Need some sump/drip system advice

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bigbenb

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MFK Member
May 21, 2012
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florida
I just purchased a used 200 gallon cube, which I intend to use as a low-tech planted discus tank. I was planning to make a cheap DIY sump, since the tank is drilled with corner overflows. However, I ran into an issue. I have all my tanks connected to a drip system with the drain line connected above the P-trap under one of my sinks. The drain connection under my sink is about 23" above the floor. The ceiling under my aquarium stand is only 24" high, so obviously I do not have enough height to drain out of a sump.

It seems like my first option is to raise the stand of the floor by using concrete blocks or something, which would not look very good...

The second option would be to use canister filters, which is much more expensive.

Is there another method of draining a drip system or something else that I am not thinking about? I do not think that I can lower the drain height under my sink.

Any advice is appreciated.
 
Are you on a municipal sanitary sewer system? Or perhaps a backyard septic field?

Speaking from the perspective of a person who has at various times been on both of those types of sewer systems, and who now relies on an ejector system on my own property, I would suggest that you carefully consider all aspects of where your water is going before making a lot of labour-intensive mods to your current set-up. If your system is entirely on your own private property, i.e. a septic field or ejector, then you are placing unnecessary and undesirable strain on your ejector/sewage pump and/or septic field by pumping many hundreds of gallons of excess water into and through them. Both of those components have a finite working life; once that is used up, repairs (especially in the case of the septic field) are extremely expensive.

Unless there is some pressing reason to avoid doing so, my first choice would be to plumb the outflow directly to the outdoors and by-pass your waste-water system altogether. My current set-up drains through a line running through my wall and into a buried pipe that runs down-grade away from the house, under my lawn, and ejects the water into an adjacent field (my own property). In my case, a pump is required to move the water up out of my basement fishroom and out through the wall; if your fish tanks are above grade, this could be done using gravity instead. This would work especially well in your area since it could function this way all year round; in my case there are at least 5 months of the year when the outside drain must be switched to an above-ground flexible hose which I need to be able to access to break up ice and keep it from clogging.

Do you have a basement with a sump pit? If so, you could very easily drain your waste tank water into that, and simply rely upon your sump pump to automatically eject it to wherever it is set up to transport the ground water it catches now. This requires keeping a regular watch on your sump pump to make sure it is functioning properly; this is something that should be anyways. Again, the sump pump has a finite life, but in this case having it run intermittently all year round, rather than just during wet times, may actually increase the service life of the pump. And, of course, compared to sewage pumps and/or septic fields, sump pumps are cheap.

Thinking through all aspects of this part of your tank maintenance system will pay big dividends in the long run. The easier it is to change water, the more likely you are to do it regularly. And the basic truth is that all the filters and other water-quality devices with which the modern aquarist loves to fiddle are simply devices that prolong the length of time between water changes and allow us to cram higher densities of fish into our tanks. Enough water changes, especially when combined with moderate stocking densities, make any filtration unnecessary.

Think twice (or thrice...or even more often...) and then start cutting, drilling, gluing, etc. :)
 
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Forget the drip system thinking!

Use a float valve in the sump like you would for an auto top off system. When the water level in the sump goes down the float valve opens and the sump fills back up.

Put a secondary small pump in the sump that is plumbed into your P trap. Put the pump on a timer. Run the pump 10 minutes once a day. The pump pumps water out of the sump down the P trap. The water in the sump goes down. The float valve opens and the sump fills back up.

If you want to get fancy put a divider in the middle of your sump. Pump the water with the small secondary P trap pump out of the "water return from tank" side of the divider. Put the float valve on the "return to tank sump pump" side of the divider. From a practical standpoint this once a day water change is more water efficient than a drip system because you will flush out less fresh water with the dirty water.

If you want to do a bigger water change, set the P trap pump to run for a couple hours while you sit back drinking a beer thinking of all those poor saps that use a python and 5 gallon buckets! LOL! ...if you have too many beers and fall asleep, no issue, the timer will shut off the P trap pump after 2 hours whether you are conscious or not!

P.S. A power failure will not automatically cause a sump overflow with this float valve configuration like using a pump on a float switch with a drip system will.
 
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Lol, I was just thinking about how goofy one would need to be to fall asleep and flood their house doing a water change...

...and then I thought back to a point a few years ago, before my own system was quite as idiot-proof as it is now. I drained the appropriate amount from the aquarium (correct...), then re-filled it from the holding tank in which I pre-warm my well water (check...), then dropped the hose into the now-empty holding tank (uh-huh...), then busied myself with other projects while that tank re-filled. I putzed around with some filters, fed some fish, worked on a project or two...took some frozen steaks upstairs to the kitchen...glanced at the TV on my way back downstairs...and then sat down and watched most of No Country For Old Men. Then I took the dog out, cleaned some dog poop out of the yard, filled the bird feeders, checked the pond, watched some deer, went back inside, scanned for interesting stuff on TV...and finally realized that the water was still running downstairs.

Thankfully, my fish room is in an unfinished basement. As bad as the situation was...it could have been much, much worse...:)
 
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Use a float valve in the sump like you would for an auto top off system. When the water level in the sump goes down the float valve opens and the sump fills back up.
P.S. A power failure will not automatically cause a sump overflow with this float valve configuration like using a pump on a float switch with a drip system will.
I agree
I used these float valves below in sumps, whenever replacing water, because am also the type to get distracted.
I always add water to the sump, not to the tank, drip or not.

The red valve ball on the right the sump, is one I have used. As the sump fills, the red stopper is forced up and closes off the water line to the sump. It is normally sold for adding water to cattle tanks, at farm supply stores.
Below, in the process of adding water.

It ran under $15 ten years ago, there may be more sensitive versions, but this worked for me.
 
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