diy overflow and surface agitations

Oky i understand what you are saying now prof, thank you for you patience with me on this matter.

 

@Dirk Prof, i understand what you mean with the bigger pipe, but please humor me in my debate I want to spark here, in the link @a3aan posted they put another link in their forum which is:

GPM/GPH Flow based on PVC Pipe Size, ie, How much water can flow through Sch 40 Pvc Pipe Size 1/2" 3/4" 1" 1.5" 2" 2.5" 3" 4" 6"

and from this i am seeing that a 25mm pipe can do from 960 gph up to 2,220 gph, and if you convert that to liters its 3634l/h up to 8403.614l/h .

I understand that you are speaking out of experience with the thickness of the pipe in all of this, im just a bit iffy in all of this as this is going to be a display tank, skeleton or what not.

But i have a 1100l/hour pump to pump the water back up from the ground, the top of the tank is about 1.2 meters from the ground, i have tried smaller pumps but gravity wins the war against them.

Im just trying to make sence of the math behind all of this and I hope my conversions are correct as im not very clued up with whatever measuring system it is the US uses.
Also my overflow i currently have is able to out suck my 1100l/hour pump, can this be just a fluke due to the wrong construction of it?

 

Ok so I checked out the other link aswell. That's the flow under pressure. Meaning if you stick a high pressure pump behind a 1" or 25mm pipe you could get that volume of water through it. You have to look at the green part of the chart and not even. Your not even getting much gravitational assistance. In your overflows case you are pushing water horizontal. So a much bigger diameter pipe is needed to give the same volume of water. With your return pump its a simple design issue. If I understand you correct you are using a powerhead. These are more for water circulation than pumps. You need to look at pumps that's designed to work under pressure. Meaning to lift water up a pipe and the water in the pipe puts pressure back onto the pump. Most pumps has a head chart on their back witch will show you the lph at different heights. But even then most manufacturers lie a little. But I'm deff no expert. But I'm sure prof will correct me or can give more in depth answers.

 

Ps.... Verrrrryyyy important. No matter what you overflow must always be able to handle more volume through it than what your return pump can pump back to your display tank... Other wise big water mess on the carpet.

 

Hi Oupoot,

You must listen carefully to Adriaan, I get the feeling he is an engineer, so you are in good hands. Listen what he has to say about the overflow, this water is not being pumped under pressure, it is just flowing over. So you need much more capacity in your overflow that in your in pump. Not so easy all of this.....

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Morning. I'm definitely no engineer. But thanks for the vote of confidence prof. I just like to read allot. And good luck @oupoot.... Post some pics of the mk2 version of your overflow. I'm sure it will be good this time.....

 

Also I cheked my pump this morning, it sayd 1400l/hour and then max H 2m. so from what i can understand its a pump and not a power head? I will probably go and buy all the joints and stuff today and then go from there...

 

Then it is deff a proper pump its just to small. If a pump states max head is 2m then at 2m you will have almost 0 lph. You are pumping 1.2m if I remember correct? So flow from your pump will be nowhere close to 1400 lph. You need to look at the flow rate of a pump at that specific head. In your case 1.2m. So in your case with a 400l tank I would look for a return pump that can flow between 1200 and 1600lph at 1.2m of head. So that would be and this is a guess 2200 to 2600lph rated pump on the box at 0m head. Hope this helps. And good luck again.

 

I was under the impression that a sump only need 0.8 to 1 times water cycle per hour for any size tank and the rule of the canisters don't apply to it? i Have 800l worth of new matrix for this tank and some ceramics for physical filtration

 

Again I'm no expert on this and I hope prof jumps in here but I would aim for at least between 3 and 5 time turn over an hour. 1 time just won't cut it and the flow will be to weak to pick up any waste in the tank.... Or will you be using the sump just for bio filtration? Maybe 1 time would be enough for a super efficient sump but for us mere mortals more turnover is better.

 

@Dirk prof you will be proud! I went to the hardware and they only had 25 and 40 mil pype so i took the 40mil pype. Glued all the joint together so long as far as i could and will be drilling holes in the inlet plug, the rest ill have to do tonight when im at the tank to have the perfect water height

 

Just checked this thread quickly, but Adriaan the 3-5 times per hour turnover is not required. There is a thread that is about 20 pages long on this in which I explain this at length, but the capacity of the sump in terms of media is crucial and 1 to 2 times per hour turnover is ok.

So oupoot, get the syphon to work and then worry about the pump after this.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Will do thanks prof, after this ill get the pump sorted as this tank still needs to cycle in any case

 

Just by reading this thread one learns a lot. Thanks @Dirk and @a3aan for all your comments and inputs and for @oupoot starting this thread. There is no more valuable learning material than experience!!!!

 

Yeah and something else i learned this morning, make sure you assemble everything correcley and that all the joints are glued! I missed one joint and glued one the worng way around lol, will have to go buy back to back connectors today and redo it tonight....

 

So tonight i was busy with finishing up my overflow, and im definatly getting a new pump, it shocked the hell out of me, but i still cant wait to test it all tomorrow...

 

@oupoot, how did your tests go, all working well and as hoped for??

 

So far yes, had a power trip yesterday and almost flooded the house lol, lucky i was home.... I still need to do the lid of the tank, but will do that next month as i got a puncture and had to replace a tyre lol, but the water is warming up and the tank is cycling so no complaints

 

@oupoot you must post some pics of your new tank. All of us are wondering does this tank EXIST???:nuts:

 

@oupoot glad the house did not flood.