500 Gallon Drain Plumbing

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
L

Loch Ness

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 23, 2009
38
0
0
Michigan
Have a 500 gallon glass tank and the two drainage holes are drilled right in the middle of the bottom of the tank. Right now i have pvc plumbed inside the tank. It goes from the bulk heads in the bottom to the top of the tank so i am just siphoning water off the top. The tank is 44'' tall and i am having problems with waste and debris settling at the bottom so i want to change my filtration system to siphon from the bottom.

Is this design flawed? My logic says it will be fail safe in a power outage, just wanted to know if some of you more experienced dyi'ers found something I didn't. Also is there an easier way? My goals: 1) siphon off the bottom 2) as little pvc in tank

Thank you

NEW 500 GAL PLUMBING.jpg
 
Your good to go!
You can get fancy and add a valve at the bottom for a complete drain or add a valve at any level you want and go with a 10% or 20% level then just open the valve and the water will drain to that level and no more. Great for water changes, just open the valve, have a beer, come back and you have 10% water out of your tank. Then close the valve and fill with fresh water.
 
to clear up any potential misunderstanding, your not actually siphoning since theres a vent, you really just have a overflow setup. so when the water level raises above the bend in the pvc it overflows to the sump.
i believe this is the goal you wanted, just making sure were on the same page.


i see no problems but one design oversight i see theres no plumbing to expediate you water changes. if you have bottom drains you may as well plumb a waste water exit.
 
Looks like it should work. Have fun getting it going.
 
I have the same setup with holes in the bottom of the tank. I did what you did, only I did a 90 degree bend to the back of the tank, then a 90 bend and up so I wouldn't have pvc pipe in the middle of the tank.

I was having the same issue with waste going nowhere and collecting in the bottom of the tank.

When I posted this in my 450g setup thread, someone suggested taking larger diameter pvc pipe (which I already had large black pvc over white pvc to blend in with the black background) and drilling holes in the bottom of it. Then slide the larger pvc over the the smaller, making sure the larger sticks out of the water/higher than the water line. This forces the water to be sucked into the bottom of the larger pvc, go up and into the smaller pvc, sucking the waste from the bottom up in the process.

I've had this setup for two days now, and it has dramatically improved the situation.

Personally, I say its worth a try. A 10' long piece of pvc is around $3, it takes two minutes to cut it to size and drill holes in it. If it works, you just saved yourself time and money, if not, you're out $3.
 
I drilled my 80g to make it a sump. It wasn't so hard. I did practice a couple of times on an old tank first. The first time, I cracked it because I was putting too much pressure on the drill, second time was easy though. Just let the weight of the drill do the work.
 
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