How to make a spray bar to replace the AGA overflow nozzle

[dsoper]

I think what needs to be considered here is that water "takes the path of least resistance". Is there any guarantee that 1/2 the output water from the Mag 12 will make the right hand turn at he T 18" away from the sump? Ideally you'd want to push the return water the same distance, with the same number of turns. You may have to experiment with valves inside your tank on the spray bars or between them. That way you can dial down the final water volume on the top (fastest flowing ) bar and move the volume to one of the others.

I hope some of this makes sense. I tinkered and tinkered with my setup. I am using a MAG 18 as the return and I have an inline ball valve and only one spray bar, and it has worked with great success for 3 years now. I have two maxijets in the tank (pointing at each other) that give great circulation and prevents much of the detritus from settling on my rock, corals, or sandbed.

Good luck!

 

[electric130]

I was thinking of 3 levels of bars behind the rock to keep ditritus from settling. There would be disconnects at each level to ease breakdown and cleaning.

Will the mag 12 be able to supply the needed pressure? Any comments or critiques would be greatly appreciated.

the multi-layer setup is nice in theory, but doesn't work in real life. we did that on my father in laws tank. unless your rock work is a free standing form and won't be touching the back glass, you'll have no way of getting the pipes out without moving rock. we put threaded fittings on my father in laws to be able to do just what you wrote, but the rock prevented removal. eventually, the holes and pipe got filled with gunk and now there isn't any water flow from the lower pipe. you need to have easy access to clean the holes periodically.

as for the pump, i just put a mag 18 on a 125 that was fish only. no way a mag 12 will do a 125 for a reef, unless you're going to have alternate circulation inside the tank (PH's, closed loop, etc). if the pump will be your only source of circulation, i'd do a mag 18 at a minimum and ideally 2-mag 12's for redundancy.

 

[Dholmblad]

I think I might try this

 

[electric130]

Re: How to make a spray bar to replace the AGA overflow nozzle

the pics from the first page will be gone soon as the location where they're hosted will be deleted. i've put the pics in my gallery so they'll always be visible. here's the exact same post as the first post, but with new links for the pics.


okay, here it goes. my first "big" tank is my current 90 gallon setup. it's a predrilled with overflow AGA. i bought the plumbing kit (big waste of money) for it too. i quickly learned that one return with 1000gph coming out of it causes a horrible flow pattern. i bought a Y-adapter to try to fix the problem. while this helped, it also was a waste of money. so one day while shopping at Lowes, i saw some things and got the idea to try to build a spray bar. i didn't want to use white PVC because it would stand out too much. then i saw "Silflex." it was cheap, and black. perfect. so i got a 5 foot piece of silflex (looks like black PVC, not as rigid) for $2, a plug for $.30 and a threaded nipple for $.50 i drilled about 25 holes in it. so for less than $3.00, here's how i made my spray bar.

the holes in the pipe are hard to see in the pictures. i started out with about 13-14 holes and then went crazy (after it was installed) and drilled about 12 more. the more holes, the lower the velocity of the water coming out. i used a 7/32" drill bit, but you could use a larger/smaller bit with less/more holes to make the spray bar do exactly what you want it to.

here's the y-adapter that i wasted money on before doing the spray bar mod:

here's the plugged end of the pipe:

here's the threaded end of the pipe, i put a couple wraps of teflon tape on the threads before installing:

here's the whole pipe:

here's the pipe installed from the top:

and here's an in-tank shot:

the over all water movement in the tank is much better and my corals showed signs of being happier within days of the mod. you can't see it in the pics, but the plug and the threaded adapter have a barbed nipple that goes in the pipe. i heated the pipe to let the fittings go in easier. by making the plastic softer, the barbs bit into the plastic more and once they're in there, they're not coming out. as you can see, i didn't even use any kind of clamps, they're simply not needed IMO/IME. hope this helps.

anyone is free to ask me questions if you have them.

 

[andyjd]

Just the information i was looking for

 

[electric130]

Re: How to make a spray bar to replace the AGA overflow nozzle

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=1066107#post1066107 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by electric130
okay, here it goes. my first "big" tank is my current 90 gallon setup. it's a predrilled with overflow AGA. i bought the plumbing kit (big waste of money) for it too. i quickly learned that one return with 1000gph coming out of it causes a horrible flow pattern. i bought a Y-adapter to try to fix the problem. while this helped, it also was a waste of money. so one day while shopping at Lowes, i saw some things and got the idea to try to build a spray bar. i didn't want to use white PVC because it would stand out too much. then i saw "Silflex." it was cheap, and black. perfect. so i got a 5 foot piece of silflex (looks like black PVC, not as rigid) for $2, a plug for $.30 and a threaded nipple for $.50 i drilled about 25 holes in it. so for less than $3.00, here's how i made my spray bar.

the holes in the pipe are hard to see in the pictures. i started out with about 13-14 holes and then went crazy (after it was installed) and drilled about 12 more. the more holes, the lower the velocity of the water coming out. i used a 7/32" drill bit, but you could use a larger/smaller bit with less/more holes to make the spray bar do exactly what you want it to.

here's the y-adapter that i wasted money on before doing the spray bar mod:

here's the plugged end of the pipe:

here's the threaded end of the pipe, i put a couple wraps of teflon tape on the threads before installing:

here's the whole pipe:

here's the pipe installed from the top:

and here's an in-tank shot:

the over all water movement in the tank is much better and my corals showed signs of being happier within days of the mod. you can't see it in the pics, but the plug and the threaded adapter have a barbed nipple that goes in the pipe. i heated the pipe to let the fittings go in easier. by making the plastic softer, the barbs bit into the plastic more and once they're in there, they're not coming out. as you can see, i didn't even use any kind of clamps, they're simply not needed IMO/IME. hope this helps.

anyone is free to ask me questions if you have them.

same as original post but i fixed the picture links since they don't work on the first page.

 

[asnatlas]

Good info...

 

[winland]

I have not read this thread in a long time. Thought a few might like to see my initial attempt at a spray bar setup. This is when I was doing a water test on the system.

Picture of underwater.

Left side of tank

Right side of tank

So far working out great for me.

winland

 

[thrlride]

whoa, blast from the past.

 

[electric130]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13628121#post13628121 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thrlride
whoa, blast from the past.

yeah, really! LOL

 

[schristi69]

Since this is just drip irrigation pipe, couldn't you just use the standard punch and use the 1/4 in barb fittings for your outlets? Are these too large?

 

[electric130]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14075236#post14075236 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by schristi69
Since this is just drip irrigation pipe, couldn't you just use the standard punch and use the 1/4 in barb fittings for your outlets? Are these too large?

it's actually the irrigation pipe they put in the ground for pop-up sprinklers. the wall thickness is about the same as PVC. i think you'd have a hard time putting drip irrigation barbs in there. even if you could get them in, that's just additional cost and work when simply drilling holes works great.

 

[schristi69]

Looks like Sil-o-flex is regional. Nobody carries the product here in the Southwest that I can find. Both of the big box harware stores here carry what is called "funny pipe" from Orbit and Toro and it comes in 50 or 100 ft rolls. One carries 24" riser pipes out of the same material, but it only comes in 1/2" dia. The other store carries a flexible PVC in 24" lengths and 3/4" dia that might work. Guess I will have to experiment

 

[electric130]

there's no reason not to use regular PVC either. the flexible stuff is easier to work with and drill through. i've made them out of PVC though. the other reason i picked the sil o flex was because it's black and blended in better. i'd just use threaded fittings on both ends to allow for cleaning. also, i wouldn't run anything behind rocks. my father in law did that and couldn't reach the pipes to clean them. the holes eventually stopped up and didn't flow anymore.

 

[Babyboo1971]

I can't see the posted pics? Why?

 

[ellisz]

Thread is from 2009. Pics are probably gone.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[MurphyLong]

I can't see the posted pics? Why?

Here:

the pics from the first page will be gone soon as the location where they're hosted will be deleted. i've put the pics in my gallery so they'll always be visible. here's the exact same post as the first post, but with new links for the pics.


okay, here it goes. my first "big" tank is my current 90 gallon setup. it's a predrilled with overflow AGA. i bought the plumbing kit (big waste of money) for it too. i quickly learned that one return with 1000gph coming out of it causes a horrible flow pattern. i bought a Y-adapter to try to fix the problem. while this helped, it also was a waste of money. so one day while shopping at Lowes, i saw some things and got the idea to try to build a spray bar. i didn't want to use white PVC because it would stand out too much. then i saw "Silflex." it was cheap, and black. perfect. so i got a 5 foot piece of silflex (looks like black PVC, not as rigid) for $2, a plug for $.30 and a threaded nipple for $.50 i drilled about 25 holes in it. so for less than $3.00, here's how i made my spray bar.

the holes in the pipe are hard to see in the pictures. i started out with about 13-14 holes and then went crazy (after it was installed) and drilled about 12 more. the more holes, the lower the velocity of the water coming out. i used a 7/32" drill bit, but you could use a larger/smaller bit with less/more holes to make the spray bar do exactly what you want it to.

here's the y-adapter that i wasted money on before doing the spray bar mod:

here's the plugged end of the pipe:

here's the threaded end of the pipe, i put a couple wraps of teflon tape on the threads before installing:

here's the whole pipe:

here's the pipe installed from the top:

and here's an in-tank shot:

the over all water movement in the tank is much better and my corals showed signs of being happier within days of the mod. you can't see it in the pics, but the plug and the threaded adapter have a barbed nipple that goes in the pipe. i heated the pipe to let the fittings go in easier. by making the plastic softer, the barbs bit into the plastic more and once they're in there, they're not coming out. as you can see, i didn't even use any kind of clamps, they're simply not needed IMO/IME. hope this helps.

anyone is free to ask me questions if you have them.

 

[crawlerman]

It's really a shame what photobucket has done. There are tons of old forum threads that they have destroyed. I hope they go under.

 

[fish_taste_good]

I haven't posted in forever but I am subscribed to this thread and I thought I'd chime in.

I made this and it worked but it needed a more powerful pump. I forget what I used to power it originally but the stream wasn't strong enough. Keep that in mind when planning