Trying to tee off return line for water changes... Need help

[DavidinGA]

I Teed off my return pump (eheim 1262) and ran about 40ft of 1/2" ID tubing to my laundry room drain and all I can get out if it is a tiny trickel. The 40ft of tubing runs up and over the 75gal sump and down to floor level where it stays for the majority of the travel distance and then it rises to about 4.5ft to the washing machine drain. This seems like it should easily be handled by the pump but it barely moves any water.

Am I asking too much from the pump via 1/2" id tubing? Do I need larger tubing? Too much restriction from the small diameter tubing? Is 40ft too much for the pump (that seems unlikely as its flat horizontal movement for most of the distance)?

What is wrong here...?

 

[DavidinGA]

 

[MidwesternTexan]

Are you shutting down the return to the DT when you open the 'drain'?

40' if 1/2" line isn't going to flow alot anyways, but it should be more than a trickle for sure.

Again, closing the line to the return when the drain line is open?

 

[DavidinGA]

Are you shutting down the return to the DT when you open the 'drain'?

40' if 1/2" line isn't going to flow alot anyways, but it should be more than a trickle for sure.

Again, closing the line to the return when the drain line is open?

Yeah I have the line to the dt completely shut. I even opened it up a few times when trying to drain and then shut it again to make sure it was completely shut off; no improvement.

It's a pathetic trickle at best...

 

[Heliman]

Bit tough to push a 1262 thru' 40ft of 1/2 inch pipe with a head loss of 4.5 feet and a right angle tee-off
Not likely to get much more than 4 to 5 gall/min.

These pumps dont handle much in the way of pressure performance.

 

[stingeragent]

If you have room in your sump, I'd just buy a cheap pump off amazon dedicated for w/c.

 

[Rybren]

Bit tough to push a 1262 thru' 40ft of 1/2 inch pipe with a head loss of 4.5 feet and a right angle tee-off
Not likely to get much more than 4 to 5 gall/min.

These pumps don't handle much in the way of pressure performance.

This is it.

You have 4.5 feet of static head plus at least 7-8 feet of head from friction loss due to the 40' run of 1/2 pipe and any elbows. That will kill your flow. You can see from the chart that you'll have virtually no flow.

You can improve the situation somewhat by going up to 1" pipe, but it probably still won't be enough.

 

[MrG]

What is your main reason for doing this? The reason I ask is that I did something similar for my tank with an un-modded maxi-jet 1200 (i.e. 40-50 run and 3-4 foot elevation through 1/2 inch line). I probably got around 40-50 gph (guessing because a 25 gallon water change would take me almost an hour to first drain then refill). However, eliminating drips and water spills was much more important to me than speed.

 

[laga77]

I think you would be better off using a Python to the suck the water out of your tank.

 

[DavidinGA]

If you have room in your sump, I'd just buy a cheap pump off amazon dedicated for w/c.

Suggestions? It seems like their isn't going to be a "cheap" pump option that can move water that distance if this eheim 1262 can't do it.

I have a rio 2100 laying around that I tried and it did worse than the eheim 1262.

 

[DavidinGA]

What is your main reason for doing this? The reason I ask is that I did something similar for my tank with an un-modded maxi-jet 1200 (i.e. 40-50 run and 3-4 foot elevation through 1/2 inch line). I probably got around 40-50 gph (guessing because a 25 gallon water change would take me almost an hour to first drain then refill). However, eliminating drips and water spills was much more important to me than speed.

Automation with less hands on involvement.

I wanted to be able to flip some valves and drain my dt water from the sump via my return pump.

 

[seamonster124]

I have the exact set up. Super easy to flip some valves and drain the tank without adding another pump or using buckets. I suggest getting a larger pump so you can still do both drain and return with just one pump.

You should check out the controllable Jebao DCT pumps. You can blast the pressure when you are draining, and turn it down when using it as return.

 

[DavidinGA]

I have the exact set up. Super easy to flip some valves and drain the tank without adding another pump or using buckets. I suggest getting a larger pump so you can still do both drain and return with just one pump.

You should check out the controllable Jebao DCT pumps. You can blast the pressure when you are draining, and turn it down when using it as return.

What pump and hose diameter are you using?

 

[seamonster124]

I'm just using a very old quiet one pump for now but my drain only travels a couple of feet through the wall and into the downspout drain. Upgrading to the controllable Jebao DCT soon

 

[DavidinGA]

Update

I replaced all the 1/2"id tubing with larger 5/8"id tubing on the same 40ft run and now the same eheim 1262 pump flow like a boss. The 1/2"id tubing was clearly the bottleneck and not the pump.