PVC overflow and wet dry question

[blakeoe]

Im building a sump for my 55 gallon and have the pvc overflow shown below. I thought if i left out the elbow on the intake and just left the pipe straight i could controll the water level better. In pre trials it seems if i put water into the tank too fast it takes too long to go down the pipe. (i guess the elbow is necessary) My question is if the elbow is pretty much completely submerged how do you balance the water flow coming into the tank with the water going out? Im also going to use a mag 9.5 for my return and control it with a ball valve.

 

[Oddball]

I never liked that pic since the spillover after the siphon stage is like a foot below the top of the tank.

This is a gravity drain system. If your tank fills faster than it drains then the overflow plumbing is too narrow to handle the pump. Restricting the pump outflow will just shorten the life of the pump.

Figure up to 600gph draining through 1" pipe. 1 1/2" to 900 and so on.

Here's an illustration of what IMO is a better home-made overflow. I have it running on a couple of tanks. I'll shoot some pics when I get the chance. The siphon side plumbing is almost as deep as the tanks I have them on. Also, I used 2 additional elbows to place the strainer pointing up. I sealed in a threaded fitting so I can just unscrew the strainer/coarse foam sleeve from the plumbing for cleaning purposes.

 

[blakeoe]

wow i like that design ALLOT! I was having trouble fitting the other one behind my diy background because so much of the pipe had to be in the tank. I am using 3/4 inch pipe (mostly because i figured the smaller the easier the fit) do you think it would be a good idea to use your design with 1 inch pipe and do the return with the 3/4 pipe (maybe that will restrict some flow) also the 3/4 inch fittings screw onto the mag perfectly and i will still add a ball valve to fine tune. Any opinions are welcome i am very new to this! Thanks for the info!!!

 

[jellyfish420]

i might try that

 

[eh1421]

Im building a sump for my 55 gallon and have the pvc overflow shown below. I thought if i left out the elbow on the intake and just left the pipe straight i could controll the water level better. In pre trials it seems if i put water into the tank too fast it takes too long to go down the pipe. (i guess the elbow is necessary) My question is if the elbow is pretty much completely submerged how do you balance the water flow coming into the tank with the water going out? Im also going to use a mag 9.5 for my return and control it with a ball valve.

this is the exact same setup i have in my 75gal tank.
I even have the same pump.
to controll the flow going back to the tank put a ball valve in the return line and turn it down about a 1/4 of the way. you may have to play with it a little but but make small adjustments to the ball valve alittle at a time and let it set it will soon enough level itself out.
any other question pm me
mike

 

[mjime714]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but Oddball.. I am interested in your design. For the intake side, if you were to do a surface skimmer like the one blakeoe posted in the first post, does the pipe going up to the U that goes over the side of the tank need to be a certain length?

Also, did you hard pipe the overflow to the sump or do you still use the flex hose?