manifold question (plumbing)

[Tim Marvin]

Even my softies and zoos seem to be doing better in this current. The Blastos on the bottom are open larger than ever and one dead spot has grown completely back over a one month period.

[pickle311]

glad you posted that Tim. I'm setting up my 120 and will have 45-50x turnover. That's just reassurance that I'm going with the right ammount of flow.

[jaded]

Is my math correct? 135x50=6750 gph?

dwdenny: I thought I read that you had 28x plus another 786gph for the close loop. That still sounds like a lot to me, but clearly I'm wrong!!!

How can I judge the amount actually going to the tank from my dart?

plumbing:
Sequance Dart @ 60" head pressure should run ~2700gph
60¾" to water level from pump level
1.5" PVC pipe from pump to manifold
2 90°'s
1 ball valve at a little over 50% restricted (~60°)
manifold is 1" PVC with 6 3/4" loc-line outs

Just before the ball valve there is a tee to the skimmer... it is reduced to 1" and is running wide open. I'm sure the skimmer is getting a great deal of the water the pump has to offer, but I don't know how to judge it.

changes since this picture include adding a ball valve just after the flex tube to the skimmer and cutting the ball valve to the tank down another 10-20° (clockwise)


Maybe a tunze system isn't such an expense after all, but I sure would like to have some directional flow from that manifold... right now it barely blows the polyps on my devils hand and thats about 4" away from one outlet

[eric]

I'm only going to get you a little closer (I've been attempting the calculations for my system too) Maybe at least a bunch to think about.

All those fittings, including the coupling and horizontal lengths of pipe add a lot of head loss due to friction. I started to do some math for you and got all sidetracked. I'm not sure how much head you add because it's based on the flow rate, the higher the flow the more those elbows, etc slow it down. You could easily have 6 more feet of head than the vertical difference. It's not that much because you have flow. But each of those slow you down more. But as the flow slows down, the friction of the fittings affects it less.

You can find a chart on the web that will show you the head loss due to friction per 100' (or look in a pocket ref)

I don't know if this makes sense, but I'm thinking about sitting down and trying to come up with some stuff that will be meaningful to us piping tanks like you and I are doing.

You could always rig something up to measure how much water you're pumping by measure water level changes. Lower the water level in the tank (below the overflow, gotta take that out of the picture), fill the sump as much as you can, calculate the water volume per inch in your tank. Start the pump and determine how much volume reached the tank in a certain time period.

[jaded]

thats a good idea eric... I was concidering some sort of meter attachment I could add to the PVC but logistically thats just not going to happen even if I did have the meter.

I think I'll just measure the rate at which it fills up on my next water change. All I need to do is keep the return section of the sump filled (buckets will do the trick) and let her rip. The math after that should elementary.

thats good thinking eric, thanks

P.S. does 6750gph sound right???

[z28pwr]

In my opnion I wouldn't run 20 X your water volume through your sump. I would reduce that to about 10 - 15 and run a closed loop or some Tunze pumps to create some serious water movement in the aquarium with low electricity consumption which equals less heat.

Just my .2 cents.