Plumbing question?

[rcgogo]

Hi. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. I spent mine eating, sleeping and working on my new tank as soon as the guests left the driveway.

I recently moved and switched tanks. My new 30 gallon tank is a cube that is 17 x 19 x 21 with a 12 x 16 x 30, 30 gallon sump. My concern is with the bottom drain in the tank. It is 6.5 inches from the bottom of the tank and is not covered by the overflow. That means 20 gallons will flow out of the tank when the return pump is powered off and I only have room for 8 gallons of overflow water in the sump. Please let me know if I am missing any possible solutions or if you have any advice.

Possible Solutions in preferred order:

Get an overflow that covers both drains.

I would need an overflow that is 9.5" wide. I have 2 overflows that I can take out of my 120 RR tank but they are 10.5" wide. Does anyone know where I can shop for overflows?​

Add a check valve to the return and close off the bottom drain then adjust the return valve so that the top drain can handle all of the drainage flow.

The top drain is only 1 inch so this would require me to throttle back the return to a rather slow flow. This will be my short term solution.​

Get a bigger sump.

This will be the last resort because it will require additional space.​

I believe that the original owner elevated the sump which was in another room to the same height as the tank.

I don't have the option to elevate the sump or to place it in another room.​

Start training the family on sprints to the tank in the dark in case there is a power outage.

My wife said no to this option.​

 

[nmbeg]

Can't you add a 90-elbow and then make the drain higher herbie-style?

 

[rcgogo]

Would a Herbie drain work with my current overflow? The bottom drain which is the lowest hole and is not in an overflow is my concern. It is covered up by the live rock in the picture below.

 

[jfuka78]

You can bring the pipe up higher than the tank itself then go back down to to the outlet for the pump basically doing a reverse p trap like the j pipe for external over flows. Hence when the pump dies out that will cause Air in the trap since it is higher than the rest of all the water,
Second you can use a check valve but that is moving parts and cups fail

 

[Timber77]

Options:
cap the bottom drain and don't use it a little risky having only one drain

Or put a 90 facing up and a length of pvc to make it closer to the top, you could route one of your cl returns to the existing hole and then do a 90 and pipe toward the top, as it looks like your bottom hole would be hard to do with the overflow box above. but that takes up a lot of real estate

Or as you said get an overflow made to encompass both holes

Or I think the best solution is to put a 90 facing up on the outside of the low fitting, then pipe toward the top, then 90-90 (like a u tube) then straight down to the sump, it will have to be a little lower then the top inlet ....but it will keep the water in your tank for sure when power dies (same idea as option 2 but externally instead of in the display tank)


definitely its not safe how you have it hooked up now and any power failure , pump failure etc your corals are gone and you have a saltwater flood don't use check valves they fail when you need them the most

 

[dwolson2]

I believe you have it hooked up incorrectly. It looks as if it was set up for a closed loop system. So the bottom one not in an overflow is to supply a pump that sends up to the 4 way in the picture. That is a system of its own.

The overflow in the tank is to go down to the sump, then your return pump to pump it back up. you only have one drain for the sump in this tank*as long as I understand everything correctly.
If you set it up as I described only about an inch of water will go down to the sump.

 

[fit]

Idea 1
Inside the tank, could you pipe the bottom drain to a new bulkhead that runs through the bottom of the overflow box? Then you would have a true Herbie.

Idea 2
Make a closed loop, a cl. Rather than have the bottom drain feed to the sump, use it to feed valve-machinery. You would need an additional pump to run that closed loop.

 

[ostrow]

I believe you have it hooked up incorrectly. It looks as if it was set up for a closed loop system. So the bottom one not in an overflow is to supply a pump that sends up to the 4 way in the picture. That is a system of its own.

The overflow in the tank is to go down to the sump, then your return pump to pump it back up. you only have one drain for the sump in this tank*as long as I understand everything correctly.
If you set it up as I described only about an inch of water will go down to the sump.

Exactly.

 

[rcgogo]

Thanks for all the helpful responses. I rather stay away from a closed loop to avoid having an extra pump and even more PVC pipes but I can see what dwolson2 and Ostrow mean about the intend of the designer. I will leave the bottom drain closed for now since it is too risky and I will research the Herbie drain since I really like the idea. Thanks again. You guys are the best resource there is.

 

[dwolson2]

If you aren't going to run closed loop, then I would plug the 3 holes in the back. Even with a check valve, you could still drain most of the display if one even leaks a little. I would probably run closed loop if you are trying to not have power heads in the display, especially with the new DC line of pumps that are more energy efficient. If you were just trying to hook it up like he had, but added power heads, I would plug them.

 

[rcgogo]

Herbie drain worked perfectly. It is very quiet and it is safe to turn off the power now. The return was also redone. I added a flapper check valve from BRS, took off the 2 extra overhead returns and the octopus looking water diffuser. Does anyone know what this is called?

 

[taylor t]

Personally, I would NEVER use a check valve with anything with my tanks. From tube worms to sponges, they are destined to fail with growth inside your tubing.

 

[JB63]

I think you got it plumbed incorrectly. I have seen people do a 'low' return for water changes. Essentially, you would put a PVC tube there, that goes to a valve, and whenever you want to do a water change, just open it up. I would put some sort of screen though to prevent anything from going there.