Questions with new project

[kender]

So here is the deal. My garage and display tank are separated by the kitchen that sits in the middle of them. My house however sits on a traditional foundation and I have this brilliant scheme to run piping for the overflow and return under said kitchen to the garage where I want to setup shop for sump, water change station, and possible expansion later for a 40G breeder setup. This is where I call upon the mass experience and expertise that is Comas. lol

The distance on the horizontal stretch would be appx. 13ft. but I would round up and say 15ft just to be safe. What other info should I supply here.

 

[kender]

25 views and no love. Any advice on how to proceed with this hair-brained scheme of mine. I mean it sounds pretty straight forward to me but I am sure there are details I am not thinking about.

 

[Lytehouse]

So here is the deal. My garage and display tank are separated by the kitchen that sits in the middle of them. My house however sits on a traditional foundation and I have this brilliant scheme to run piping for the overflow and return under said kitchen to the garage where I want to setup shop for sump, water change station, and possible expansion later for a 40G breeder setup..

Are you talking about concrete work here?

If so, you are looking at enough drop one way to keep good flow for drainage,
and a big enough pump going the other way to push 13-15 ft for water change,

with no leaks now or a year from now......

 

[kender]

Nope, traditional foundation as in crawlspace thankfully which makes this idea at least only half hair-brained. I was figuring the pipe work would be all sch 40 pvc and insulated wrap where it is exposed under the house.

Not sure on the size though. Should I attempt to stay at 1" for the drain and 3/4" for the return? And then more importantly what kinda pump do you think I can get away with? Am I going to have to get a heavy duty, out of tank pump do you think there is an in tank one that will fit the bill? It will have to push the better part of 7 - 8 feet on the rising end where the tank is located.

(Oh and I promise not to rope anyone into the crawlspace work part. I will shimmy my little self under the house to do that part while everyone gets a good laugh of my dig-dug impression)

 

[mikencarol]

Why wouldn't you go bigger...like 2". Your drain is only going to handle as much as your overflow box allows..and your return only the GPM of your return pump. Especially if you own the home...why not go bigger and never have to upgrade the crawl space part...??? Can you tell that I hate working under there!!!??? There's my 2 cents worth of......Love!!!

 

[Triple_B]

I have no idea, but I'll help do some research! Sounds like a pretty cool project.

Your sump in the garage... you said it's going to be a 40 breeder?

 

[kender]

@mike: I would go with whatever size honestly. My biggest concern was where the plumbing comes into the room for the main tank. The size really just depends on whether I go in through the wall or not. If I go through the wall I would probably want to keep the pipe work no larger than 1 1/1". Luckily my crawlspace isn't to bad. It was a little tedious when I had to lug cinder blocks back to where the tank is through. lol They don't seem as heavy when your carrying them as they do when you are basically dragging them through sand and dirt.

I am going to partition of a section of the garage, insulate and run ductwork to heat and cool it. In that area I plan on setting up my RO/DI with a freshwater barrel and a saltwater barrel. I want to bring the sump into this area. Considering I actually have an iron stand designed to hold two 55G tanks (One on top and one on bottom) what I was thinking about doing was setting this up with the top tank (Tank B) being a frag tank and the lower tank (Tank C) being the sump system for both the main tank as well as the frag tank.

 

[Lytehouse]

Obviously, for the drain from the tank, you'll be using gravity. I'm not sure why that needs to go all the way to the garage unless that's just the most convenient place to dump waste water. Several people take the closest route to the sewer drain. If you wrap the pipe, maybe it would protect it from those once in how many year freezes like this year. But water can't freeze unless it's in the pipe, and it's salt water, and you don't have to put water in the pipe if it's that frickin' cold.

For the return, you have to figure head loss for that many feet, plus the height up at the end for the size pipe you are using. Were it me, I would drill the sump and use an external pump with a pvc tree up that you can control with union valves to send water to frag tank all the time and main tank some of the time and so on.....

Brandon, there's your research project....

 

[kender]

By drain I meant the overflow to the sump which I want to have in the garage. Sorry, I am not very good at describing the craziness in my head. I am not to worried about the pipes freezing as I am trying to keep the temps level in them year round. Since they will always have moving saltwater going through them at all times minus the very short periods that I am doing a water change, there shouldn't be any real threat of actual freezing I would think. I will try to come up with a sketch today and post it for a slightly clearer image of what I am looking to do.

 

[Lytehouse]

By drain I meant the overflow to the sump which I want to have in the garage. Sorry, I am not very good at describing the craziness in my head. I am not to worried about the pipes freezing as I am trying to keep the temps level in them year round. Since they will always have moving saltwater going through them at all times minus the very short periods that I am doing a water change, there shouldn't be any real threat of actual freezing I would think. I will try to come up with a sketch today and post it for a slightly clearer image of what I am looking to do.

between us it's a wonder we get a coherent post put together


:thumbsup: Sketch is great idea. I'm starting to get the idea though. Drain to the sump is not a problem. It's getting the right pump size for the return trip.

 

[kender]

Speaking of pumps. I ordered a Mag 18 for this job and it just came in! Happy dance time!

 

[gws76]

How much head loss will it be? Have you ran the head loss calculator on the home page of RC?

 

[madkat]

I'll tell you now mag 18 aint gonna cut it. I have a mag24 plumbed into my koi pond and it barely moves 1500GPH, and I am almost level pushing 9.5 feet.

 

[kender]

Here is what I have so far. Keep in mind that the numbers put in a estimates. That should be pretty close to on par though if not a little over zealous. So are these numbers good? I don't understand what I am looking for here. If they are, which would it be better to go with the 3/4" return or the 1.5" return?

 

[Lytehouse]

I'm with madkat

I've got a mag 18 in one of my frag tanks and I'm looking for more flow. Maybe it's a bad pump, but it pushes 6ft from sump to tank and up 4 ft to loc line.

 

[kender]

Wow, so then the calculator isn't really a good thing to go off of? I guess I just don't know how to read the data. Can clarify what the calculator is saying?

 

[kender]

Okay, here is a quick (okay, well quick for me) sketch of what I am trying to achieve.

 

[gws76]

Looks like you'd design could work. Just not sure what pump you would need. High head, or pressure rated maybe a better solution. It really all depends on how much flow you want out of your return pump.

 

[kender]

Really not wanting a larger volume of flow at return. Somewhere around the 750gph would be fine, although a little less or more wouldn't bother me. I think I only have about 550gph right now out of my mag 9. So the real area of concern is the vertical lift not the horizontal push, right? I mean I know the horizontal run will have a small impact on the performance but that not really where the issue is if I am reading the number and the information about head loss correctly.

 

[mikencarol]

Project

Project

Whatever you decide to do.......tell your wife your 1st plan was to lay a 6" tile sewer pipe thru her kitchen, on top of the floor, out to the garage. That way when you explain to her what you REALLY want to do...she will go for it big time and won't argue with you!!!! LOL........:beer: