Plumbing Snapper pump as OTB w/ Aqualifter?

[matttvi]

Well, i wanted to drill the tank and plumb it that way, but the wife has pretty much said no to that, so I'm wondering about plumbing the snapper by running the feed line over the back wall of the tank. Already had a lenghty discussion about this...

I don't want to use a check valve in salt water, but I do want to make sure the pump doesn't run dry during startup, and I figured I could use an aqualifter to always keep the feed line primed. I guess I would have to put the aqualifter on a line that was battery-backed up...

Is it doable? worth it?

what do you think?

thanks,

Matt

 

[cameron]

I would ditch the Aqualifter. I think you just need a rather large input line to prevent cavitation and all inputs submerged and at least one output above the water line. I did sit down and work out that if you put a check vavle on the return of the pump about the worst that could happen is the check valve sticks open when it should close on a power outage causing the prop on the pump to spin backwards due to reverse syphon. This would cause some extra wear and tear on the pump, but it would be minimal. With one output above the water line at least partially, I believe the syphon should break near immediately.

 

[george]

You could make some sort of self-priming reservoir to keep the pump flooded even when turned off.

You can also, I believe, buy a self-priming reservoir from some mail order spots, but I'm not sure if the inlet/outlet sizes are right.

 

[cameron]

BTW, Sam did this with a Dart and had success.