Overflow help for 450 gallons

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
ragin_cajun said:
If you don't do a silent drain, with full siphon drain, you'll have significantly lower drain rate in the pipe than the rates shown in the link I posted earlier. You'll have to research what expected flow rate is under "turbulent flow conditions". I know that a pair of 2 inch drains can handle my 2 2400 Laguna's. So if my gate valve ever just clogged up totally, I'd still be OK. It'd be loud, but it wouldn't flood.

Problem I see is this. Suppose you find that a single Laguna 2900 isn't enough flow. If you want to add second one, (which is what I'd do to start), you might not have enough drain capacity to keep up.
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Ok I see your point and may indeed decide to go with two 2900s but assuming I do go with 1 I am still unclear regarding the two drain standpipes length. I'm still confused if they should both be at water level, or if 1 should be below water level. I will be running a drip system as well not sure if that makes a difference
 
I would put one standpipe at water level, and one about 6 inches below water level and have a gate valve on it, because that's how I'd do a Herbie and that's what I'm familiar with.

If you're not concerned about noise, don't care about a gate valve to tune drain rate, then cut both standpipes at whatever water level you want in the display tank. I thought you originally said you were gonna have overflows. What changed your mind?
 
ragin_cajun said:
I would put one standpipe at water level, and one about 6 inches below water level and have a gate valve on it, because that's how I'd do a Herbie and that's what I'm familiar with.

If you're not concerned about noise, don't care about a gate valve to tune drain rate, then cut both standpipes at whatever water level you want in the display tank. I thought you originally said you were gonna have overflows. What changed your mind?
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Thanks again for this advice. I called them overflows but was referring to the standpipes. I thought technically they were still considered overflows since the water would be overflowing them down into the sump
 
Yea, that's confusing. I'm still not totally sure about the terminology, but I believe that overflow is the box, drain or standpipe is the pipe. Same thing with drains and returns. I try to be really careful to call them drains, although to my mind, "return" should mean return to the sump which is what the drain line does.
Torchia32 said:
Thanks again for this advice. I called them overflows but was referring to the standpipes. I thought technically they were still considered overflows since the water would be overflowing them down into the sump
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ragin_cajun said:
Yea, that's confusing. I'm still not totally sure about the terminology, but I believe that overflow is the box, drain or standpipe is the pipe. Same thing with drains and returns. I try to be really careful to call them drains, although to my mind, "return" should mean return to the sump which is what the drain line does.
Click to expand...
Hey one more question for you. I'm thinking of running a fluidized bed on this setup. Do you see any problem with drilling one large hole connecting chamber 1 to 2 and one large hole connecting chamber 2 to 3 and just covering the hole with some type of mesh screen to keep the media in the middle chamber?
 
No clue. I've never done a fluidized bed. I did my sump the way I did because I didn't want to mess with fluidized beds. I just wanted simple and easy--one big sump with 2 bags of matrix.
 
Do you have holes drilled in the bottom of your tank and no box or are you doing a diy pvc overflow?
 
i would do 2 of the Laguna pumps. For redundancy if nothing else. If one fails the other is there to back it up. But mainly because I think 1x 2900 wont be enough. I have 2x 2" drains and run 2x 4280s wide open.
 
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