Yet another plumbing redesign.

[Bent]

Sigh. This has taken on a mind of its own.

I need to rework this. Here's a pic:

I'm kind of annoyed. Here's what I got going on now.

1: the DT is fed souley from a blue line. It gets about 550gph to the DT after all the head loss. I'm fine with that.

2: a fluval sp4 feeds that monster manifold thats 6 feet up in the air. (I wanted it at eye level).

Manifold set up like this:
-The far left valve feeds the UV which goes into the sump.
-The second valve from the left feeds the first refugium (which I plan on either planting or turning into a Xenia fuge).
-the center valve feeds the 10 gallon tank in the sump which I use to tumble a chaeto ball. However, I now have the carbon reactor plumbed inline right here and one of the problems is that the reactor will not flow enough to tumble the chaeto.
-the far right valve used to feed the dual reactor till I split it up, now it just feeds the GFO, which is working great.

Here's my plan, let me know if you think this is what I should do.

1: I need to lower the manifold. It's useless, though convenient, to have 6' of head loss just to get the manifold where I don't have to bend over.
2: I need to have everything terminate inside the chaeto tumble tank. That way I can get more flow to the chaeto.
3: I'm going to remove the UVS from the manifold and put it inline with something else, anything else. Any ideas? This way I don't have to take up pressure to feed the thing seperately.
4: I'm going to tee off the manifold in that spot between the last valve and the one before it (hopefully there's enough room once I cut it) and I'm going to feed the carbon reactor.
5: my POS PCs are dying. I'm going to buy a Chinese led pendant and put it over there.

Any other ideas? Is the head loss really a big deal?

 

[Bent]

No one has any ideas?

 

[rtecanoe]

I think the most important thing ur missing is a small dorm room type fridge for that PBR, it would fit nicely in the bottom right hand corner

 

[Curtjakson]

All that madness for a 20g tank? Am I missing something?

 

[Sagz70]

uuuuhhhh

 

[brob22]

All that madness for a 20g tank? Am I missing something?

hillarious

im not smart enough to follow all this but its making me think my plumbing job might be a bit basic

 

[slief]

Wow.. That is a mess of plumbing,,, With all those elbows and small PVC sized lines coupled with the height, your friction losses are a bigger issue than the 6' height. If you don't want to lower the manifold and or redo everything, increase the plumbing size/diameter between the pump and the manifold. That will reduce friction loss which will then reduce head pressure. That said, that is some chaos there if I've ever seen it and whatever you have going on with the BRS reactor on the far right makes no sense what so ever? It looks like that reactor is fed by the same line that it returns to only downstream of it's inlet? That isn't a good idea will impeded flow through the reactor and into that feed line. You essentially are pressurizing that rector from both ends and while it may work, it's not efficient and would reduce flow through the line that the feed is T'd off of.

This is the section I am talking about above..

Personally, I'd rip it all out and start over keeping it as clean and methodical as possible. Use as few 90's as you can and the least amount of PVC that you can. I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish but it looks like you just kept adding onto to something and created a mess there. Given what you have learned, I am reasonably confident you can come up with much cleaner and more efficient plumbing if you had to do it over again.

 

[slief]

Also, why the union ball valves after the gate valves? You don't need those ball valves and all they are doing is adding to your friction loss.

 

[CStrickland]

Ok, so it's not just me lol
The top tank is your qt, right? I think the other guy thought it was your DT, that'd be bonkers.

I bought a used tank recently and it came with a lot of stuff I'm not really into: reactors, uv, a boss manifold. I'm tempted to put it all to use, but I won't. I'm gonna set up my tank how I want it. Maybe if you sat in front of your DT with some graph paper and a couple pbr's you could draw up your dream sump. Then go back downstairs and think about how to make it happen. PVC is cheap, and you were smart enough to use true unions on a lot of your valves. no reason to stick with something that makes you say "sigh"

There's so many ways to set up a sump, mine wouldn't be right for you, but it sounds like this one also isn't either. I think at this point you know what you like, it's just that having this already is holding you back.

For now I'd get that one powerstrip out from under the uv tho. Anything on that table releases water and you might be in trouble there.

 

[Member No. 1]

I have nothing constructive to add sorry, but I did feel the need to comment.

One thing I do know, the thing on the table to the left should always come after the plumbing! :beer:

 

[kmbyrnes]

Methinks you enjoy the smell of PVC cement too much!
A complete redesign is in order - or at least add a boot on a pendulum!

 

[Jade5051]

Sometimes life just needs a redo. I'd rip it all apart. Keep it simple. Make one large manifold for everything. Do a few things inline. Try to minimize bends and excessive valves and definitely lower the height. Streamline things. It's almost impossible to make sense of that creature.

Hats off to the PBR. I do my best work after 4 or 5 of those bad boys.

 

[Xxero]

Sigh. This has taken on a mind of its own.

I need to rework this. Here's a pic:

My OCD prevents me from looking at this photo for longer than 10 second intervals.

And I can't seem to get past the pair of socks on the couch in the foreground. :jester:

 

[Bent]

Lol sorry bout the lack of details.

The 30g tank is the refugium, the 10g tank is the chaeto tumbler and the DT is upstairs on the floor above all of this.

 

[Bent]

Wow.. That is a mess of plumbing,,, With all those elbows and small PVC sized lines coupled with the height, your friction losses are a bigger issue than the 6' height. If you don't want to lower the manifold and or redo everything, increase the plumbing size/diameter between the pump and the manifold. That will reduce friction loss which will then reduce head pressure. That said, that is some chaos there if I've ever seen it and whatever you have going on with the BRS reactor on the far right makes no sense what so ever? It looks like that reactor is fed by the same line that it returns to only downstream of it's inlet? That isn't a good idea will impeded flow through the reactor and into that feed line. You essentially are pressurizing that rector from both ends and while it may work, it's not efficient and would reduce flow through the line that the feed is T'd off of.

This is the section I am talking about above..

Personally, I'd rip it all out and start over keeping it as clean and methodical as possible. Use as few 90's as you can and the least amount of PVC that you can. I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish but it looks like you just kept adding onto to something and created a mess there. Given what you have learned, I am reasonably confident you can come up with much cleaner and more efficient plumbing if you had to do it over again.

The section you are talking about is the outlet that goes to the chaeto tumbler. Adjusting the valve adjusts the rate of flow in that 10g tank in the sump with the chaeto ball.

I have it set up like that so I can bypass the reactor and still keep the output to the tumbler going.

Opening the black 1" ball valve and closing the two 1/2" ball valves on the intake and output side of the reactor lets me work and remove the reactor if need be without having to shut the flow to the tumbler off.

Turning the black 1" ball off and then turning the two unions valves back on sends the water to the reactor and then out to the tumbler.

Edit:
And the big Union ball valves allow me to cut off flow to that section without having to readjust the flow with the gate valves.

Edit2:
Oh and the plumbing from the pump is upsized from the 3/4" outlet to 1" plumbing.

 

[shermanator]

I think it's totally awesome. And if it's really all for a 20g DT (as someone above posted) that is even awesome-er. I'm all about absolute overkill. =)

If you re-do it (I would), try to eliminate 3/4ths of the elbows. I would also think about the crucial elements and get (only) those plumbed first. Then decide what else you want to add (non-needed items, but things you already have like UV, etc). But the major, essential components should ideally be on their own plumbing and that plumbing should be as clean (few or no elbows, etc) as possible.

 

[Tautoga]

Wow.... only thing I can say is that you need to simplify that....lol

 

[Bent]

Ok here's my plan on how to fix it.

1: take the whole thing down.
2: make a new manifold.
3: I think I'm going to put a piece of ply wood over on the far left of the table and put the manifold there. That puts it very close to the pump outlet that you can see sticking out of the sump on the left.
4: the manifold I'm going to ditch the unions and ball valves and just use simple solvent gate valves. I'll probably put a single ball valve on top so I can turn the whole thing on or off when I want.
5: I'm going to put the UV inline with something else and not use the manifold to feed it. Any ideas as to what to put it with? I was thinking with one of the reactors since the flow will be slower out of those.
6: my outlets from the new manifold will all terminate in the chaeto tumble tank so I don't have to make a new space on the manifold specifically to tumble it. Or is that a bad idea?

So currently I'm thinking this from the manifold:

Gate 1>Carbon reactor>chaeto tumble tank>sump
Gate 2>GFO reactor>chaeto tumble tank>sump
Gate 3>UVS>30g refugium>sump
Gate 4>chaeto tumble tank (for extra flow if needed)>sump
Gate 5>closed
Gate 6>closed

Again, I think I'll put a piece of plywood on the left side of that table near the floor and install the manifold on the outside and the reactors on the inside. That will move the manifold and make my pegboard actually useful again.


Any other ideas?

Edit:
Pipe sizes will have to go like so:

1" from pump outlet to manifold. (Or should I go larger?)
1" manifold fittings and valves.
1">1/2" for the reactors.
1">3/4" to the refugium/UVS.

Edit 2:

Does anyone sell pre made manifolds? Looking at the fittings to do this is going to be expensive.