How's my proposed plumbing look?

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VLDesign

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Mar 20, 2007
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Pump will be a Reeflo hammerhead. Total height is about 80 inches. Each tank will be 20" tall. The foot prints of the tanks are 6'x3' for the 250's and 4'x3' for the 150s.
Just curious is the drains will work properly.
The upper tanks will share a common 2" drain with the tank below it and all connect to a 3" final drain. I estimate total flow to be about 4500 GPH.
 
I had a setup similar to that and I had problems with the drains. The tanks closest to sump would fill up the main drain tube and prevent the other tanks from draining the way they should. Even when I added vents, one tank seemed to drain faster than the rest. Maybe I didn't have something quite right but if I were going to do it again I would run seperate drains from each tank to the sump. It seems like alot more work but it will save alot of frustration.
 
throttle;766491; said:
I had a setup similar to that and I had problems with the drains. The tanks closest to sump would fill up the main drain tube and prevent the other tanks from draining the way they should. Even when I added vents, one tank seemed to drain faster than the rest. Maybe I didn't have something quite right but if I were going to do it again I would run seperate drains from each tank to the sump. It seems like alot more work but it will save alot of frustration.
Click to expand...

also add valves to control flow:popcorn: :popcorn:
 
Are the drains coming from overflow boxes in each tank? Is the water moving by gravity flow to your sump? Where and how will your Hammerhead pump be connected? Will you have uptakes in all the tanks with the Hammerhead drawing the water out of the tanks? If so, once the water is pumped into the sump, how will the water be returned back to the tanks?

We have a Hammerhead pump connected to two spa filters. It does a phenomenal job of mechanical filtration on our 300 gallon tank. The Hammerhead draws water/debris through three uptakes into the tank, runs it through the spa filters and then pumps the water back into the tank. For biological filtration we have a wet dry filter with water being drained through an overflow box. A separate pump in the sump returns the water back to the tank.

I'm having difficulty picturing how you would use that big Hammerhead pump with a sump tank.
 
pacu mom;766736; said:
Are the drains coming from overflow boxes in each tank? Is the water moving by gravity flow to your sump? Where and how will your Hammerhead pump be connected? Will you have uptakes in all the tanks with the Hammerhead drawing the water out of the tanks? If so, once the water is pumped into the sump, how will the water be returned back to the tanks?

We have a Hammerhead pump connected to two spa filters. It does a phenomenal job of mechanical filtration on our 300 gallon tank. The Hammerhead draws water/debris through three uptakes into the tank, runs it through the spa filters and then pumps the water back into the tank. For biological filtration we have a wet dry filter with water being drained through an overflow box. A separate pump in the sump returns the water back to the tank.

I'm having difficulty picturing how you would use that big Hammerhead pump with a sump tank.
Click to expand...


wouldn't it be better to push water thru the filters rather than draw it thru on the intake side ???? :confused: :confused:
 
The drain from each tank will come from standard internal overflows and then yes, gravity will take over. The pump will be just under where the 2" line on the far right of the sump. All mechanical filtration will be handled in the sump where the drain return dumps into it.

Did that help at all or make it worse? lol
 
my opinion...

i suggest you get 2 pumps for your return. one for the two tanks on top and one for the two tanks below.
also, use separate drains to the sump for each tank. sharing the drainpipes and unifying them may affect the drain rate of the tanks below.
this is so that you'll have two input output systems working for 2 tanks each.
 
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