Manifold setup. Unsure of how to set this up.

xdcbenoitxd · Nov 28, 2023

Hi there,

I have recently had a catastrophic event claiming most of my livestock in a severe algae bloom. By the time I noticed it was happening, almost everything had already died. So I took the unfortunate incident as an opportunity to improve on my system and moved all survivors to QT tanks. One of the upgrades I am hoping to do is set up both my reactors (2 of them), possibly my skimmer and 36 watt UV sterilizer into a manifold to my return pump. Here is my plan and the main issue I have with it. I would upgrade my pump to be able to handle this as the flow would be reduced, get flow meters to ensure each piece of equipment was getting the right amount of flow. However at that point the reactors/skimmer/UV would flow back into the sump causing the water to recirculate over and over before some making it to the display tank. If I plumbed the returns back into the manifold given the decreased water pressure would the water just cause back pressure into the reactors reducing the intake even more? I feel I am probably over complicating this in my head but I really want to get this right, while reducing the amount of pump cords I need outlets for.

Any design ideas would really be appreciated! Room restrictions is really not an issue with this setup either.

zoolan70 · Nov 29, 2023

Plumbing it back into the manifold will just result in no flow. Pressure out has to be lower than pressure in for flow to happen.

As for your design, it will work fine. Yes, some water will recirculate through the reactors, but not enough to make a difference in performance.

You COULD build a return manifold for all of the reactors/skimmer/UV and have that run up to the tank but you will have to balance your flow rates, as you will be 'exiting' these devices into a pressurized (albeit low pressure) pipe instead of exiting an open pipe. Personally, I wouldn't mess with it.

xdcbenoitxd · Nov 29, 2023

zoolan70 said:
Plumbing it back into the manifold will just result in no flow. Pressure out has to be lower than pressure in for flow to happen.

As for your design, it will work fine. Yes, some water will recirculate through the reactors, but not enough to make a difference in performance.

You COULD build a return manifold for all of the reactors/skimmer/UV and have that run up to the tank but you will have to balance your flow rates, as you will be 'exiting' these devices into a pressurized (albeit low pressure) pipe instead of exiting an open pipe. Personally, I wouldn't mess with it.

That's kind of what I thought