Return Line Plumbing

[Reefchef]

Ok everyone, first of all no laughing of my drawing hopefully you can understand it!!! I ordered my parts to plumb my manifold, as I would like to go ahead and add a reactor with some carbon for clarity. I plan on running 1 1/4 inch hose from my l2 pump into a tee, and then one hose into my tank and the other into my manifold which will be hard plumbed. I am considering doing it this way just to help reduce any vibration noises. The manifold will have a barbed end on the incoming side, then it will connect to 1 inch hard plumbing, each branch will have a 1 inch tee going into a gate valve and then reduced to a 1/2 inch quick disconnects from BRS, and one will be left at one inch ending at the gate valve for a uv at a later time. At this time I will have 4 connections 1 for the uv and 3 for any reactors I may choose to run which will only be carbon or aqua char at this time. I know I am going to get some slack for no check valved but I am thinking of taking the risk, I will need to drill the under side of my return loc line just to prevent any full symphony from happening. Please let me know what you think. Thanks

 

[adrian912]

So I need a question first. As far as height is concerned, The pump is the lowest, the tee is above the pump by about a foot I imagine, then obviously the line to the tank is the highest point? The only issue I see with that is that the water is going to want to go straight up more so than wanting to take a 90 degree turn on its own. Only head pressure will force more and more water through the 90 of the tee. I imagine you are going to have to put another gate valve above the tee that you would partially close to create head pressure so that the water will come out the 90 on the tee strong enough to feed not just one but potentially 4 other pieces of equipment. I don't really think you'll be able to make happen what you are trying to do with just one pump unless it is significantly overpowered for the size tank you are installing it on.

 

[Reefchef]

Yes you are correct, but there is a 90 on the actual return line from the pump so it will create some pressure. This is what I have now but I'm not totally happy with it. First it sits way lower than I would like and I want to get rid of the hard pipe coming off the pump at the moment. By going back to the standard red sea plumbing it sits up higher and tighter with the other lines if that makes sense. If I use my plumbing it hangs lower because of the connections that I have to use. I can also come off the pump through a flow meter, hard tee, go straight across the tee for the manifold and up the tee for the tank return. I would still be using hose from the tee for the return but hard for the manifold. I hope this makes half sense the way Im explaining it, I may just be way over thinking this whole thing! I will include a few pics to show what Im working with right now. Its not bad the way I have it now, I just don't like it being so low. Thanks