Plumbing DT to sump and frag tanks between two rooms at same level via a cellar

Alex-D

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Hello! Hoping some of you have ideas / experience in something similar and can offer ideas / experiences!

I'm planning on an in wall peninsula display tank seperating a utility and kitchen, with a seperate fish room with the sump and frag tanks in another room separated by a corridor. Below the display tank there's a low cellar which can be accessed via a manhole cover, but this is not something i'd want to do more than once every few months, ideally less!

My question is: Given the below diagram what would be the best way of plumbing these four tanks together to provide a robust setup? Happy to consider additional tank in the cellar, multiple pumps etc. any ideas welcome! The white gaps in the floow are opening / gaps which can take c. 40mm piping.

As an aside, in a previous build i've used an inverted U bend pipe to syphon between two tanks at the same level, and an overflow going into to a sump at a lower level, with a return pump back to one of the upper tanks. This worked surprisingly well, except I had to suck out an air pocket in the inverted U pipe that formed about once a week or so. I'm guessing this was down to microbubbles in the water column collecting at the highest point. So i'm hoping to draw on experience from the community to try and avoid unexpected side effects of non-standard plumbing.

I've put together a rough.. (thanks MS Paint) scale profile view of the proposed setup, hopefully this helps explain what i'm trying to do, happy to draw up a plan view if it would help, my MS Paint skills don't extend to being able to render this in 3D... Sorry! ;)


tank water flow.png
 

mike550

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@Alex-D Im not a plumbing expert but I’d plumb the frag/sump separately from the display/sump. For me I’d prefer a few extra pipes and pumps. On the display of course leave air gaps so you don’t create a natural siphon by accident. Good luck
 

Lost in the Sauce

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I have a 300 display in one room. The sump in an adjoining room and a frag tank in the same room as the sump running from the sump.

I tried to keep it simple and think that would work for you as well here. The display and frag systems are each powered by their own pump. Each have their own overflows returning to the shared sump.

So long as the height of the display you are dropping into with your returns, are lower than your water volume, There shouldn't be any issue Gravity feeding.

Are you thinking of going under the flooring, or against through the wall?
 
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Alex-D

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@Alex-D Im not a plumbing expert but I’d plumb the frag/sump separately from the display/sump. For me I’d prefer a few extra pipes and pumps. On the display of course leave air gaps so you don’t create a natural siphon by accident. Good luck
Hi Mike, thanks for replying :) one of my aims with this setup is to only have one water column to maintain, so I'm hoping to find a solution where I can do that, but if not i agree, separate sumps would be easier!
 
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Alex-D

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I have a 300 display in one room. The sump in an adjoining room and a frag tank in the same room as the sump running from the sump.

I tried to keep it simple and think that would work for you as well here. The display and frag systems are each powered by their own pump. Each have their own overflows returning to the shared sump.

So long as the height of the display you are dropping into with your returns, are lower than your water volume, There shouldn't be any issue Gravity feeding.

Are you thinking of going under the flooring, or against through the wall?
Hi @Lost in the Sauce, this sounds like what i'm trying to achieve, I hadn't thought of returning the frag and display independently to the same sump, i'll have a think through that idea, thanks.

As for plumbing, I was intending on going under the floor, i've marked-up the profile image with a red line denoting the ideal route (I've ended it in the sump as per your suggestion, rather than the upper frag tank).

tank water flow - pipe.png


I don't know if this would cause a problem with debris collecting at the lower point in the pipe work, which could cause a maintenance problem?

Ideas welcome!

Thanks,
Alex
 

Dburr1014

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Hi @Lost in the Sauce, this sounds like what i'm trying to achieve, I hadn't thought of returning the frag and display independently to the same sump, i'll have a think through that idea, thanks.

As for plumbing, I was intending on going under the floor, i've marked-up the profile image with a red line denoting the ideal route (I've ended it in the sump as per your suggestion, rather than the upper frag tank).

tank water flow - pipe.png


I don't know if this would cause a problem with debris collecting at the lower point in the pipe work, which could cause a maintenance problem?

Ideas welcome!

Thanks,
Alex
It could cause problems but if you plan for that...
Pipe that can be taken apart, clean out access, ect.
 
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