water valve? pls help

[Lorretto]

I went to my LFS and asked how to set up a sump. I'm going to have tubing running down to the sump and the water is going to be pulled by gravity. and another tubing is going to be the return line with mag-2 pump. I'm going to have over flow to protect against flooding.

Question is I asked how do I know how much water is going in the sump and what pump do i need to keep the same volume of water in the pump chamber so it does not run dry.

Also they told me to get a water valve and that i will find this at Home Depo. What exactly is this water valve and how does it work? What type would i need?

[Lorretto]

anybody?

[shag26272]

what size tank is it , and the size of the drains? It will only drain as fast as you can pump it unless you are pumping more then the drain can handle you dont need a valve unless your pump is putting out more GPH then your drain can handle

[Paul79936]

You should also check the head of the pump you are looking at. If the top of your tank is 4' off of the ground, then you need to look at the pumps capacity at that hight.

Some smaller pumps can't pump that high at all.

On the other hand, ignore that 8-10x tank volume thing that they will tell you at the store. You don't need that much flow through your sump.

[Lorretto]

my tank is 14g Bio Cube. I'm planning on taking out all the chambers to make it bigger and do some plumbing from top and over the tank down to the sump, all without drilling a hole. Sump will be about 3 feet below the display tank and is about 25gallon. I planning on having 1" tubing taking water from the main tank to the sump. What if the water is coming in too fast and the pump can't keep up? What if not enough water is coming in the sump and the pump runs dry? That is what I'm worried about. I was told to control the exact flow back i need to get some valves. I dunno.

[Icefire]

You need a siphon overflow box or drill the tank to get the water down.

[Lorretto]

Is there a bit I can buy at Home Depo to drill through glass?

[chase33]

You can buy the bit at home depot. I don't believe there is a need to put a valve on the drain. You may want one on the return to control the flow back into the tank (if the pump pumps faster than the drain). If this is the case I would reccommend using it only to divert water back into the sump and in a way that would cause backpressure on the pump. That could add unneccessary heat to the water and shorten the life of the pump.