basement plumbing turbulence

[jimbracco]

Greetings all, first time post.
After a number of follies i decided to plumb my 75G Bow front into the basement over the weekend. I have a pretty good pump corallife external somthing or other (2400 gph i think) b'cause i have a head of about 20'..needless to say i have a ball valve in front of it to dial it down, and it goes from 1" out to 3/4 in about 5'.
My question is that my return line is 1" all the way down with a few angles and turns, and ive got ALLOT of turbulence in the return...shaking pipe (altho ive anchored it a little better) and huge bubbles & noise in my sump that is returning not so clear water back up top.
I have a ball valve in the drain line as well and have tried to back off the drain a little but it just seams to confine the noise and bubbles higher up in the pipe (right above the ball valve of course!)
any suggestions?:unsure:
thanks!

 

[vettesarebest]

Welcome. I don't have any suggestions. Is the ball valve at the intake of the pump or the outflow? You don't want to put it as the intake because this restricts the flow on the pump and will cause damage. I might not have read this post correctly. Welcome!

 

[tsciarini]

jimbracco wrote: needless to say i have a ball valve in front of it to dial it down

Quick question: you're restricting the flow on the "output" of the pump right? "Front" to me implies the "input"

btw, I know we've spoken before your first post... but Welcome to the ARC!

 

[jimbracco]

Thank you both for your welcoming i actually have a ball valve on both the downpipe (before the sump) and the tank return (output of the pump).
The downpipe ball was just for emergency purposes, not to actually reduce return into the pump (altho i tried restricting a little).
I have the output of the pump restricted via the ball for sure (i was afraid it would blow the return pipe right off the tank!!) to what i feel is a good level of pressure.
the over flow box seams to drop quickly then return slowly in 20 second intervals..

 

[donnyholland]

Sounds like your getting a siphon on the overflo and it is sucking really fast till the siphon breaks at the level of your overflow pipe. The quick fix is creating a vent for the overflow. The best way I can think of is to add a pipe not very big about 1/2" would do, and (T) it into the line as close to the overflow output as you can. Run that pipe up the back of your tank so that it is elevated above the level of the overflow lvl. That should break the siphon and provide smooth flow.

I'm a contractor and we do alot of plumbing. Let me know if that helps. or not because I'm about to plumb mine that way.


/donny

 

[jimbracco]

thanks for the advice! I have trimmed back my output a little more and its helped some for now. when i get more time i will attempt your mod...
let me know if you finish before hand

 

[cameron]

Restricting the flow into the sump can cause flooding. Restricting the flow via a valve out of the sump causes your pump to work harder. An easy fix for too much return is to branch a T off of the return with a gate or ball valve attached that points right back into the sump. This link shows a picture and does a better job explaining:

 

[kwl1763]

Lots of stuff you can do to reduce turbulance. Baffles, lower flow, etc. If you could get some pics of the plumbing both in the tank and in the basement it would be great and we could probably give much better advice!

I agree though it sounds like an overflow siphon issue and some type of vent may be in order. Is it the overflow or return that is shaking, etc. The return should be fine and shouldn't have any issues like this.