My Dream Tank- 225 Gallon Custom Shallow

You can isolate the pump from the floor by insulating it with styrofoam. You can isolate the pump from the rest of the plumbing by inserting a length of spaflex hose. Some cavitation can be reduced by extending the distance to the change in pipe diameter farther from the pump.

Dave.M
 
Jay Fortay said:
We did a little plumbing and reenforcing of the fish room framework last night...

ry%3D480
Click to expand...

I was a little concerned about the pump location here. Rotating the pump by 90 degrees should help. That elbow going right into the input of the pump is not helping.
 
Thanks for the advice all. I did the best I could with it. I took out all of the 90s and replaced them with 45s. There wasn't enough flex in the hose to turn straight into the intake. I also added some rubber and foam under the pump and unbolted it to try to isolate the vibration.

Here's what I did with the plumbing
ry%3D480


Here is what I did with the rubber and foam matting
ry%3D480


In a little bit I will run the pump when I get a little more RO filled into the sump, and let you all know if my efforts today payed off.
 
There is not enough room to swing the motor end of the pump 90 or even 45 degrees without redoing the entire manifold on the output side (too close to the wall). It sounds a lot better now for the limited time I have run it. The tank and sump should have enough water in them by this evening to run it circulating so I can hear what it really sounds like after it's able to get up to speed and stay there. I think the sweeps helped as opposed to having all of those hard 90s. I also think the flex isolates the pump vibration from the sump a bit.
 
Yes!!! This build is up and running. The pump is humming along (quietly). No cavitation that I can hear and the vibration is minimal. It is quieter than our forced air furnace. Thank you all for the advice.
 
After I had everything up and running for a while today I went in the crawlspace to check all of the plumbing and found a small leak in the return line. So, I cut it out and glued in some new fittings. I am wondering how long I should wait to turn the pump back on again? I was so stoked to add salt, sand, and rock this afternoon!
 
Waited 10 hours for the glue to cure. Got her up and running again. Tomorrow will be a great day of salting, sanding, and aquascaping :)
 
I was working on tuning my overflow yesterday. My overflow plan is pretty simple, but it wasn't seeming to work as designed. My overflow is a coast to coast style internal with holes for 4-1.5" bulkheads. The hole on the far lift is for the return which leaves 3 for the overflow. The left one is supposed to be my full siphon main line. This one dumps into its own 2" pipe and goes straight to the sump in the fish room. I glued a down turned 90 on this one so the inlet would be lower than the other two. The other two bulkheads are designed to catch the extra flow once the full siphon is dialed back on the main line. These two extra flow/emergency drains both dump into 1-2" line and head to the sump. After a good amount of frustration with noise and violent flushing/bubbling I figured something was amiss. I cut off the main return line that terminated below the water line in the sump to find that the "main" drain was not carrying any water at all. I looked everything over again after scratching my head for a while. I realized that the bulkhead for the main drain line is a small amount above the other two. This is not good because DAS left me little room to extend any of these elbows up or down. In fact the down turned one I have glued into the main drain had to be cut about an inch short so it wouldn't bottom out in the overflow box. With the other 2 drains carrying all of the flow they would just flush and fill. Of course this is really loud.
My plan today is to reverse the idea. I will saw off the down turned elbow that was the main drain. This one will now serve as the backup. I will put a gate valve on the line that carries the two that were used as backup drains. These will become the main siphon. These lines have already proven to be able to form a siphon and carry all of the return flow. Hopefully there is not something weird going on with the original main suction line that would prevent it from carrying the overflow from the dialed back siphon. I got this pipe to start carrying a bit more than a trickle yesterday. I realize I may need to cap one of the two lines that I am planning to have siphon. Because they run into the same pipe I realize this may cause an issue with maintaining a siphon. They seem to develop a siphon quite easily in tandem, but we'll see how they function once dialed back.

Anyone have any input here????
 
Just a thought, I may be wrong but your drains go down then back up creating a p-trap, maybe your not creating enough pressure on the main drain to "flush it" and start the siphon before the water starts to flow through the emergency drains. Try and completely close the vales on the emergency drains and let the waters only exit be the main drain to start the siphon. I used the calfo style drain on one one my old tanks and I believe this was the proper starting technique. Or possibly back pump water through the main drain to flush all the air out and start the siphon.
 
I believe this is the problem, too much back pressure on the main drain to get it started. I don't know if I can get the water high enough in the tank to start that siphon without it overflowing. I will try before reversing them for sure. If this does indeed work. What will happen in the event of a power failure. My guess would be that it would revert back to the loud way it is running now, or would the main line maintain the siphon after the pump stops. Oh, and, should these drains be above or below the waterline in the sump?
 
I don't really know since what I did was just straight down to the sump, I didn't go back up again. You have a U trap going on so there will still be water in the pipes after a power outage.

On my tank if power failed and came back on then the siphon would break on the main drain and the emergency drains would pick it up and flush annoyingly once power restored. I put ball valves on the emergency drains so I could close them and re-start the siphon on the main. Once that was going open the emergency back up.
 
Mpy said:
For ease of use youre correct, but if you want to carefully adjust flow it is hard to do with a ball valve(my experience, and the general consensus)
Click to expand...

These should be only open or shut on the emergency drains, no need to control flow. Gate valve on the main drain.
 
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