Wave barrel

[Daddi0]

I was watching a video of a coral farm (No I dont remember the name) and to make waves in the reef tanks, they pumped water into a barrel that was above the reef. The barrel had pvc pipe coming out and making a 90 degree turn down and another section of pvc going down to the reef. Has anyone else seen this? Was pondering making one and trying to figure out if the plumbing inside the barrel is the mirror image of the plumbing on the outside. There was no electrical or pumps. It seemed that once the water reached a certain level a siphon was created that completely emptied the barrel until the pump filled the barrel and it emptied again.
Cheers! Mark

[Daddi0]

I found the video. the barrels are about 16 1/2 minutes in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uewuy_bL8P8

[mcgyvr]

Google carlson and borneman surge device.. Enjoy

[mikeintosh]

I’ve attempted this before and it was noisy and caused lots of bubbles. Unless you can figure out a way to purge the air before each siphon, micro bubbles and salt creep might be an issue.


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[Daddi0]

Thanks guys! It is for a 200 gallon reef in the garage so noise is not an issue.
Cheers! Mark

[laverda]

Look at bell syphon used in aquaponics and aqua culture. It has no moving parts and they are very simple to build.

[nematode]

I built one circa 2000 using a 55 gallon tank divided in to parts with toilet flush devices controlling release (an older version of the same idea). That tank was 2 feet above a 3 foot cube tank. Got crazy flow, but was not reliable, and caused lots of splash and use many kilowatt hrs to pump water. Fun experiment, but not worth the many hassles IMO.
Can post some photos if anyone is interested.

I cannot think of many reasons to do this now
I was trying to get a strong brief current to stir up detritus....
Bu this was before the advent of the prop pump!,!,!!

Now the prop pumps do this very efficiently with much less splash mess.

the only one strong reasons I see doing this
Is that you want to stimulate the growth of tidal organisms

Other less compelling reasons
Seeing tidal like behavior makes a cool “display”
It keeps detritus circulating to allow removal via filtration

The bell siphon would make this much more reliable.

There are many side effects. water in your sump will change levels constantly making an ato device harder to controL.
Safeguarding the system for extremes is challenging.
For example one wants The wave TANK (55 g) to be full and leak slowly and the main tank to fill to full capacity and still not empty the sump causing your heater to fry.
Bottom line:
I tried it, it’s fun to try but very challenging and I didn’t find the benefits close to be worth the hassle

[phc567]

They use to be really in way back in the day. I know there’s a few old threads on this. I remember there was a guy that made one with no bubbles and zero noise.
They have one at discovery museum for the kids to play with. If you need to see one in person. They also have a wave table but I don’t know how that works. Lol.

[laverda]

Wave tables are usually made by having a barrel raise and lower in the water or by having a hinged panel pivoting at the bottom swing away from the end wall and back.