Uphill drain?

[detroit_fan]

This might be a dumb question, but can my drain plumbing have a little uphill section? The top of my sump is higher than the bottom of my tank and I don't want to drill a hole in the side of the sump. I plan to use Flex pvc for the drain line and the high point in the drain will still be lower than the top of my durso drain pipe, will this work? I put a pic below. The red line would be the flex pvc drain. Tank and sump sit only a few feet apart.

 

[gabbagabbawill]

The way siphoning works, as long as where the water ends up is lower than where it starts, you'll be fine.

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

It will work but you will get surges that will make a flushing sound.
If you don't mind the noise it will be OK.

 

[detroit_fan]

Tank is in a basement exercise room so noise is not an issue. thanks for the replies.

 

[gabbagabbawill]

I don't think it would surge unless it pulls lots of air down the drain tube; then it would surge.

 

[ReefEnabler]

any type of drain besides a partially restricted siphon (herbie drain) will suck enough air to surge. I prototyped this type of drain on a much larger scale before I built my tank (2" pipe, 15' horizontal, 3' vertical climb at the drain side).

It does surge but it will flow. The waterlevel in your overflows might fluctuate pretty wildly. Another concern is that if you don't have a TON of flow in the drain, it will accumulate alot of detritus since it will act like a gravity trap. I opted to modify my design to not have any "uphill" at the end. So sorry I cannot give firsthand experience on how it works in actual practice but I know its been done.

 

[detroit_fan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14931957#post14931957 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
any type of drain besides a partially restricted siphon (herbie drain) will suck enough air to surge. I prototyped this type of drain on a much larger scale before I built my tank (2" pipe, 15' horizontal, 3' vertical climb at the drain side).

It does surge but it will flow. The waterlevel in your overflows might fluctuate pretty wildly. Another concern is that if you don't have a TON of flow in the drain, it will accumulate alot of detritus since it will act like a gravity trap. I opted to modify my design to not have any "uphill" at the end. So sorry I cannot give firsthand experience on how it works in actual practice but I know its been done.

So maybe put a drain clean out plug at the lowest point of the drain? That way I can open it every couple weeks to let any settled detritus out?

 

[username in use]

what if you plumbed the line into the side of the sump, so it doesnt have to climb, just make a horizontal run, and throw a bulkhead into the side. Dont know if it saves any problems or not, just a thought.

 

[JMaxwell]

I have a similar situation. I installed a clean out plug at the low point so that I can drain the line from time to time. I also installed an air gap at the high point just before it drains into the sump. Put a "T" in the line at the high point with an extention up about 1 foot in the air so that no air gets trapped in the line. This gives the air in the line somewhere to go all the time and reduces the flushing phenomena that occurs do to the drain switching from full siphon laminar flow to turbulent flow open drain and back again. The water level in your overflow will remain steady. All good.

P.S. you really only need a small hole in the air gap to perform the function. I partially capped my 2" drain line at the air gap to reduce the noise.

 

[bristle]

I would use a herbie drain on it. Drill two holes in the overflow on top of each other with a decent margin between them. On the bottom drain, throw a valve on it so that you can control the flow rate and maintain the water level in the overflow so that the bottom drain is always fully submerged and creates a syphon. This method is silent.