Overflow plumbing that dips below sump

JPK

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Hi,
I have a 150 gallon sps system in my office and another 100 gallon sps frag system in my garage. I think I know the answer to this, but I was hoping I am wrong. It would be ideal if I could combine the systems and run the 150 gallon office system off the sump in the garage.

The garage is lower than my house and I would run the overflow plumbing from my office system under my house to my garage. The potential issue I have is the overflow pipes will come out of the wall into the garage about 6 inches to 1 foot under the to top of the sump depending on what I run into under the house. Would this be an issue?

From the bottom of the overflow on the office tank to the top of the sump in that garage is about 4 feet. The run would be about 30' and the PVC is 1.5 inches.

Here is a rough diagram of what I am thinking.

Thanks!
Jason

Diagram.jpg
 

Fish Think Pink

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Hi,
I have a 150 gallon sps system in my office and another 100 gallon sps frag system in my garage. I think I know the answer to this, but I was hoping I am wrong. It would be ideal if I could combine the systems and run the 150 gallon office system off the sump in the garage.

The garage is lower than my house and I would run the overflow plumbing from my office system under my house to my garage. The potential issue I have is the overflow pipes will come out of the wall into the garage about 6 inches to 1 foot under the to top of the sump depending on what I run into under the house. Would this be an issue?

From the bottom of the overflow on the office tank to the top of the sump in that garage is about 4 feet. The run would be about 30' and the PVC is 1.5 inches.

Here is a rough diagram of what I am thinking.

Thanks!
Jason

Diagram.jpg
Are you accounting for drainage slope?

The ideal slope of any drain line is ¼ inch per foot of pipe. In other words, for every foot the pipe travels horizontally, it should be dropping ¼ inch vertically. Many drains either have too little slope or too much slope

Looking at your drawing, suspect you have more of a difference than you list.

Defer to others as I think there may be more issues than just the lift/pump of water at end of slope.
 

DKPminus

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Yes, I would guess if you knew the line going out could maintain a slight downward pitch, gravity should be enough to pick lift at the end but the distance and lift on the return would require a stronger pump.
 
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JPK

JPK

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Thanks guys, I think my pump will be fine to get water back to the tank, however I didn’t think about adding the slope, but that makes a lot of sense.

I wish I could just try it to see if it would work without committing to it and finding out there are issues. Having two separate systems seemed like a good idea at the time, but doing twice the dosing, testing, etc is getting old, and it seems like when ever I go on vacation one of the systems always has an issue.

Jason
 

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Drains are sloped by code so that crap (literally and figuratively) and other things can flow down to the sewer without stopping and not plug the pipe. Your design will work, as water pressure developed by the 4' drop will push water up the other side by anything less than the original drop. You may wish to add a trap at the bottom of your 4' drop and a couple of unions to recover the errant snail/ring/coral rubble so you can easily clear the return line. The 1' rise and the 30' of pipe will slow the overall flow a bit, but the 4' of head will drive through this pretty well.
 
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JPK

JPK

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Drains are sloped by code so that crap (literally and figuratively) and other things can flow down to the sewer without stopping and not plug the pipe. Your design will work, as water pressure developed by the 4' drop will push water up the other side by anything less than the original drop. You may wish to add a trap at the bottom of your 4' drop and a couple of unions to recover the errant snail/ring/coral rubble so you can easily clear the return line. The 1' rise and the 30' of pipe will slow the overall flow a bit, but the 4' of head will drive through this pretty well.

Thanks for the info, that gives me some hope. That is a good idea regarding the trap, I will definitely implement that. I guess my next step is to crawl under the house and make sure that the pipe run can make it without too may obstructions.
J
 

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