What do you think of my plumbing plan?

[jdircksen]

This is a 75g with 30g sump. I'm thinking 1" for the draining pipes and 3/4" for the return. Pump will probably be a Sedra 9000. Should I change anything?

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/89078jdpumbing.JPG

[msuzuki126]

Looks great. Pretty much the same as mine and many others on here.

[Avast Marine]

If it were me I would switch to 1 1/2" plumbing and use 1 drain and the other for a emergency drain. At the very least don't tie your drain lines together if you opt out of a emergency drain. Like this you only need one snail to cause a wet floor. Remember as well to size your bulkheads one size up for a durso. So 1 1/2" bulheads will let you run a 1 1/4" standpipe.

[jdircksen]

Well the sucky part is that I have already purchased a 45mm (1 3/4") diamond tipped hole saw to use with 1" bulkheads. I didn't know about sizing up the standpipes. I'll have to do some more research before I drill. I may go without the dorsos and see if I have a noise problem.

Thanks for the info. Keep it coming!

[Avast Marine]

Thats not too sucky, just buy the right size now that you know. A few dollars wasted at this stage of the game is fine but, if you drill too small you will regret it later and not be left with many options.

[jdircksen]

Dan,
I am doing some reading on http://www.dursostandpipes.com/. It seems they recommend sizing the standpipe up from the bulkhead, not the other way around as you suggested.


My tank has a 1 inch bulkhead on the bottom glass where the water drains out. For this size hole, I recommend you use 1¼ inch PVC for the standpipe. I do not recommend 1½ inch PVC as the larger fittings are much harder to fit inside overflow chambers. And secondly, there is no advantage in 1½ inch over 1¼ inch PVC when dealing with a 1 inch bulkhead -- the bulkhead is the limiting factor.

If you have a 1 inch bulkhead the standpipe needs to be larger than the bulkhead to work correctly. I get a lot of e-mail questions on why this is. Honestly, I'm not sure. Typically if you use 1 inch PVC pipe on a 1 inch bulkhead you get poor results. (Some exceptions with smaller low flow tanks.) Take my word on it and use 1¼ inch PVC pipe.

Do you think this is because the tank they are installing the standpipe in has the bulkhead on the bottom glass?

[Avast Marine]

I still would like a bigger hole or a backup drain if it were my tank

[Avast Marine]

Yep, I had it backwards. 1 1/4" pipe needs 1" bulkhead. I like the herbie method so don't use dursos.

[kgross]

The other thing besides tying your drains together, is the size of your return. Using a 3/4 inch return with a sedra 9000 will restrict the output. Change your return to at least 1 inch if not 1 1/4 so you can get close to the full 900 gph out of the pump. With your 3/4 inch line I would guess you will only get around 500 gph out of that pump.

Kim

[jdircksen]

Thanks for the input. I didn't actually look at the specs on the Sedra 9000 but I was told it had a 3/4" output. My thinking is that if I have 3/4" return line and 1" drain, I would never be faced with the pump returning water faster than it could drain. I'll do some research on the return line. Thanks.