first tank w/ overflow and sump I need help please!im a noob!!

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

romanjetfighter

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 27, 2010
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CALIFORNIA!!!!
i got a cool tank and sump from a fellow MFKer :) (shouldve asked for help/clarification at this point but dad was in a hurry to leave), but i have never had a sump or done plumbing before, so all the terminology i know is just from being at home depot for 45 mins looking at the stuff...:P

i thought the plumbing would be easy, but its harder than it looks, anyways if you can help id be so grateful!

i have a 125 with a corner overflow box
img0170qdq.jpg


theres two openings that go from the overflow box down to the sump, one is 1 inch wide and the other is around .5 inch. (the actual holes in the tank are bigger, but the plastic things where the pipes are screwed to have I.D. of 1" and .5")

it goes down into a 20ish gallon sump where a 500 gph pump pumps it through two 1 inch tubes back into the main tank by different ways. here are the things poking out of the tank that put water in the tank

img0168cn.jpg


there are three of these total

img0172gj.jpg

and one of these lower in the tank

heres the general layout of the back of the tank as u can see
img0171hx.jpg





my questions are: what width of tube should i use from the pump in the sump to the two 1" tubes? 1"? also how should i construct the pipes/tubes that go from the overflowbox into the sump? right now i got two 2 foot pvc pipes going straight down into the sump planned but i heard that may be noisy? should i have check valves on both out and in flow?

thanks so much im open to any ideas you may have :) :) :ROFL:
 
First thing I would do is that low one that is in the middle of the tank, cap it off. I'm not sure why it is there but if the power ever went out for some reason you would have half of your tank water on the floor. The 2 return lines you have up top are ok run 1" pvc from the pump to those or plactic tubing with the barbed tees will be fine but add a check valve right on top of the pump in case of power outages for some flood insurance. Last my opinion on the corner overflow is cap up the small hole you don't need it with the 2 returns that are drilled in the back. And whatever size the big hole is you want to run a 1" to 1.5" pvc pipe about halfway up in the overflow and the other end is going to drain into your sump over your bio media. Hope that helps a little bit
 
that simplifies things for me alot, especially capping the extra holes i thought were necessary cuz they were put there for a reason but i guess the guy before me had a weird complicated system. thanks jsodwi!
 
Ususally the two holes in the overflow are the only ones used. The small one would go to the pump and a pipe would run all the way up to the top of the tank with that bendable return piece and the large one goes down to the sump. I'm not sure why those extra holes were put there, probably was moving a ton of water. The only way I see that drian in the lower middle of the tank working is, to run an elbow off of it and run a pvc pipe up to the surface to act as an overflow pipe. But if you are only gonna run a pump up to 600-700gph, you will be fine just using what I mentioned above
 
for the pipes, is it secure enough to just use the pipes and connections that slide in, without screwing, without using glue? so it'd be easy to take apart

or would vinyl tubes with those metal clamps be better? thanks!!:)
 
I was pondering that middle hole too, but as BUD pointed out, that's a perfect drain line for water changes. Not too low and all that would be needed is run a hose outside your house to a rain barrel, or plumb a drain up to your tank location to your homes main sewer line. Done.
 
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