Plumbing

[PVsPlayHouse]

There are a lot of people out there that have a hard time starting up there plumbing jobs on there tanks, and also do not understand head loss with there pump and how they can prevent it to get the most flow out of there pumps. I have been looking on the web to find out about how people have set up there plumbing and there is just not that much out there, so I decided to post what I did on my tank and give a little information. The planning of my tank was done to try and keep down as much head loss as possible and make it as net as possible. No matter what, you are going to have some head loss but you can do things to make it less.

I have a couple of things that you should think about before you start your plumbing job.

1. Try and use as little 90d elbows as possible, if you can get away with using 45s then do so. 45d elbows will make water move smoothly through, also if you can avoid using Ts and using wye fitting instead that would also help.

2. Try and go up .25 in size of PVC. This will help the pump flow water faster with less restrictions.

3. True Union Ball Valves are good to use. They take up less space then using a valve and a union separate. Going up a size will help in head loss as well.

4. Flexible PVC Tubing is very good to use when ever you can. This stuff is very easy to bend and can eliminate almost any elbows that you mite need to use.. It also helps with vibration from your pump. The rubber on the tubing absorbs the vibration so your pump wont make extra noise. A lot of times its not the pump making the sound it is your plumbing.

5. Keep in mind that one day you mite have to take down your plumbing or clean it out for any build up that mite happen. So try and use Unions in areas that will make it easier for you to take your Plumbing apart so you don't have to break out your saw and start to cut it away. I learned the hard way. I know this cuts into your head loss so don't go crazy.

You should try and make your pluming job as clean as possible as well. You don't want pipes all over the place and in the way of your stuff. You should try and make some kind of Manifold if your going to have your pump work multiple things. EX: two overflow, skimmer, chiller, UV and so on. The manifold I made has an extra valve just in case I wanted to add something else to my tank, like a UV. My Dart pump runs my Chiller, skimmer and two overflows. The main pipe on my manifold is 1.5" then breaks down to 1" or 3/4" when needed. This was done to try and use the larger PVC which was 1.5" as far as I can.
Manifold
http://pvsplayhouse.com/gallery/albums/Pluming/P1150068.jpg

Since I didn't have enough room for the pump to go right inline with my sump I had to put it right next to it. I used an easy 90 so the water would not have any sharp turns. I believe these 90s are only made for 1.25" PVC or higher.
http://pvsplayhouse.com/gallery/albums/Pluming/P1260091.jpg

I used the Flexible PVC Tubing to connect my pump to the manifold right after my true union valve this was done to cut down on any vibration the pump mite have. For this to work you should use at least 6" of the flex PVC so it absorbs most or all the vibrations from your pump.

http://pvsplayhouse.com/gallery/albums/Pluming/P4190271.jpg

The most important thing is take your time in planning this out. Trust me you will be happier if you do. You don't want to go back and fix something later on or start to chang things around. To help out with head loss RC has a calculator for it. You can see how much you will be losing in flow and mite make you rethink what you are going to do. Here is the link. http://reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php

This is a pic of my whole set up.
http://pvsplayhouse.com/gallery/albums/Pluming/P4190268.jpg

I hope this helps a little bit when you are planing your plumbing for your tanks. If I think of anything else I will post it, I know I forgot something. If anyone has anything to add that would be great you never can know to much in this hobby.
PV

[PVsPlayHouse]

Here is some information on how Piping can effect flow on your tanks. Now I know we don't use all of these types of pipes but it just for example. To read the hole article you will find it here.

http://www.pipeflow.co.uk/public/control.php?_path=/497/503/510


Pressure Drop Theory
talked about the inner roughness of the pipe and some other stuff.

The inner roughness of the pipe can create eddy currents. This increases the friction between the pipe wall and the fluid. The relative roughness of the inside of the pipe is used in determining the friction factor to be used.


Relative roughness = Inside pipe roughness / Inside pipe diameter

The average inner roughness of commercial pipes:

Steel tube ........0.0460 mm
Copper tubing.... 0.0015 mm
Glass tubing .......0.0001 mm
Polythene ..........0.0010 mm
Flexible P.V.C. ...0.2000 mm
Rigid P.V.C. .........0.0050 mm
Cast iron tube .....0.2600 mm
Concrete tube .....2.0000 mm

This is why you should only use the Flex PVC for turns and not through out your whole tank, the loss would be to great. Using it for 90d elbows or some turns you mite have or even just to keep the vibration down is fine. If you have to use a lot of the Flex PVC make sure you go up in size this will limit the head lose in the PVC.

The inner roughness of the flexible pvc is considerably higher than all tubing material except cast iron and concrete.

The flex pvc is 2/10th's mm inner roughness compared to
the rigid pvc at 5/1000th's mm inner roughness, 40 times rougher (.005 x 40=.2)

Just some insight I hope this helps out more when choosing Piping for you tank. There is a lot to think about when you are doing your plumbing to get it right and try and get the least amount of head loss in your tank.

[pnut]

Nice post, thanks for sharing...will definately come in handy for many people!!!!

[phistio]

i'm going to move this to the official sticky section. great post paul, thanks for sharing!

[PVsPlayHouse]

I have to make a big change to my plumbing in my stand. Im taking out my Chiller and putting it in my attic. I got a Gen X 40 pump from elitereef.com and Im going to plumb it up my wall into my attic.

This is what Im talking about when I say you have to think it all through before you start. The Chiller makes it way to hot in my living room and it makes me crazy.

Now if Im going to do this Im going to have a flow issue with my Dart and the Gen x running at the same time on my tank. So I called mdm inc. and I had them send me a smaller impeller for the Dart. (long story) What this did was make my Dart like the Snapper which has 1000 less gph then my Dart. So Im going to get less flow out of my Dart and about 40 less in watts as well. :)

The Gen x pump has a head pressure of around 24 feet, all I need is 10. To keep the flow up Im going go with 1" PVC piping instead of the 3/4 that the pump is. This way I lessen the head loss that Im going to have. As I work on this new project I will updated on how it is going and show pics of the progress.

[phistio]

why can't the chiller work on kind of a "closed loop" right into the sump?

[PVsPlayHouse]

That is what Im going to do. Dart only has a head of 10 feet. So that wont work since it runs my skimmer and retruns. Im going to hook up the Gen x to the chiller and have the water run back down the wall back to the sump area. I should get around 800 gph of flow to chiller which is right were I want it. Chiller has to be between 400 and 1200.

[Rosemary]

Is there a reference book or a web site that has step by step directions on setting up a sump? I feel lost every time I look at the pictures. I am starting up a 55 gallon tank for the second time. I loved my first one but I had every thing hanging off the back and would really like to try a sump this time. Thanks

[pnut]

You can do a search on here for some pics. I don't really know of any sites that will walk you through step by step. You could check out www.melevsreef.com