Plumbing Help - Convert Euro to US

[Royce024]

I have an oceanguard 275 and replaced everything with imperial.

Did you have the same problem?

 

[UncommonSense]

also npt which means nominal pipe thread

I’m sorry, but this simply isn’t true…

To avoid confusing those whom are just learning; this actually means National Pipe Thread.

NPT is used for imperial plumbing sizes.

 

[cba191]

I have an oceanguard 275 and replaced everything with imperial.

Did you have the same problem?

I bought it used and after reading about the issue, replaced the drain entirely.

 

[Reefering1]

2 pumps in the sump returning to the display going thru 2 separate return lines. 1 pump going thru the UV back to the tank and the other is just the main return.

How tall are those standpipes? The one on the left(in picture) looks particularly tall(looks like its near the top of overflow box) , I would want that one about 1/2"-1" below overflow weir. Does the main go full siphon? Lowering secondary will prevent tank level from rising so high, which causes the ato to add so much water. Too low and it will make noise. When 1st starting return pump, does the water level in box rise then fall as it goes full siphon?
If it were my tank, I would first try trimming that secondary pipe down until it's about .5" below overflow. open any drain valves completely and increase/adjust return pumps until the main drain is full siphon and some water flows down the taller drain. It should be silent(not stucking air) and the second drain should be able to go full siphon without raising water level in tank. With 2 dc pumps, you really shouldn't need a valve at all. Mine are there, but fully open.
This is how my dorso drain runs, been flawless for 9 years now. If I block the main, the secondary will kick in and everything runs just the same.(I've tested it by blocking the main pipe with my hand).
(sorry for dirty glass pics)

 

[Reefering1]

Alternatively, you can hook one of those return pipes over the back of the tank and convert to a bean animal overflow. Basically set up the same but would have a additional emergency drain that is dry in normal conditions but will kick in if level rises in overflow .

 

[Royce024]

How tall are those standpipes? The one on the left(in picture) looks particularly tall(looks like its near the top of overflow box) , I would want that one about 1/2"-1" below overflow weir. Does the main go full siphon? Lowering secondary will prevent tank level from rising so high, which causes the ato to add so much water. Too low and it will make noise. When 1st starting return pump, does the water level in box rise then fall as it goes full siphon?
If it were my tank, I would first try trimming that secondary pipe down until it's about .5" below overflow. open any drain valves completely and increase/adjust return pumps until the main drain is full siphon and some water flows down the taller drain. It should be silent(not stucking air) and the second drain should be able to go full siphon without raising water level in tank. With 2 dc pumps, you really shouldn't need a valve at all. Mine are there, but fully open.
This is how my dorso drain runs, been flawless for 9 years now. If I block the main, the secondary will kick in and everything runs just the same.(I've tested it by blocking the main pipe with my hand).
(sorry for dirty glass pics)

Thanks for the advice. I have my gate valve restricting a moderate amount of water flow to the sump so it is not at full siphon. I'll try cutting the emergency drain pipe shorter and fully opening the gate valve. I think before replacing the plumbing, ill try this to see if it fixes my issue.

 

[Clarkjw2002]

Full siphon means your drain is running without sucking any air, not that the valve is fully open.

I suspect your issue is actually an electrical load issue. Even though your pumps are set a constant level, the flow will vary with the amount of current your pumps are getting. Sounds like they are pushing more water at night when your household power draw is lower. I'd first try to isolate the return pumps to their own circuit (guessing you might have them on the same circuit as your lights).

Even if this is the case, there should be an equilibrium at some point. I have a red dragon and abyzz pump set to constant power but the flow is less during the day (I have flow meters on both lines), and increases at night. This kind of variation is not enough to cause a drastic drop in salinity though as the fresh water added at night evaporates during the day (and my flow change is like 100 L/hr or 26 gph on a 400gal system).

I just mention this so you can exhaust all possibilities before you change your plumbing only to find you potentially have the same issue.

 

[Freenow54]

I’m sorry, but this simply isn’t true…

To avoid confusing those whom are just learning; this actually means National Pipe Thread.

NPT is used for imperial plumbing sizes.

I stand corrected

 

[Royce024]

Full siphon means your drain is running without sucking any air, not that the valve is fully open.

I suspect your issue is actually an electrical load issue. Even though your pumps are set a constant level, the flow will vary with the amount of current your pumps are getting. Sounds like they are pushing more water at night when your household power draw is lower. I'd first try to isolate the return pumps to their own circuit (guessing you might have them on the same circuit as your lights).

Even if this is the case, there should be an equilibrium at some point. I have a red dragon and abyzz pump set to constant power but the flow is less during the day (I have flow meters on both lines), and increases at night. This kind of variation is not enough to cause a drastic drop in salinity though as the fresh water added at night evaporates during the day (and my flow change is like 100 L/hr or 26 gph on a 400gal system).

I just mention this so you can exhaust all possibilities before you change your plumbing only to find you potentially have the same issue.

Thanks for the insight. I think my display tank level is stable now ever since I trimmed the emergency drain 0.5" lower than the weir. However, I opened up the gate valve and have both pumps running at 80% which is too loud for my liking. Tomorrow i'll try closing the gate valve more so that my pumps are quieter. I'll look into connecting the lights or pumps to a different circuit. I'm no electrician, would a different circuit mean a different outlet? I have 3 different outlets that are near the tank. They are all GFCI.

 

[Clarkjw2002]

Chances are they are on the same breaker. Only way to find out is to turn the circuit breaker to the outlets off and see if one still works. If so, then it is on a different circuit. Always good to have redundancy but what you have is what you have. Only way to change is to run an extension cord from elsewhere or have an electrician install another circuit.

Hopefully your breaker box is labelled with legible writing so you are not turning every breaker off to figure out which one controls that room/area.

 

[Freenow54]

I am staying way away are the pumps Dc? Can I get an electricians opinion on this please? No one even mention the service Amperage ie 60 100 200 ? Never heard of such a situation.

 

[don.chaneaux]

I have one of those AF OceanGuard tanks. Overnight the water level of the tank would increase to the emergency drain, causing the water level of the sump to decrease. The ATO would trigger and it would dump 5 gallons of RO water. It happens the other way around too. The water level of the tank would decrease and flood the sump, making my skimmer overflow. I have 1 Sicce SDC 6 return pump for the main return and another one for the UV sterilizer. Both are at a constant power that doesn't change. I perform an AWC with a GHL doser maxi everyday with a high and low level float sensor which is about 3 gallons a day. The water level is so unstable that my salinity dropped to 1.022 -1.023 over a month after setting up the tank. The overflow box is clean without algae blocking the water from going in. I removed the proprietary water strainer and silencer for the downpipe to see if it would do anything, but its the same.

in case this helps any ... remove the floating silencer on the main drain and raise the water so that it barely trickles into the emergency.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...nk-water-level-problems.981476/#post-11750533

I'm still in progress with my Oceanguard 435 but I unfortunately went the expensive way with plumbing when I decided to upgrade to a larger sump because I did not like the built in ATO reservoir on the original sump.

1. Found a site that sells the original "tank connector + union" (I could not find just the screw on union piece)
2. Bought some metric pipes from coralvue to connect between metric union to metric/imperial union adapter (below)
3. Bought adaptive reef metric to imperial unions from BRS (the rest should be easy after the conversion to imperial)
4. Replaced original metric gate valve with spears imperial gate valve
5. In case you need an extra set of the original oceanguard plumbing set, BRS support can help with that as they are the distributor for AF in USA. BRS support adds the plumbing set to your cart by request for purchase.

There was another user here that simply replaced the whole main drain using an imperial bulkhead that fit. I wish I had tried this instead but I got scared that the hole might not seal properly.