. I will be using 1" in-line ball valves and 3/4" in-line BVs as needed. Should I also add unions as well in other sections?

Thanks in Advance Mike
 

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Do you only have one drain line and one return line? If you only have one drain line, it would a bad idea to have a ball valve on it. It is ok to have a ball valve on the return line. The mag 18 has about 1800gph right? At about 3 or 4 feet of pumping height, the gph will be about 1200gph. 1200gph is about twice the amount that the 1" drain line can handle. So the return line will have to be significantly restricted by the ball valve, or you need to have another drain line. I think the 3/4" pipe for the return line is fine.
 
It's a good idea to increase the diameter of the drain line as soon as you can. By this I mean as soon as you can practically get to it. This will reduce the velocity of the water coming back into the sump which will cut down on noise and give your filter socks time to work as well as reduce the possibility of clogging in the future.
 
@EzReef yes my tank only has 1 drain line and 1 return line. The BV on the drain line is for maintenance only, other than that that it will be wide open. I was originally going with a Ehiem 1262 return pump but told in a previous post that a Mag 18 would be better. I could add another circulation line back to the skimmer area to help re leave some of the pressure. Would this work?
 
coral@life: So I should make the drain a 2" pipe and return a 3/4" ? Nothing has been plumbed yet. trying to get some suggestions. I would have to come home to a flooded house.
 
I would shoot for a pump that gives you about 3-5x turnover of display through the sump, so about 400gph, not 1800gph. Of course account for head loss and whatever is going to the fuge and reactors.

You can still go with a mag drive pump, but a much smaller one would be better, imo.
 
Would this design be more suitable for my tank?

Mag 9.5 or 12 return pump
1" Durso drain
3/4" return to display / second return to sump / Refugium/ GFO/carb reactors (Not sure what kind yet)

:spin2:
 

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I would plumb both of those two 1 inch as drains.

Turn one of them down with elbows inside the over flow box with a put a valve on it below the tank. The other pipe a few inches above the highest point on the elbow.. The second will be emergency drain the first one will be a full siphon . You adjust it be closing the valve to allow water to only trickle into the second drain.. Most quiet way to plumb over flow.


The return from the sump run over the top rim of the tank on opposite side of the tank. I would Also run this with 1 inch using a mag drive.. If you are going to run more then 1 thing Create a manifold using 1 inch pvc Sanitary T pipe then Valves after .

There are a lot of google images for how best to configure this

Good Luck..
 
I like the mag 9.5 or 12 much better than the 18.

I also like Ericarenee's suggestion of turning your overflow into a herbie type system. It would be more quiet.
 
Is it possible for you to drill another hole in your aquarium? If you drilled for a 1.5" bulkhead, you would still be able to use the mag 18. I would also set a ball valve on the 1.5" drain line and adjust it to match the flow of the return pump. You would have to leave the 1" drain unrestricted (No valve, even for maintenance).

So for this instance you would have a 1.5" drain (with valve to match flow) and a 1" drain (no valve). With this set up, you would have a quiet herbie style overflow. The top of the 1.5" line would be under full suction beneath the waterline behind the weir and the top of the 1" line should be level with the waterline behind the weir to catch any extra water.

My drawing isn't the best, I hope you can understand what I mean. You could also use the return line as another drain and make the setup safer and just make the return line go over the back of the tank.
 

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90 Gallon Plumbing

All the red and purple squares on your diagram ball valves?

You will need quite a few to get the backpressure to allow the water to flow to where you want, i.e. the reactors. I was going to do a similar thing on my system, however numerous people told me that the reactors would be better run on their own pump. Yes it is an extra pump, but it keeps things simple and easy to operate and maintain. If you want to change the media in the reactors, you don't have to turn the whole system off, only that pump. And the same Vice versa.

You will also only need considerably lower flow to your reactors and your return.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Something else to think about is that if you run your drain on a full siphon, it will PULL water down a lot faster than it will fall naturally. I will try to find a table which gives you the speeds of gravity versus siphon drops in different sizes of PVC pipe.

Also, I couldn't quite see from your diagram, but you should have at least a few inches of tubing connecting your pump to the PVC pipe. This will reduce noise from the vibrations of the pump transferring to rigid plastic pipe.



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Use (3) 1" drains, primary and secondary and a third emergency. Then (1) 1" return line.

That is the correct way to plumb a 90 gallon tank.

I have a 1320gph pump on my 100. I'm sure it's not even half that after the headlose and 'fuge connection.
 
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