Questions about adding a sump to an existing display.

[CStrickland]

Yeah. Your confused because the thread you linked refers to a full siphon drain. This is a drain that has no air in it, which has a higher capacity than the types that allow air to mix with the water. Try googling the diff between a beananimal and a durso capacity. Bean drains (and herbies) use a full siphon drain, Dursos don't.
This is just for the drain. Not the utube. You don't need a utube to run a full-siphon drain and vice versa.

Try it this way: the box has a theoretical potential for two siphons. One in the drain and one in the u tube. If you built such a box (which would be impractically huge) you would be using a siphon to take water over the back of the tank through the utube, and another one to run a 1600 gph drain. The threads you are reading are only talking about the drain siphon, because they are working on drains, not boxes.
Since the boxes are only using one siphon (the utube), and a not-siphon-at-all drain, the drain-siphon threads are mixing you up.

It's confusing using the same word for two things.

PS you don't want to upsize the box too much, the flow needs to move fast enough to push microbubbles through or else they collect in the tube and break the siphon. An oversized box (or using several boxes) would risk a flood if the water moved slowly through it.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I give up Everything I learned in engineering was wrong :hammer:

 

[sde1500]

I give up Everything I learned in engineering was wrong :hammer:

I think what she is saying is that the 1" drain can handle the flow you are saying it can, but the u tube siphon can't. The drain itself on these things isn't full siphon. Just the u tube.

 

[DJasak]

Thank you guys! Unfortunately all that my tank stand will allow me to fit without compromising it's integrity is a 10 gallon. I was hoping to fit a skimmer, my heater and possibly a couple dosing pumps.

 

[CStrickland]

I think what she is saying is that the 1" drain can handle the flow you are saying it can, but the u tube siphon can't. The drain itself on these things isn't full siphon. Just the u tube.

Not quite.
A 1" full-siphon drain can handle a lot of flow, but a 1" regular drain can't.

This is what a full siphon drain setup looks like. The one in the middle is the full-siphon, it doesn't pull air. These drains don't use a utube, they are drilled. The only siphon is the drain not having any air in it.

That way the water can go down very fast. These drains are what D's thread was talking about. Not boxes with utubes.

If you look at the pic of the overflow box up top, under the foam is the drain. It's a pipe that just ends, an open hole that the water swirls and gurgles down. Drains that swirl and gurgle are much slower than a full siphon.

"Full-siphon" has nothing to do with the utube. It is the plumbing of the drain. The utube is a separate siphon that moves water to the drain.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

My point was that "siphon" is what makes it work with only the return pump. I've been talking all along about the physics of siphon. The controlling factor of all of these boxes is the box themselves and the diameter of the U tube.

Now I've got a headache

 

[CStrickland]

My point was that "siphon" is what makes it work with only the return pump. I've been talking all along about the physics of siphon. The controlling factor of all of these boxes is the box themselves and the diameter of the U tube.

Then why did you tell me to read a thread about 1" full-siphon drains moving thousands of gph?

A controlling factor of these boxes is the 1" drain. Since it is not a full-siphon (because it allows air into the drainpipe) it can only handle a few hundred gph. You could put the worlds fattest Utube, and use a box the size of a refrigerator, and the thing is still never going to move thousands of gph if it has a 1" non-siphon drain.

sorry about ur head, agree to disagree i guess

 

[DJasak]

I'm sorry, I have no kind of knowledge in the field of plumbing so all the explanations are like reading a foreign language to me. So far what I've gathered is using my original idea is a bad idea because of a high risk of flood, impossibility to evenly control both pumps, and other confounding variables. An overflow box is what's being reccomended because it is much safer, but I still need to use a pump to return the water to my display. The topic of debate (I think?) is how much flow. How do I know how much flow I need, and how do I Control the flow? If I use a shut off valve, doesn't this add extra pressure to the pump and potentially cause it to break? What are some good pumps you guys would reccomend for this? What's a good overflow box you guys would reccomend? If the pump fails for whatever reason is there any kind of safety shut off for the overflow so I don't have a flood? Sorry about all the questions.

 

[Xxero]

In the picture below, you can kind of see my return configuration. I "T'd" off of the return line using a ball valve, and back into the return section of the sump. This valve gives total control over the flow that enters the display tank, and it prevents restrictions on the pump (which not all pumps are designed to account for). This way, you can go much larger than needed on your pump, but you can cut it back using the valve.

This set-up is using an Eshopps PF-300 overflow box and a Mag 9.5 return pump. I could have easily used a Mag 5 or 7, but went larger for future upgrades.

Hope this helped and GL! :bigeyes:

 

[DJasak]

THANK YOU! picture helped a ton! What size sump is that? Love your set up

 

[Xxero]

It's a 20 gallon long.

It's a d.i.y. basic sump design that I followed from Melev's site:

http://www.melevsreef.com/category/articles/diy/sumps

Lots of good info there on basic sump layouts.

 

[DJasak]

Maybe I'll be better off building my own custom stand so that I can have a nicer sump...looks like I'll have a fun project this spring!

 

[Xxero]

I would if you could. It's really easy if you do a little homework.

This is a good sump basics page:

http://www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html

GL and have fun! :bigeyes:

 

[DJasak]

Thank you! :beer: