Help with new 125 gallon build

Ok, i have a small leak right after the return pump on the 90 elbow going up...from the looks of it, i see no primer so i must have missed cemeting that one, no leaks anywhere else so this should be an easy fix. Now for the water run test, i get a lot of gurgling on the right side and its coming from the back up drain sucking in water. I will post a video when i upload it.
 
Until your primary drain starts siphoning water, your backup drain is your primary. Make sure the gate valve is wide open. Sometimes it takes 20-30 min for the primary to siphon. Once that starts you can gradually close the gate valve. The gurgling sound will stop when your primary drain becomes full siphon. Some water may still drain into the backup but that's okay. By fine tuning the gate valve you can achieve full siphon in your primary which should be completely silent. Don't submerse too much of the primary PVC in the sump or it will take a long time for full siphon. I keep mine about 3/4" below water.
 
ok i have some pics and welcome your comments. Simon i figured this would be the case, let me know what you think of the pics and video.

P1000351_zps041051ae.jpg


left corner
P1000354_zpsfe2a2a6c.jpg


I marked the sump about 1/3 full on the return when system was running at lowest setting
P1000353_zps9d9621a3.jpg


and here it is when i shut off the power
P1000357_zps1a09f442.jpg


here is the video:
http://s1273.beta.photobucket.com/user/tassod/media/P1000356_zpsc5640099.mp4.html
 
When you get full siphon in your primary drain in your right cornerflo, there should be very little to no water going into your backup drain. Were you able to get full siphon there?

You are pulling more water into your sump from the left cornerflo because your drain opening is a lot lower than than the right side. Can you raise it?

Judging from the water level in your sump after you turned off your pump, you still have room to accommodate 7-8 gal of water before it overflows the sump. I would raise the water level in the return section by 2" so the waterfall effect from the fuge and skimmer sections is minimized to reduce noise.

Otherwise everything looks good.
 
SimonSKL said:
When you get full siphon in your primary drain in your right cornerflo, there should be very little to no water going into your backup drain. Were you able to get full siphon there?

You are pulling more water into your sump from the left cornerflo because your drain opening is a lot lower than than the right side. Can you raise it?

Judging from the water level in your sump after you turned off your pump, you still have room to accommodate 7-8 gal of water before it overflows the sump. I would raise the water level in the return section by 2" so the waterfall effect from the fuge and skimmer sections is minimized to reduce noise.

Otherwise everything looks good.
Click to expand...

Simon,
I was not able to continue last night after I tried this as it was late, so I did not get full siphon yet. First thing i will have to fix the leak.

So your saying on my left corner flow needs to be raised up? Since this one is not full siphon, how can i modify it so if I raise it, i dont have the durso style drain sticking out of the top of the tank?
 
You can use the same two 90 elbows like in your right cornerflo and drill a small hole at the very top.

The purpose of raising the left drain opening is to minimize the water volume pulled from the cornerflo when the pump stops. The volume difference between a raised and not raised drain opening is probably around 1/2 gal so you may not want to do it as you have extra capacity in the sump to accommodate the volume.
 
Ok, I think I will just leave it then because it may just be to much trouble at this point. I'm hoping to fix the leak tonight and start her up again to get full siphon going. Should i keep the pump on the lowest setting to get full siphon first?
 
Agreed it is probably too much trouble to change the left drain.

Because I have a significant volume of water diverted to reactors and UV sterilizer, I keep my pump setting high. Since you have similar set up, I would set it at high also.
 
When I initially ran the pump last night (it was probably for like 5-7 minutes) I noticed the left side drain in the sump would gush out water every few seconds and then slow down and start again, is that just part of the initial startup process?
 
What happens is the left drain goes in and out of full siphon. When in full siphon it quickly drains the water in the corner flo to below the opening thereby sucking a lot of air with it. Then the cycle starts over again. What you need to do is to put some kind of restrictor to slow but not impede the flow. I initially put a plug with several 1/8" holes drilled at the end of the drain. That helped. I now use a gate valve to regulate the flow. Keep the outlet under water too.

Drain_zpse2209cfd.jpg
 
initially, were you deverting some of the flow from your left drain to the skimmer section? I did this as well. Would it be better to just put a gate valve on it and remove the diversion to the skimmer section?
 
Yes, during my build while I was still experimenting how to keep the noise down, I diverted some of the left drain to the skimmer section. I have since removed that and simply use the gate valve. With two primary regulated drains and one backup, they are more than enough to keep up with the highest pump setting.
 
Ok, i'm going to change that also. Do you think I need to make the hole on the top of the durso drain in the left corner bigger? I believe i drilled a 1/8 or 3/16 size hole.
 
More problems

More problems

So I got home and I fixed the leak that I mentioned earlier and let it dry for over an hour and that was fine but now I am getting a leak with the union shut off ball valve and I don't know what to do. I've taken it apart an put back together and tightened as much as I could but it still leaks at the union. What do I do? Took a cell phone pic and will try to post
 
Issue resolved!! I can be so dumb sometimes! When I initially took the valve apart to fix the original problem in the elbow below, the gasket in the valve fell out and I didn't see it! Needless to say, pump is now back on and there are no leaks! Now to try and get that corner to get full siphon is the next task
 
That right corner flow still has not go into full siphon, just wont budge and its been running well over 1 hour now. What else can we do? The noise is almost unberable. Hopefully the left corner will get more regulated as it goes in and out of full siphon when i put the gate valve on it.
 
I believe you have a column of air pocket trapped inside the right drain which keeps water from entering. Until you get rid of the air pocket flow will not occur. Make sure you don't submerse the PVC deeper than 3/4" below surface. Find some way to extract the air from within the PVC and replace with some water. The weight of the water column inside the pipe must overcome the air pocket so the air can be pushed out. Can you temporarily drain the water out above the water level in the sump?
 
tassod, is the section of PVC below the gate valve of your right drain dry fit or glued? If dry fit, just remove that section and let some water out. Siphon will start. If glued, cut off the bottom 3-4" of PVC to let the water out then put a coupler to reconnect the last section. Make sure the last section only goes below the water surface by no more than 3/4".
 
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