Closed Loop - No Sump

[demodiki]

This may be a silly question...but is it possible to do a closed loop without a sump? Somehow have the pump draw upon the water in the display and have that go through the loop?

I don't have a drilled tank and don't want to take a chance on overflows.

TIA

[hobogato]

i have seen a closed loop done entirely out of PVC somewhere on an undrilled tank. once you get all of the pipes full of water, they stay full of water even if the power goes out. it was basically a large PVC intake going to the intake on a pump and two ouputs coming from a SCWD that was connected to the output of the pump.

[hobogato]

here (http://www.melevsreef.com/closedloop.html) is one i found.

[demodiki]

Awesome! I have seen this before but forgot all about it. Now....scwd, mag pump, pvc to buy. I'll post pics of the monstrosity when I am done!

Thanks a lot for your work!

[cpreefguy]

Let us know how it works out. Ive never even thought about closed loop w/o drilling. Good find Ace!

[JimD]

My acro tank as well as my old prop tank are on a closed circuit (loop) system with no sump or drilling and has been for years.. Although it'll work, I didnt use rigid pvc tubing, I used flexible nylon braided tubing to round out the bends. Mag pump, scwd, tubing, returns and a >>pre-filtered<< intake is all you need. Be sure to prime the Mag before firing it up.

[matt]

A closed loop by definition does not use a sump. All it is is a pump pulling water from the tank and returning it in a different place. A sump is an "open" loop in that the water pulled from the tank goes into an open container.

I suspect you might have meant "closed loop without drilling" which everyone else answered; it's no problem. You can add a priming pipe with a tee right near the pump input, but I bet if you had everything in place and you fired up the pump, it might pull water ove the tank rim and start the siphon.

[LoneStar]

I didnt use rigid pvc tubing, I used flexible nylon braided tubing to round out the bends.



Thats a good idea. You will probably get better flow if you do it this way. Adding a bunch of 90 degree joints will limit your flow.

[gjuarez]

Hey Matt, you beat me to it. I was reading and I was thinking the same thing. Very cool info Ace, I had never thought about a closed loop without drilling.

[GaryP]

AW had a closed loop on a 180 when Tamer still owned the store that just had the suction and discharge piped to a pump that was sitting on the crossbar on top of the tank.

A closed loop by definition does not go through the sump, that's what makes it "closed." The return flow from a sump would be an "open" loop.

[demodiki]

You guys are too smart for me :)

OK, the SCWD has two outputs...can I make different "nozzles" off of those two returns. The "nozzles", say 4 of them, would be positioned much like I did my powerheads?

[LoneStar]

You can use LocLine at the ends. There are different types of "nozzles" for different flow spread. If using the SCWD I would just stick with 1 "nozzle" on each side of it. The more "nozzles" you add on each side limits the amount of water that will pass through them, therefore weakening the flow.

[Bug_Power]

I had my Iwaki 100rlt on a similar setup. I had PVC that would come up and over the top with ball valves down just in case I needed to pull the pump. The intake simply made a u turn over the top and went down behind a rock ledge for intake water. Then came back up over the top to 8 1" returns. Worked good for me, but I went with Maxi Mods instead now.