return pump manifold

[CoryDude]

Anyone using one? Any words of advice? I have a design in mind but wanted some do's and dont's too.


I'll be using individual gate valves to control flow to a uv filter, gfo reactor, calcium reactor, and denitrator. The main 1" line will handle flow to the chiller and display tank return.

[StevenSeas]

I just redid mine on my 300 gallon system not too long ago and overall really like the way it turned out. The main thing I did different on this manifold than I had in the past was having 100% of the water pass through the manifold, instead of splitting it with a "T" and having it off to the side. Thus keeping a higher overall flow rate to it and potential out of it. I would also add a valve after the manifold and before the tank, so that adjusting that will be able to increase pressure/flow to the manifold outlests. Make sure that you have a good pump, preferably one rated for at least 10% more flow than you need and that can handle head pressure well, since changing pumps later could be a pain matching the inlet/ outlet with existing pvc. Other than that plan for future add ons equipment wise as redoing it to add something else sucks.

Here is a picture of what I ended up doing on my 300. A bit overkill but if I thought there was a peice of equipment that one day I might want to run I added an outlet for it.

I have (4) 1/2" outlets for my carbon reactor, gfo, and possibly in the future a calcium reactor and a biopellet reactor.
There are also (4) 3/4 inch outlets. One for my skimz external skimmer, future addition of a frag tank, UV (possibly hooked up to 2 to allow flow back to the display), if not 2 for the uv then 1 would be used to pump water out of the sump to work on the reservoir.

24254

[StevenSeas]

Here is another picture. Also threaded valves help so that in the future changing out valves/barbed fittings/etc should anything break or you need a 90 barbed fitting vs straight (like I did since I didn't plan for my giant skimmer cup...). And ball valves with unions are your friend.

Ok well I was going to add a 2nd picture but my phone doesn't seem to want to

[CoryDude]

Thanks Steven! Your first pic has me changing my layout. I like the idea of adding a few more ports for future additions. Never thought to use threaded valves. My thought was to use slip fittings.

The pump I'm using is a variable speed dc pump rated at 2600 gph at zero head and about 1800 gph at 6 feet. I'm building it this week so I'll post pics this weekend.

[StevenSeas]

Ya I had always used the socket valves up until recently. And that was only because they were out of enough sockets so I used the threaded ones and I like it. At lowes you can find 1/2" 3/4" and 1" threaded close "nipples" that are threaded on both sides so that the valve can be flush with the "T". I would also recommend the T that is 2 different sizes. So like in my case I did 1.5" main return and then the top row are 1.5x.75x1.5 T's and the are socket x thread x socket.

[CoryDude]

Yeah, i only use the close nipples too. Much cleaner looking and saves on space like you said. Do you get decent flow control with the ball valves? I had thought about using gate valves.

[StevenSeas]

I would say that I get adequate flow control with the ball valves. Currently I can get everything more or less where I want flow rate wise but if I had the space (height wise) and could convince my better half to let me spend more money on plumbing, to do gate valves I would probably end up upgrading at least a few to gate valves in the future.