Sump filtration vs canister filtration

[zozo]

Relying on technical stuff always requires monitoring and maintenance, wear and tear is inevitable.. Beter have spare parts in the house if livestock depends on it.
With building a sump for the first time you always run into thing you might not have tought of till it occurs.. For example if the pumps outflow is under the water surface and the pump stops running the water will syphon back into the sump via the outflow. Is the outflow above the surface you'll hear floatig and splashing water again. So if you place it bellow the surface again make a fail safe to prevent it from syphoning back and flood the sump, do not place it to deep or use a return prevention. I only thought of not hanging it to deep so my sump could take the vulome returnig.. Now one syphon stoped and the sump drained, the floater switch stopped the pump, the pump stopped the water syphoned back into the sump via the outflow and the floater switch got activeted again.. Then you get a constant cycle of switch versus pump.. That was the culprit making my pump burn out.. The switch got activated again every minute, that 60 times an hour, over several hours the chances only increase it failing just once to switch and damage done pumps running dry and burn out.. Now lesson learned and placed a return valve in the filter outlet tube. Rather obviously what happened and when it happened you think "Why didn't i think of that..

Having a sump is fun, the benefits it has makes up for the extra work and thought's it requires to keep it in check.. It's a great learning curve spreading challanges over different aspects biologically, technically incuding physics and math.. I love it..

 

[Chris Jackson]

For the filter outlet I drilled a hole in the return pipe just below the tank water surface, that way water can only syphon back to the sump until this hole draws air and breaks the syphon. Very simple and reliable system with no flow restriction.

 

[DavidW]

I'm setting up a sump at the moment. I decided to go with a Herbie Overflow in the tank, which is basically a main drain 6 inches below the surface, and an emergency drain as a backup. The main drain flows into the start of the sump and the emergency runs into the return pump chamber. Having it setup like means that if the main drain becomes blocked you always have the emergency as a backup, so in theory the return pump will never run dry, but in the off chance it does I went for a Jecod DSC-3000 which has a cut off sensor build in if it detects the pump running dry.

I'm putting a non return valve on the tank return which will stop any water syphoning back to the sump if the pump switches off, but they can be a bit on the pricey side, a cheap option is to do what Chris suggested and drill a hole in the return pipe just below the water level.

I'm documenting the build in my thread in the journal section.

 

[zozo]

I'm putting a non return valve on the tank return which will stop any water syphoning back to the sump if the pump switches off, but they can be a bit on the pricey side, a cheap option is to do what Chris suggested and drill a hole in the return pipe just below the water level.

I use a return valve to, because i just didn't want to drill a hole in the filter outlet, might want to use it again in the future for other builds. But look in the pond shops they probably have cheaper versions of non return valves. The professional ones are indeed a bit pricy but build to hold pressure.

I got this one for i think it was € 2.50.

It has a simple rubber sleave inside, does a good job, doesn't need to hold pressure anyway only a few liter of water.. Can be cleaned very easily when hoses need a clean.

 

[DavidW]

That's a great idea. My tank came with a 25mm pressure pipe return from the pump so I've stuck with pressure pipe fitting. I paid about £12.50 for 32mm none return valve and another £1 or so for 32mm to 25mm reducers.

Deciding to go down the path of using pressure pipe has proven to be more expensive than I originally thought. Mainly down to not having anywhere local to get the parts I had to buy online and postage is usually £7.50 to £10 with each order so if you forget to order something it's costly. Even so I'm happy with me decision to go down this route as solvent weld pressure piping if done properly wont fail or leak and looks neat. I've also saved a bit by connecting this to standard waste pipe of the tank return and overflow from the shut off valves using metric to imperial pipe reducers.

If I was to do it again I'd do everything using imperial pressure pipe rather than metric, for some reason the fitting are cheaper.

 

[Daveslaney]

As the move has now been put on hold ( long story).
Thought I would make some changes to the tank. Still a bit of a mix of styles. But I think it's getting where I want it to be.

 

[Daveslaney]

some buces.