Plumbing questions

[Jeepman3sk]

I have never set u a tank with a sump below on my own. All of my tanks have been used in the past and already plumbed. What kind of valves etc do I need? I have been reading and saw something about emergency valves? No sure what there are and their purpose (yes im assuming something not good). I know I need to have enough space in my sump in case the power goes out and the tank drains into the sump. But besides that any advice, links, etc pointing me in the right direction would be awesome. The tank will be a 60g cube with a 10-20 sump (basically the biggest tank I can fit in the stand). Thanks everyone!

 

[reefstarter]

Well you can get complicated or keep it simple , water in , water out . depends on how your tank is drilled / set up for overflows . durso drains work well quiet and simple , Bean animal designs are supposedly silent , but require at least 3 drains . simple drains out the back of the tank like you see in most LFS work too , but are a bit noisy , cheap but noisy I know this isn't much help but if I saw your tank and how it was drilled I could be more specific

 

[jamesdong009]

If you're doing your own plumbing, I would add as many unions as you can. It's makes the plumbing much easier to take apart if needed.

Are you referring to an emergency drain when you mention valve?

 

[jdeb101]

I'm in process of building a sump for my 95g. I spent many hours researching the various plumbing and sump designs, there's so many it can get overwhelming. Give us more details on what you want the sump to do and maybe we can help. Going off what jamesdong009 said, unions are great but I opted instead for valves that have union on both end. It helps take things apart and also makes it easier to replace a valve if needed. You can see pics of my plumbing in the photography section if you're interested.

 

[MrX]

If you're doing your own plumbing, I would add as many unions as you can. It's makes the plumbing much easier to take apart if needed.

+1!

And, if you think you'll ever need to swap out either side of the union make sure you buy a couple extras. I found out the hard way that the threads don't always line up across manufacturing runs.

 

[Jeepman3sk]

Tank is a marineland 60 gallon cube reef ready drilled in one of the corners I believe it has a drain and return hole in the corner and drilled on the bottom. Thanks for the advice with adding as many unions as possible and the valved unions too. I'm not sure what an emergency drain is I just saw it mentioned many times on reef central. For the sump my plan is 3 chambers skimmer, fuge with live rock/macros, and return pump. I am going to use a durse drain. I remember having one on my old tank and it worked well. For the return pump I saw on marine depot that they have a pump that you can digitally control the gph. What do you guys think about that? Or is it better to just control the output of the return with a valve? I was looking at a mag 9.5 for !y return if using a valve.

 

[Jeepman3sk]

Can I use regular PVC from home depot? Also is there any special glue I need to use when gluing the pipes together?

 

[reefstarter]

glue and Cleaner both , or the PVC won't bond , its not really glue its a solvent weld . cleaner first then "glue " Scedule 40 PVC from home depot is fine .

 

[Jim Tansey]

"Gorilla" has a primer/glue in one that I used on my last non reef project, not that it's much to use the primer as a first step but this stuff is clear and I hate the look of the purple primer. I tried this when my usual supplier was out of clear primer..works great!

Jim

 

[wpeterson]

I recently plumbed my 90 gallon DSA with a Herbie overflow and sump for the first time.

Here's a guide to the plumbing that was super useful: http://gmacreef.com/herbie-overflow-reef-tank-plumbing-method-basics/

I used the black, PVC "spa tubing" instead of hard PVC. I had a difficult time bending it to fit my dimensions until I used hot/boiling water to soften it and shape it. This also helped me to get the tubing entirely over hosed barbs. I found the plastic hose clamps were great for in-tank/sump usage, but that a metal hose clamp with a nut to tighten was helpful for out of the water or higher pressure uses. My return line was slightly leaking at the hose barb until I clamped it with a stronger metal clamp.

If you decide to do a Herbie or other siphon drain, you should invest in a high quality gate valve so you can precisely tune the flow rate to match your return flow.

My tank came pre-drilled with 1x 1" and 2x 3/4" holes (one larger drain and two smaller return lines. I chose to use a siphon drain, an emergency drain, and a single return line. I used a T fitting to split the single return line into two loc-line return outlets, which worked well.

I did not do much for anti-siphon handling on my return nozzles/lines, but I positioned them just above the overflow level to minimize the amount of water back-siphoned. I used different volumes of water to see the power-off max water level. Using this set at 1" below the eurobracing in my sump, I figured out the max-level for power-on. I set my working sump level to 1/2" to 1" below the max power on level. This gives me confidence that even in full failure the sump level is 1" or more below the top.

The only problem I have now in power failure is that the sump water level is too high, which can cause the skimmer to overflow when power is restored. I am going to setup a controller and try to put a 10-15 minute delay for the skimmer powering on to allow the return pump to equalize the water levels in the power failure and restoration scenario.