Please help me with my plumbing issues.

[PotRoast]

Hello everyone. I am on the verge of blasting off into this hobby but I have had some setbacks and I'm coming here for help.

I bought a 240 gal with stand and canopy. I bought all my equipment. I reinforced the floor. I made lists, and more lists. I spent three hours at Lowe's buying PVC and PVC accessories. I was rocking hardcore.

Recently I spent an entire weekend plumbing my tank. I did a great job too. I made all those damn pipes fit in my stand, and plumbed my return and drain pipes perfectly. The pump ran, the sump seemed to function. My skimmer works. The system operates exactly like I want it to.

So what is wrong, you ask? Well, my design completely sucks, in retrospect. This hobby is supposed to be fun. And I was freaking stressed out trying to make everything fit in the stand. Further, I was stressed about getting water on my new hardwood floors. I started to think when I actually get sand, fish, rock, algae, snails, etc. at some point I am basically going to [violation] things up bigtime. I don't know what will happen, but the end result will most likely be a flood.

So I said [violation] it and drained the water, cut out the plumbing, and I'm starting from scratch.

240 gallon 2.0, if you will.

So now that I have screwed everything up, I need to do it right this time. I am going to plumb my return and drain lines down into the stand, then out of the stand, into the wall, and down to my unfinished basement with concrete floor, drain, etc. In other words, I can stumble around all I want down there and not cause any damage at all. Stress free. I could drink a few beers, have a great time, you know?


So here are my questions.

1. What schedule PVC should I be using? I *think* I need the PVC that can handle pressure. I used the wrong kind of pvc before.

2.Fittings. What schedule fittings should I use? Are there special fittings for systems under pressure?

3. Spa Flex (flexy PVC). If you use this, what PVC glue do you use? Do you use a primer, or a cleaner? Or both?

4.Flexy PVC fittings....what kind of fittings do you use with flexy pvc?

5. Rated Overflows. I have two of them. Together they are rated at 3000 gph. I have a 1.5" bulkhead fitting on each overflow. So I have a 1.5" drain pipe running from each overflow. If I tee those two pipes together, like I did before, and have them both combine into another 1.5" pipe that runs to the basement....what is my rated overflow gph now? I assume it is lower than 3000gph. If it is, should I make the pipe running to the basement 2" or 2.5"?


Thanks in advance. I hope you can help. Please help. Haha.

 

[jhildebrand]

I feel your pain. I upgraded from a 150 to a 260 six months ago. The original 75 gallon sump wasn't working for me, so I plumbed a 150 gal stock tank in the basement instead. I went to Home Depot 8000 times and was wet, tired, and angry on more than one occasion. I had to cut the first run of plumbing apart because the flex PVC was not holding and I was terrified of a flood of biblical proportions in my dining room.

Here are some things I learned that I wish I knew beforehand:

Use the right cement on spaflex. The weld-on cement I used the first time did well on rigid PVC, but did not bond to spaflex flexible PVC. The rain or shine blue cement from Home Depot worked great. Link:

http://www.oatey.com/Channel/Shared/ProductGroupDetail/164/PVC_Rain_R_Shine__Blue_Cement.html

regular schedule 40 pipe works fine for the pressures we encounter in the hobby. schedule 80 cepex valves (bulkreefsupply.com) are fantastic and beat the crap out of the cheap ones. Same with the fittings, but see the next point.

do not get any elbows or T's of pvc meant for drains - the collar that is on those is too narrow and is not as safe a bond. get regular fittings with at least an inch of cementable area. I found a neat Y connector for my output line called a San Tee but it had shallow collars and the spaflex looked like it was going to pull out of the weak bond. I had to cut it all apart and start over.

Cement both parts to be joined and seat them firmly and give it a 1/4 turn and hold to avoid push-out of the joint.

Don't fight the natural bend of spaflex or you're asking for trouble.

It is advised by some to use PVC cleaner, but not primer, on spaflex. Primer did not seem to hurt my joints at all.

Savko's website for anything PVC. Bulkreef also has good fittings and prices and my experience with them has been very positive.

I'm adding a check valve in my 1.5" return line. When the main pump is shut off there is a massive amount of water that comes back down the line and stirs up all the detritus in my sump and fills it to the top. Wish I'd have done this in the original plan.

Once this was done, I marveled at my project and I'm so happy with the results. It keeps the mess and noise out and it's been enjoyable since. Keep your head up. You only have to do it once (in your case, twice) if you do it right. The hard work will pay off and make it much more enjoyable for you.

Hope this helps!

 

[Nanook]

I know you are new to our site and may not yet know that we run a tight ship, but reading the User Agreement might be a good idea if you want to remain a member here for long.

Being that we are a family-friendly site, you are not allowed to use profanity or characters to suggest profanity by tricking the censor. Future posts in violation could be grounds for removal from our community.

Thanks for your future cooperation.

 

[PotRoast]

Thanks guys. Your info was great. I am back up and running and it is much better and going great. Thanks again.

 

[ricks]

If your using a check valve to keep water from filling your sump, that would be ok.. If you are using a check valve to keep your sump from over flowing. At some point it will fail, and you will end up with water on your floor. Myself I would never use a check valve.

Oh yeah, good luck with the plumbing, we have all been there....

Happy Reefing

 

[murfman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12756096#post12756096 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PotRoast
Thanks guys. Your info was great. I am back up and running and it is much better and going great. Thanks again.

So lets see pix or hear what you did differently.

 

[mflamb]

When you are adding pipes together or trying to figure what size changes in pipe will flow the same amount, use the calculation for the area of a circle...pi times radius squared. 3.14 x radius squared.