Overflow problem, any engineer out there?
 

So i plan to have my sump in a different room with my tank. The problem is the pipe that connecting overflow and sump wont be a straight downward slope. it will have to some minor upward slopes to get around the bathtub sitting in the middle, will this be a problem? Will this cause my water to overflow eventually.

I had a similar smaller setup before and where the overflow line has to go down and down and then go into sump. The highest point of pipe still much lower than the water line in my tank. But occasional i got the overflow problem. I never caught it, just got home and water is on the floor so i suspect that was the problem because the air get into the tube and it needs enough pressure to push that air. Is my theory correct?

Thanks

As long as the pipe inlet in the overflow is the highest point in the line it should work fine. You will simply get some water pooling in the low spots of the piping if your return pump stops. Consider using spaflex to minimize flow losses from bends and minimize leaking joints.

Yeah, head pressure is measured from the inlet to the outlet of the pipe. Doesn't matter a whole ton what happens in the middle (assuming that the pipe is working under siphon). If you get air pocket building up anywhere it might cause some grief.

drain
 

think of the drain trap in your sink-the pipe goes up and the water goes down

Why not use your bathtub as the sump? Think how easy the water change would be.....
Im just saying...

Thanks guys.

With herbie overflow, i think i may get away with air trap inside the pipe.

Bob, I like your thinking lol

Ty, you will have a stagnant water issue in your emerg line if it's not constantly trickling

Is your plumbing issue due to something in the wall that can be modified to get around this problem ?

yeah, it was my fault because the tank was last minute decision and I did not have time to think thoroughly where things go. so now the only access for me to run the pipe from fish tank to sum is through a back of a bathtub which has limited space. And the bath tub is right against the frame and concrete wall can't think of any way to get around the problem :-(

Bath tub + big hammer = solution :razz:

Priorities dude, priorities...

or smash the tank with big hammer and everything is solved lol

Wrong priorities :razz: You already smell funny from ruttin' about in a fish tank, might as well quite the baths too.

Maybe i don't get the joke of what you are saying but I don't think it is funny or is appropriate answer to my question of this thread. Please take your joke some where else if you don't have any better thing to say

Hey sorry, I was just joking that a reefer doesn't need a bath tub, only a tank. Wasn't meaning any offense.

As I said in my first post, you can do what you're planning to do as long as there are no abrupt up and down in the piping that would cause air pockets (that break the siphon) or stagnant water.

oh no problem :-) i had bad day yesterday and probably misunderstood your joke.

Tai you think about crap too much just do it lol

yeah yeah yea, speak the man who gonna help me. You come and do it :-)lol

I'm just trying to look at your build thread and understand this. So the sump will sit in a different room, but on the same floor? Ie. not underneath in the basement or something. I assume not underneath like that because then you could just go straight down first and pipe under the bathtub.

So is the sump then 2 rooms away if it is on the same floor but has to bypass over a bathtub? What size plumbing are you using on the drain line?

I would think that for a Herbie, it wouldn't matter if the main drain line had an initial upwards slope because that will just add more backpressure to the line and then you just have the gate valve opened more. But if the emergency drain line has upward slope then as stated already you want to ensure a constant trickle flow to prevent stagnant standing water but I worry that even a trickle would be subject to occasional burping which is going to totally defeat the purpose of having gone Herbie in the first place.

Can you post some pictures or diagrams?

No problem. Yesterday was about the same for me :razz:

I don't know if you mentioned this but why aren't you having the sump under the tank?

One other solution that you could think about is to have a small sump under the tank the handles the overflow and emergency drain and recycles it back to the tank, then have a small return pump send water to the main sump for treatment. Flow matching because a bit more challenging here but it eliminates the problem of having an emergency line that flows uphill.

My original plan was to have the sump under the tank but then, for the easy of cleaning, but then i got to talk into put it in the mechanical room for easy cleaning and noise problem. Your idea maybe not a bad idea, hmm, what is the best way to do flow matching. Time for google :-) Cheers

If you're going to pump water from a sump below your tank to another sump in the mech room the 2nd sump will have to be higher than the first sump and have an overflow installed so water can flow back to the sump under the tank. I really have no clue what ScubaSteve is suggesting but attempting to match flow from two or more pumps is bad idea, not saying that's what he is in fact suggesting. Whatever you pump water to has to have dependent flow rate back, not independent.

So the trick to this approach is to let flows be independent of each other. Let the displaytank drain into the small sump at the same rate the return pump is feeding it back into the display. This is easy, it's just like a normal sump set up. The trick is sending water to the remote sump via a pump and letting it flow back naturally (basically another drain system just like of the display. If you can have the remote sump raised above the small sump under the tank and just use another herbie drain at the remote sump, you're golden. Think of the little sump under the display as a common sump for two displays. That's basically what you'd be doing. Just make sure the little sump can handle the extra volume of water from the two sets of pipes for when the power shuts off (so you don't flood that nice new house of yours).

If you have to pump the water to the remote sump, then pump it back then you are looking at having to match flows and the endeavor will probably be too complicated.

now your seeing i was right eh and we should have put the tank up to the window as per the origional plan , but you didnt want to give up the 2ft of floor space and now were in a worse situation.....i knew putting that tank against the wall was a bad idea and i said it from day one.....cpnsidering its an in wall tank

Ya, I was in a rush when I was typing earlier and didn't word it correctly. What you said is exactly what I was referring to (avoiding using 2 pump). Like I said in my post after, treat the little sump like a common sump between two displays with proper drain systems.