8 Foot 280 Gallon -> Basement Sump Room

[element291]

Hi guys,

I have been receiving some great feedback regarding my sump room from friends/LFS guys so I figured I would throw a few pics up for the community to see.

I also am open to ideas of any kind, especially pertaining to my return pump setup. I have a reeflo hammerhead gold but my run of head height is around 16 feet on a 1.5" line.

The GPH at this height is not ideal for me but I did not want to buy a 10 amp pump running it 24/7 my hydro bill would be outrageous. I am open to ideas, other pump models, brands, etc I am looking towards low amperage, currently my hammerhead runs just over 2 amps. I cannot find any pumps so far from searching a few weeks that will give me the GPH at this height running this low of amperage.

Their manta ray/tiger shark models from Reeflo lowest amperage starts at 7.2 amps (thats what my whole entire system runs already AVG - no way I want that much current just on ONE pump!)


So the tank is 280 gallons, has dual side overflows with 1.5" gate valves installed so I could fine tune the water going downstairs as my pump isnt as powerful as I had hoped at my height. To help maintain pressure coming down from above I then modified the two 1.5" drain lines from tank overflows I put into a Y setup down at sump and into one smaller line that goes into my custom filter sponge 5 gal dual bucket setup.


The valves are both almost closed with this pump which stinks. The system can run 100% silent upstairs but it only does this for a max of 1-2 days at a time then it will start gargling at the overflow. I hooked up my auto top off to my sump the other day thinking this would solve my issue with having to adjust the valves upstairs but nope, 2 days later my sump level still bang on due to ATO but its like this damn pump has a mind of its own....

Thank god for my water sensors and apex to shut down my pump when the water gets to the top of the tank upstairs because 3 times now I have had the system going for 1-2 days no noise no issues, flows steady... Then all of a sudden I'll be upstairs hearing gargling and my water level has dropped in the main display, so I will have to close the one gate valve off the overflow a tiny bit to hold more water upstairs and get rid of the noise... thats all great, until you goto bed and the pump magically decides with its own mind again that now it will speed back up to where it was before the adjustment was needed = resulting in the tank upstairs getting too high of water level...




I have had at least 5 salt water tank setups. None this large, none with dual overflows. I have shutoff the one overflow and tried tuning and running one but the same thing will happen after 1-2 days....

My last tank was a single overflow 215 gallon and similar to all previous tanks I could run that thing 365 days a year without a single gargle or overflow/sump noise. The water level would only ever drop in the sump at my return pump section which is where I would hookup a manual float ATO and had perfect success for years!

I get this dual overflow setup and tried plumbing it to my basement and its been nothing but a pain in the butt to maintain a constant flow/system.

I think 100% this is due to my pump not pumping enough water from the sump up into the tank.
IMO - I should have a pump large enough like my previous setups that I would have so much water going up to the tank I need the overflow opened up 100% full and I would drill my durso hole larger and larger until I had no noises. Then if anything I would rather have my return pump tuned back or running full speed and have my overflow gate valves opened up fully.

Right now with the gate valves being so closed I also fear small snails or debris that gets past my screens to overflow will eventually clog the small gap that is opened in each gate valve and cause the tank to hit overflow sensor and keep turning my return pump off.

Sorry for the novel, Im not the greatest at writing my thoughts. Any advice, comments tips appreciated largely as this is my first basement sump/dual overflow/pushing water up 16 feet of vertical lift.

Month old picture before changing up rock and doubling my coral stock.















Auto top off bin and float