best method to do large scale water changes on BIG tanks

[arowfan]

Hey all,
I have a 500 gallon that I'm setting up, and was trying to come up with the best solution to do a water change with a tank this size.
Normally, on my 300, I've been doing a combo of vacuming and having a mag drive pump connected to a hose which drains into the sump in the floor which then pumps it out of the house.
I'd like the mag drive to be eliminated, as I want to be the least bit invasive with this tank as possible, and was wondering if I drilled a hole in the lower back of the tank and installed a bulkead with a ball valve attached draining to the sump as well....
But again, I want to hear what you guys are doing
Thanks in advance!!!

John

 

[Rome]

Pool style. No substrate with a main drain with enough current blowing debris into it so you dont need to vaccuim. Plumb the sump to an exterior drain and turn a valve to release water, and run a hose to fill it up. You can also run a constant drain& drip system.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[Dan F]

I would definitely look into a constant change system, it will make your life a whole lot easier.

 

[arowfan]

thanks guys, i've been thinking of doing a drip system as well...i guess there would have bulkhead at a certain height, so that when the water level exceeds the bulkhead it drains-is that pretty much how those work?
anyone have any links to threads that I can llok at...I will do a search in a bit to see what I can dig up..I was thinking about a 1 gph drip
Rome, for the main drain-I would have to drill a hole and fit a bulkhead right?
thanks!!!

 

[oscarfishguy]

Hey John,

If you use a bulkhead, you should put it higher on the tank just to be safe. You never want to come home to an empty tank if for some reason the drip/refill stops. I set my tank up so the return pump also has a valve to dump water quickly. I haven't hooked up a drip system yet, but I am thinking about it.

 

[Inglorious]

If you end up not doing a drip then the easiest way I've seen is to have a drain line at the point you would want to drain to(ex. 1ft below the surface on a 36" tank for a 33% change). This line is valved so all you have to do is open the valve to dump the water to the drain level, close the valve, and refill. Not quite as easy as a drip system but still much easier than a python or ugh, buckets.

 

[pacu mom]

Hey all,
I have a 500 gallon that I'm setting up, and was trying to come up with the best solution to do a water change with a tank this size.
Normally, on my 300, I've been doing a combo of vacuming and having a mag drive pump connected to a hose which drains into the sump in the floor which then pumps it out of the house.
I'd like the mag drive to be eliminated, as I want to be the least bit invasive with this tank as possible, and was wondering if I drilled a hole in the lower back of the tank and installed a bulkead with a ball valve attached draining to the sump as well....
But again, I want to hear what you guys are doing
Thanks in advance!!!

John

We do water changes utilizing the plumbing of our mechanical filtration. We have a bare floor tank and have two PVC pipes coming down just off the floor "poop suckers" that suck up all the debris on the floor. Connected to the plumbing lines is a pipe going under the house and out to the patio. To drain the tank, we just open the valve where the pipe comes out onto the patio, and the water gravity flows from the tank to the outside. Refilling the tank is easy, too. In our mechanical room behind our tank, we have a 55 gallon tank sitting on a high shelf. We have a line from a utility sink to the 55 gallon holding tank. We turn on the faucet (matching it to the water in the main tank), filling up the 55 gallon tank. We keep the faucet on when we are refilling the main tank. There is a PVC pipe in the 55 gallon tank that feeds into the mechanical filtration. We just open the valve, and the water gravity flows from the 55 gallon tank to the 300 gallon main tank.

The tall vertical pipe on the right is the pipe from the 55 gallon tank. Opening the valve refills the main tank. On the extreme right is the pipe going under the house...that's the one that can drain the tank dry if we want.
If we turn the pump on when refilling the tank, we can drain the 55 g dry, so we have to keep an eye on things or close the valve part way.

Refilling the tank
[YT]7v2Vyr5NbNs[/YT]

We are going to incorporate some of the features of our 300 gallon tank on our big tank. We are going with six 1 1/2" poop suckers just off the floor. We will be able to drain the tank from these. Instead of a holding tank to refill the main tank, we have hot/cold water lines directly above the tank. The sump tank will also have hot/cold water lines. We have two 3" floor drains that drain outside which we will use to get rid of water.

 

[KAWAMIKIE]

If you are using a sump install a bulkhead fitting at the water level in the sump and plumb it to drain where ever you want to drain it to. Drip fresh water into the tank and adjust the rate of flow to how much water you are wanting to change per day or week. If you are on city water you will want to install filters to remove chlorine.

 

[duanes]

I have a Tee on a return line from the sump, when I want to do a water change open a valve to the outside, and water is sent to the garden. During the process the flow to the tank never stops, it just slows down as some is diverted outside.
This uses the main pump, so no extra pump is needed, I can get rid of hundreds of gallons of old water in a matter of minutes.

 

[Cicho]

I use a 1.5" pvc siphon that has an adjustable drain level so that I can set how much water will be drained. I drain though a 1.5" hose to the outside at ~25 gallons per minute with no power.