Water bridge

[Binge]

So as always I got stuck in my own head with an idea and wanted to get opinions here.

I am bored with my 75 gallon at the moment once I move my elliots and chocolates over to the 125g it will be almost empty (couple corys, bolivian ram, some kribs). I intend to sell off that stock reset the tank and attach it to my 125g with a water bridge, and haveing the 75g(400g an hour and a sponge filter) much lower flow and the 125g fairly heavy flow. (1600gallons an hour).

Now I have considered a couple ways of makeing my water bridge.
Glass ( too expensive and I hate silicone)
vinyl hose like airline or water change hose (cant find any with a large enough diameter thats thick enough)
Clear PvC (makes glass look like its free at $200 a 10 ft section)

which leaves regular old PvC now my question is do you guys think 3" diameter pvc is wide enough for upper jaw polys to navigate thru. I do not think I can get any of the more open elbows at 3 " and will hafto use 90 degree fittings. I worry about then makeing the turns. At 3" I can likely build the bide for around $20

I figure the glue is safe as we use it on water pipes in our homes.

Any thaughts are welcome

 

[Polyaddict86]

J jaws7777

 

[Vancouver_98683]

Suggestion:

 

[Vancouver_98683]

Ok. Just read the whole post. Disregard my prior. This is over the budget of 20.

 

[magpie]

Interesting concept!

Vancouver_98683 - where is that? Wow. Crazy to think about how far the fish are going. I wonder how long it takes them to figure it out and if only some will do it when the bridge is that long.

What UJ species specifically do you want to keep, Binge?

Looking at my Del, she is only 8 inches and fairly thick, especially on a full stomach. I would worry about her being able to make the 90 degree turn as she got bigger. If it was straight it might be a different story.

Ornates and Weeksii also get pretty thick as they age. I think Teugs stay narrower in general but we've seen obese Teugs too.

Does it have to be a 90 degree bend? I would err on the side of larger. It would be horrible to find out the hard way that it wasn't large enough.

But I'll be curious to hear what others have to say. I've never owned an adult-sized UJ.

 

[jaws7777]

A 3 inch pipe is allot bigger than you think.

Will post a pic and read through this latter.

But ShanerBock888 could provide input. We just had this situation with his build it was wotha sump though.

 

[jaws7777]

Binge wanna understand it better.
So the 75 is going to be attached to the 125 ?
Are they going to he level with each other ?
Will the 75 sit under the 125 like a sump ?

If both will be level why do you need the 90's ?

Are the tanks tempered glass ? Assuming that they are.

If the goal is to keep the LJ's out. I think the 3 inch diameter pipe may be too big.

Took some pics of plumbing supplies i had laying around.
4 inch pipe

3inch gate valve but should give you an idea how big the 3inch pvc will be.


2 inch pipe

 

[ShanerBock888]

I did just connect my 2 sumps with a 1" pipe, but it didn't need to fit any polys through it. Each of my sumps is essentially independent, with its own drain, media, pump, and return. So they could theoretically not be connected. I decided to connect them to account for any difference in flow rate - I figured that even a slight difference would lead to one sump overflowing while the other ran dry. It works like a charm and water levels are steady, but since both sumps have nearly identical plumbing I don't think the bridge pipe handles more than a few gallons per hour.

 

[jaws7777]

I did just connect my 2 sumps with a 1" pipe, but it didn't need to fit any polys through it. Each of my sumps is essentially independent, with its own drain, media, pump, and return. So they could theoretically not be connected. I decided to connect them to account for any difference in flow rate - I figured that even a slight difference would lead to one sump overflowing while the other ran dry. It works like a charm and water levels are steady, but since both sumps have nearly identical plumbing I don't think the bridge pipe handles more than a few gallons per hour.

I think he could do this with the correct bulkhead sizes. Whatcha think ?



Www.flexpvc.com has tons of fitting and Eric is very cool will try and figure this out. He helped me figure out what fittings i needed on the return side of the new tank.

 

[ShanerBock888]

This is a really awesome idea. You got me thinking about it and the more I do the more I love it. The clear pvc would be even better but holy crap that's expensive.

I just checked that site jaws posted and they do have the smaller angle fittings for 3" or larger pipe. I think 3" would probably be ok, but if it were me I'd go with 4". It will give you flexibility when adding new polys, or when your current stock potentially get's pudgy with old age. I think 4" would also decrease the likelihood of damaged finlets.