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New to the hobby in Maryville
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Reeflogic
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Hey Jeepers, great looking build, especially for a new reef geek!! I would like to give a little wisdom from a guy who has been there, done that. The valves you are using will more than likely, eventually fail with salt water. They will either get stuck at where you have them or become near impossible to open or close. Another issue you may face down the road is the fact that you are restricting flow from your durso and you do not have an emergency overflow, which may never be a problem or it may cause a flood in your house. Should that single outlet become clogged at any point, the pump will continue to feed the tank, unless you have a float cut off or something for the return pump.
I actually had a Cepex valve fail recently, which is higher grade schedule 80 and it was due to the constant flow of salt water, which lead to it fusing together. Not trying to send you any negative feedback or reasons to panic, just food for thought. The good thing is, if you decide to make any changes down the road, it will be fairly simple to do. A few tips for future plumbing efforts; put your union above the ball valve and another below if you want, that way you can periodically take out the valve for maintenance, without having to remove it from the pump or bulkhead (unless you are not glued at the bulkhead). Or you can just get a valve with a union on it, like the Cepex valves.
And my last recommendation would be to convert that Durso single drain to a Herbie style. Since you have a canopy on the tank, you could feed your return to the right-hand corner, over the back of the tank (and not see it due to your canopy) and you could use both holes in the overflow for draining, one would be shorter with a strainer and a gate valve and the other is set to the height of the overflow and no valve needed, which is your emergency overflow. This way you are fool proof and wouldn't need to worry about flooding your house.
The great thing about Herbie overflows, besides giving you peace of mind with an emergency overflow, they are dead silent and create a siphon, so zero bubbles in your sump... none...zip...nadda.... Looks like your sump is designed for a single outlet drain, but maybe it could be modified. Again, these are just suggestions from a guy who has plumbed more tanks than I can remember and back in the day I had similar set up as you have and I flooded the house once.... Okay, more than once... but who's counting....
I'll add a few images of a 57g I plumbed and it has the same overflow box as you have, well similar anyway.... I drilled for my returns, but it's not necessary unless you want to hide the returns and not have them coming over the tank rim. Again, for your first build, you did a bang-up job, I'm just thinking about you down the road.
Keep in mind that the upper image is reverse from the lower one, the taller pipe is actually on the left side of the below image
I actually had a Cepex valve fail recently, which is higher grade schedule 80 and it was due to the constant flow of salt water, which lead to it fusing together. Not trying to send you any negative feedback or reasons to panic, just food for thought. The good thing is, if you decide to make any changes down the road, it will be fairly simple to do. A few tips for future plumbing efforts; put your union above the ball valve and another below if you want, that way you can periodically take out the valve for maintenance, without having to remove it from the pump or bulkhead (unless you are not glued at the bulkhead). Or you can just get a valve with a union on it, like the Cepex valves.
And my last recommendation would be to convert that Durso single drain to a Herbie style. Since you have a canopy on the tank, you could feed your return to the right-hand corner, over the back of the tank (and not see it due to your canopy) and you could use both holes in the overflow for draining, one would be shorter with a strainer and a gate valve and the other is set to the height of the overflow and no valve needed, which is your emergency overflow. This way you are fool proof and wouldn't need to worry about flooding your house.
The great thing about Herbie overflows, besides giving you peace of mind with an emergency overflow, they are dead silent and create a siphon, so zero bubbles in your sump... none...zip...nadda.... Looks like your sump is designed for a single outlet drain, but maybe it could be modified. Again, these are just suggestions from a guy who has plumbed more tanks than I can remember and back in the day I had similar set up as you have and I flooded the house once.... Okay, more than once... but who's counting....
I'll add a few images of a 57g I plumbed and it has the same overflow box as you have, well similar anyway.... I drilled for my returns, but it's not necessary unless you want to hide the returns and not have them coming over the tank rim. Again, for your first build, you did a bang-up job, I'm just thinking about you down the road.
Keep in mind that the upper image is reverse from the lower one, the taller pipe is actually on the left side of the below image
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Jeeper
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I actually have been in the process of typing a post about tuning my return and drain. I do not have my drain restricted like I did in that picture. I have the valve in there but it is open all the way. If I had it to do over again I would have put unions on the top and the bottom of the valves (then I could just put in gate valves). My bulkheads are both threaded so I can take the pipes out (and I have considered doing that I am just nervous that its going to make a mess). I thought it might be useful to be able to shut off the return if I needed to for some reason. The biggest fear I have is flooding my house. Tank is sitting in the front room on a rug on hardwood. My wife would kill me heh. My sump only has a spot for one drain but I could plumb to another chamber if need be. I also have a gate valve that I purchased after I realized how bad ball valves are at minor adjustments. I would and do appreciate any input you guys have. If you have time to check out my system sometime and see what you think, that would be great.
I have clear mesh over this tank and my qt as the Lubbocks Wrasse I have in qt thinks he can fly. I could easily modify it for another drain if it would work better than the current one (which is noisy).
Right now I can turn off the return pump and the water level in the sump doesn't change more than a about a 1/4 inch. I have the return pump restricted by the ball valve quite a bit.
I have clear mesh over this tank and my qt as the Lubbocks Wrasse I have in qt thinks he can fly. I could easily modify it for another drain if it would work better than the current one (which is noisy).
Right now I can turn off the return pump and the water level in the sump doesn't change more than a about a 1/4 inch. I have the return pump restricted by the ball valve quite a bit.
Reeflogic
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Glad you didn't take it the wrong way Yeah wrasses are usually deep water swimmers and when they spook, they fly, lol. So having the screen top is a must, which would create a problem with a return going over the rim. If you opened up that drain valve, you're in better shape, it just had me concerned, because it doesn't take much to clog even with the ball a quarter closed. What kind of return pump are you using? The restricted flow from the valve could lower it's life expectancy as well. Not a huge concern, just more food for thought. You could consider a DC pump in the future, that will allow you to adjust the return flow much easier and less stress on the pump!
I'm a reef junkie, so I love seeing other's systems. Would love to see it someday!
Yeah wrasses are usually deep water swimmers and when they spook, they fly, lol. So having the screen top is a must, which would create a problem with a return going over the rim. If you opened up that drain valve, you're in better shape, it just had me concerned, because it doesn't take much to clog even with the ball a quarter closed. What kind of return pump are you using? The restricted flow from the valve could lower it's life expectancy as well. Not a huge concern, just more food for thought. You could consider a DC pump in the future, that will allow you to adjust the return flow much easier and less stress on the pump!I'm a reef junkie, so I love seeing other's systems. Would love to see it someday!
OP
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Jeeper
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I am using the pump that came with the tank but I have a Jebao DCT 4000 DC Pump. I have replaced just about everything on this tank but the pump was fairly new (he still had the box). I have been considering swapping the new controllable pump in and keeping the old for a emergency spare (I mess with old jeeps and I am used to having spares for any critical component).
Reeflogic
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I have a Jebao DC 9000 on my 110, it's been a beast so far! Roughly 18 months of use and no issues yet, for the money saved, I like them. I guess we will see at the 2-year mark lol. It's always a good idea to have spares around!! My wife thinks I'm nuts hanging on to stuff, she just doesn't get it!!
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