I currently have a 90g on my first floor and have a water change tank down stairs that I am going to plumb up to my tank, so when i do water changes I just hit a switch and fill and turn valve to drain into sewer. I currently have a magdrive pump i use to use for same thing, but tank was right behind it and now my basement has 9 ft ceilings and wil be about 10 feet over. Any suggestions?
Pump Question?
- Thread starter kramer51
- Start date
ostrow
It's Dr. Goodluck Himself
So your head pressure is what? Are you filling into the sump or into the display? Display would add another 5-6 ft depending on how tall your stand is.
But you are talking about a large and pricey pump no matter what to get over 12' of head. More than you probably want to spend for just water changes.
But you are talking about a large and pricey pump no matter what to get over 12' of head. More than you probably want to spend for just water changes.
TropTrea
New member
Reef centeral has a nice calculator off the main page to give you a very good idea on what to expect from any of about 100 possible pumps.
Some of the kep things to consider is how high you will pumping this water, and how fast do you want to pump it. If your just doing this for water changes then your probab ly only pumping 5 to 30 gallons at one time (dependent upon the total sysyem volumn), so is it important for you to get it changed out in 3 minutes or an hour?
Personaly I'm looking at a 1,800 gph mag drive pump to pump from my basment sump up to my tank roughly 12 feet above the sump. Since I'll be having the sump, skimmer, and refudium in the basement heat build up from the pump is not a factor for me, as it will decrease the use of heaters for me rather than increase my need for cooling.
Dennis
Some of the kep things to consider is how high you will pumping this water, and how fast do you want to pump it. If your just doing this for water changes then your probab ly only pumping 5 to 30 gallons at one time (dependent upon the total sysyem volumn), so is it important for you to get it changed out in 3 minutes or an hour?
Personaly I'm looking at a 1,800 gph mag drive pump to pump from my basment sump up to my tank roughly 12 feet above the sump. Since I'll be having the sump, skimmer, and refudium in the basement heat build up from the pump is not a factor for me, as it will decrease the use of heaters for me rather than increase my need for cooling.
Dennis
Pufferpunk
New member
I was just considering the same thing, since I'll have 2 large pumps available to me. 1 of them is the Iwaki pump, that pumps 19gpm. Think that would work?
ostrow
It's Dr. Goodluck Himself
A Mag18 can handle 12' of head? What sort of flow at 12'? And is it really 12'? Is your basement ceiling only 7'? Remember, you start off with 5' from the floor to the rim of the tank.
But good point, for water change you don't need much flow at the endpoint, depending on how fast you want to complete the job.
But good point, for water change you don't need much flow at the endpoint, depending on how fast you want to complete the job.
How do I calculate head pressure? I know from the basement floor to the first floor is 10 feet, plus to the top of my display is about 6 feet with stand and tank. I am also going about ten feet to the side in a seperate room so it is not in the middle of my basement. I dont need that much pressure to do a water change.
Doubledown
Active member
kramer51 - a Gen-X mak4 should do the job nicely. If you plumb it to your mixing tub properly than you should be able to use it to stir the new salt water as well. I believe yznhmr here on RC uses a mak4 as his return pump on his system with the fishroom in the basement and display on first floor (his travels roughly 15 feet vertical and 20 feet horizontal). It may take a while to refill because the output from that pump will only be about 400 gph or so due to head pressure losses. Premium has the pump for $120 new, but you might be able to find one used for less.
softbal4
New member
wow, i am interested in following this..maybe i could improve my method which is as follows
I mix ro water in 2 30 gallon trash cans.. using about 45 gallons for each water change. I pump the water from the basement cans into 2 cans next to the tank, using a sump pump 1/4 hp from home depot. then I bring up the empty cans and drain the tank into the empty cans and then with a maxi jet 1200 I pump the new water into the sump. I do this with the tank running. there is not alot of mess, but always looking to improve this method.
I mix ro water in 2 30 gallon trash cans.. using about 45 gallons for each water change. I pump the water from the basement cans into 2 cans next to the tank, using a sump pump 1/4 hp from home depot. then I bring up the empty cans and drain the tank into the empty cans and then with a maxi jet 1200 I pump the new water into the sump. I do this with the tank running. there is not alot of mess, but always looking to improve this method.
Catharsis70
New member
R/O places somethimes sell delivery/demand pumps that could do the job for sure and probably cheaper than an aquarium pump
TropTrea
New member
It sounds like you already have one pump running from your tanks to the area where your collecting the RO water. What you need to do is a little creative plumbing now with valves. If you can plumb into the sump then you can put a valve there which you can open to dump water out of your system. Once you pulled say 15 gallons out by gravity you close the sump valve and open the valve to the water pump and then pump the new 15 gallons into the system. Doing this three times would give you a 45 gallon water change.
Besides that I'm a believer in many small water changes rather then few big water changes. I beleive changing 5 or 10 gallons in a system every 3 to 4 days is much safer and benificial then changing 20 to 40 gallons every 2 weeks. Basicly everytime you chang something you create some degree of shock. The greater the change the greater the possibility of shock. So smaller changes are sagfer than big changes.
To me the ideal system would be a steady flow of fresh premixed water changing at about 3% of the total volumm every day. The big problem with this is setteing up a means of storing the premixed water and changing it gradually. Possible but it could be a pain.
Dennis
Besides that I'm a believer in many small water changes rather then few big water changes. I beleive changing 5 or 10 gallons in a system every 3 to 4 days is much safer and benificial then changing 20 to 40 gallons every 2 weeks. Basicly everytime you chang something you create some degree of shock. The greater the change the greater the possibility of shock. So smaller changes are sagfer than big changes.
To me the ideal system would be a steady flow of fresh premixed water changing at about 3% of the total volumm every day. The big problem with this is setteing up a means of storing the premixed water and changing it gradually. Possible but it could be a pain.
Dennis
