slip fittings without glue

[the_deeb]

I think that if I permanently glue the PVC plumbing to the bulkheads on the back of my tank it will potentially make it difficult to fit my tank through my apartment door, so I want to be able to remove the plumbing from the bulkheads when I have to move.

Is there a way to get a watertight attachment for PVC slip fittings without permanently gluing the fittings? I'm thinking some kind of silicone grease maybe? This is going to be on the overflow side of the plumbing so low pressure.

 

[bob965]

I wouldn't trust anything but cement. Why can't you just unscrew the bulkheads when you need to?

 

[nes999]

why not get builk head fittings with threads? thats what i did

 

[BadOleRoss]

There are PVC fitting that are slip/compression fittings. The will need to glue a small straight piece on PVC into the bulkhead fitting to attach this fitting to. When you move the tank, you will have to remove the bulkhead fitting but thats easy.

 

[nfored]

trust us and just glue it, Mine leaked, I tried everything, silicone, wrapping them with layers of Teflon. I even got creative and channeled the dripping back to the sump. In the end I said forget it I glued them and never looked back, If I have to take them off I will just remove the bulkhead, and replace it if I need to.

 

[the_deeb]

Bummer. Not the answers I was hoping for. I guess I'll go with the glue.

Bob - if the bulkheads are glued into the plumbing I can't see any way to remove them from the tank, even if you unscrew the nut. You can't get the bulkhead out the tank because of the flange, and you can't fit the plumbing through the bulkhead hole to remove it from inside the tank.

Good thought on the compression fittings Ross but I don't want to take up that much space behind the tank. I'm hoping to have the tank as close to the wall as possible and having the compression fitting sticking out of the back would add at least a couple of inches.

 

[BadOleRoss]

It would add more then a couple of inches, a compression fitting for a 1.5" pipe is about 6" long. My tank is against a wall, well damn close anyway. I wish I would have left enough room behind the tank to get all the way back there. If you are not locked in because of of the way the room is or just a lack of space, you might want to rethink that. I will never again have a tank that I cannot get to every side.

 

[the_deeb]

Unfortunately, my wife and I currently live in a pretty small 1 bedroom apartment. A 28" wide tank is already going to be pushing it with the amount of space we have, so I really don't want to sacrifice any more room behind the tank. One day, when we hopefully have a house and I get my dream tank it's definitely going to have a separate pump room accessible behind the tank.

 

[jcardona1]

forget compression fittings, use regular unions. and that is why i like threaded bulkheads WITH unions on the plubming

 

[the_deeb]

Unions would be great on other parts of the plumbing but coming straight off the bulkheads they still present the same issue though - too much real estate behind the tank. I guess maybe I should have gone with threaded bulkheads. I went with slip because most opinions I heard said they were less likely to leak.