Hey guys and gals, I am way over my head here. I currently have a 120 and a 55 gal tanks. I am going to (not real soon) to combine these into a 180 that I have bought from another member. I have two sumps to choose from. Both are 80 gallons. One is glass and is the standard 80 gal that is 48" long and the other is Acrylic and is 72x16x16. The glass is setup to run an internal pump and the Acrylic is to run an external pump. I haven't decided on which sump I am going to go with yet. I plan on having a L-shaped stand. One leg with the D/T tank is the 6' and the other leg holding the sump would be around 8'. My main question for now is the plumbing. This is my first tank that will run a sump. The tank has corner overflows. Is it better to have the drains flowing the longest distance or the returns? If I use the 6' sump I figured the longest drain length will be around 12' but the return (depending on if I do a Herbie or a Dorso) would have to be around 18'. Or it would be only around 8' if I turned the sump around to have the return closer to the D/T. Which way is better, a longer drain or return? I am nowhere near ready to build yet. Just planning it out first. Thanks in advanced. Shane
180 advice.
- Thread starter phnman372
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I am wondering also on how effective it will be on the drain. It will not be a straight shot for the drain. It should have a total fall of around 2' after it leaves tank. It would be one return for each side of the tank. Am I going to run into problems on this? The stand portion for the display will be 40" tall and the portion for the sump will be 36". That is if I use the 16" high sump and less if I use the Glass which is 21". I am trying to no put sump underneath the D/T. just for the reason I want total access to the sump and the storage under the tank.
Well the longest of the drains, if I make the return the longest, would be around 11-12' long. I say that because of the two corner overflows. By what I understand so far a Herbie would take both holes in each corner overflow, one for main and other for backup, is that correct? Then the other corner (closest to the sump) would be only around 5'. The 180 is a 72x24x24.
reefkeeper
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My drain lines are approx. 15 or so feet in length. My return line is just short of that about 13 feet. I decided I would use the drain line as the further point. However, I'm using 1.1/2 in. PVC as my drain lines.
The return line is using SPA Flex and I'm using a Dart Gold Pump. I'm running a manifold which runs my entire tank. The drain lines keep up with the pump, but again I have a manifold and every junction point on the manifold has Gate Vales so I can control the water flow a lot more precisely.
I have zero problems and I love it!!
The return line is using SPA Flex and I'm using a Dart Gold Pump. I'm running a manifold which runs my entire tank. The drain lines keep up with the pump, but again I have a manifold and every junction point on the manifold has Gate Vales so I can control the water flow a lot more precisely.
I have zero problems and I love it!!
The more I am reading on this the more questions I have. On these large tanks you have two overflows with two holes in each one. What I am seeing is only one is the main drain and one is emergency drain. Is the norm to have the main on one side and the emergency on the other side? That would leave one hole in each overflow. Is this used for the return? I thought about having a main on each side to have better skimming of the D/T. Either having 2 emergency drains or one emergency and one return opposite of the main drain. What do y'all think?
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