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Sump plumbing


Napoliandy

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I have 37 gallon column tank. I am looking to do a sump. I recently made a 10 gallon sump and purchased an overflow box. I am looking to do soft plumbing. Well, part pvc and then soft. I unfortunately didn’t think that far ahead when I made the stand so I believe I would be better off with tubing. But I am lost. I’ve searched videos to see the best way to go about this. I haven’t been able to find anything on how to do the plumbing. Everything I find is hard plumbing. You have any pointers that I can use. 
One of my main questions is do I need gate valves or ball valves with soft plumbing. This is what is causing me to be stuck. The DCP is adjustable in regards to flow, so do I really need it on the return.  I also need to purchase a bulkhead. What would you suggest.  I was thinking threaded slip.  I had someone who was helping me out at the LFS, but they were slow so they let him go. Any info you can give me I would appreciate. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/22/2020 at 5:05 PM, Napoliandy said:

I have 37 gallon column tank. I am looking to do a sump. I recently made a 10 gallon sump and purchased an overflow box. I am looking to do soft plumbing. Well, part pvc and then soft. I unfortunately didn’t think that far ahead when I made the stand so I believe I would be better off with tubing. But I am lost. I’ve searched videos to see the best way to go about this. I haven’t been able to find anything on how to do the plumbing. Everything I find is hard plumbing. You have any pointers that I can use. 
One of my main questions is do I need gate valves or ball valves with soft plumbing. This is what is causing me to be stuck. The DCP is adjustable in regards to flow, so do I really need it on the return.  I also need to purchase a bulkhead. What would you suggest.  I was thinking threaded slip.  I had someone who was helping me out at the LFS, but they were slow so they let him go. Any info you can give me I would appreciate. 

I haven't gone that route yet, but I was recently planning on it, so I did a ton of reading. At one point I thought about doing the same thing, half hard/soft plumbing. I don't think you absolutely need a valve, but I was still planning on using one to dial things in, control drain and even noise. I'm sure someone with more experience will chime in. 

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  • 1 year later...

Gate and Ball Valves can be used in either hard or soft plumbing. It really depends how you want to plumb your own tank and your needs. Gate and ball valves are usual used to regulate flow rate along with the ability to close off certain lines. If you are using a dedicated DC pump that is controllable for ONLY return flow you probably do not need any ball or gate valves on the return line. If you are running reactors/other equipment off of that return line, then you probably want to add tees and ball valves to be able to turn on/off dependent on what equipment you are using. If all of your reactors/equipment have dedicated pumps you probably do not need any valves.  Finally, most people put a gate valve on the return line from the tank to the sump as a means to control the siphon of the water going to the sump either to decrease water draining noise or water level in the tank. 

 

All set ups are different and really dependent on the space you want to allocate. I personally have a ball valve on my return line because I use an AC pump which is not controllable. 

 

PS: Not the greatest looking sump in the world but it does what I need at the moment. In the future if I need to run other reactors I will probably end up either hard pluming the return and moving to a DC controllable pump or just  do the lazier thing and buy a reactor with a dedicated pump. Who cares about adding to the rat nest! Hope this maybe helps happy reefing! 

 

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