Surge For Basement Prop!

[Kinetic]

I'm thinking of replacing my three seio 620's in my 30G prop tank with a surge.

My display tank sits up on the main floor of the house, with my prop, fuge, sump, and equipment in the basement right below. The sump return to the display tank is about 1200gph after headloss/plumbloss. I was thinking of T'ing off the drain to instead of the fuge and sump, but prop and sump, then having the prop tank drain to the fuge. But instead of just draining straight to the prop, I'd setup a nice clear bucket or tank, setup the pipes for the surge, and have all the "closed loop" surge come from the surge rather than running three seio 620's.

This would save a bit on power consumption and heat.

The sump return to the prop tank is about 950gph. And then I'd add three surge outlets on the three sides of the tank.

I need some help on calculating how much water to redirect from the drain to my surge, and just ideas on if this might be a feasible and smarter way to approach my prop tank.

A few things that come into mind:
1) My prop tank can't run independantly for long term, since there is not enough flow from just the sump return. Though if I ever needed to keep the display dead for long term, I could always through the seios into the prop.
2) Not as much flow from the surge than from the three seio 620s
3) Lots of gurgling! but hey, it's in the basement.
4) Possible surge device malfunctions?

 

[gfk]

i dont know the answer to your question but id be interested in buying 2 of the 620s if you decide to stop using them

 

[sid700]

In would do it this way-

1) Run the return pump from the sump straight to the display.
2) Drain part of the overflow of the display to the surge tank. The rest of the over flow goes in the sump.<div style="margin-left:12pt">
A)Calculate amount of water the prop tank can handle from the surge without overflowing - really overflowing!. Use this amount as the "dump volume" for the surge tank.<br>
B) Decide how often you want the surge tank to dump its water and calculate the desired drain rate from the display into the surge tank.</div>
3) The surge tank dumps water to the prop tank.
4) Prop tank overflows into the sump.

The above setup makes all overflow water ends up in the sump.

<b>My prop tank can't run independantly for long term, since there is not enough flow from just the sump return. Though if I ever needed to keep the display dead for long term, I could always through the seios into the prop.</b>

The prop tank becomes part of your system.
<br><br>

<b>Not as much flow from the surge than from the three seio 620s</b>

I'll take a surge of 5-10 % of tank volume over the seios.
<br><br>

<b>Possible surge device malfunctions?</b>

Make sure the surge tank has an overflow that goes into the sump. If the surge tank doesn't dump, then the water draining into it just goes in the overflow.

Oh... I am assuming you are using a Carlson-type surge tank.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Surge is (like it's name sake) a lot of water in a little time, now your seios will be much more flow. The seios only use 24 watts for the 3 of them so I doubt they're contributing any significant heat or power loss.

Now I like the idea sid mentioned about the overflow to the surge, the only problem I would have with that is that is the scummy water that's skimmed from the surface so would not be my first choice on ways to power it.

Just make sure your sump's volume is a good amount more than your surge tank, since you'll be regularlly lowering and raising the sumps water level by all the water that goes into the surge, and by sump size I mean the size that actually fluxtuates so if you have baffled off areas for a skimmer or something you can NOT count that as part of your sump size.

Now if your prop system is a tall tank that's separate from the rest of your display you can go without the sump route just by taking from that tank (via a pump.. which will put out more heat and use more energy than those 3 seios FYI ) and just make sure your corals are lower enough in the tank that they stay underwater the whole time. I did this with a 38 gallon tank, and a 18 gallon rubbermaid that was a good 3-4 feet above the tank so it was a nice surge, about 13 gallons of water was removed on each surge and the surge lasted about 30 seconds with 2 minutes between firings (flapper style though not siphon).

What I would do first is simply find your surge tank that you plan on doing, plumb that up to surge, then shut off all your pumps/block off returns (except of your prop system) and then hang the surge pipe over into your prop tank then just fill the surge up with water from whatever system you go with and test it, this'll save you plumbing hassles if you happen to want to change something, also it double checks your overflow on the prop tank to make sure it can handle the sudden increase in flow.

 

[Kinetic]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I know of the surge system and how to fill the surge resevoir with a pump from the prop tank, but since this prop tank is part of the whole system already, I thought I could save some $$ / heat by using a surge instead of the three seio's.

So what I'm getting is that:
1) Surface scum might not be the best thing to surge with
2) Have to use a bit of trial and error to measure exactly how much surge my prop tank can handle.

At this point I think a surge might not be a good idea, since I already have 900+gph sump return goign through the overflows of the prop tank, with a surge that would give me substantial flow would probably overflow the tank for sure.

I'll keep seeing what options I have, but simplest for now is to stick those three seios in