75 Gal. upgrade

Plumbing progress

Here is a view of the back side of the tank, the ball valve will be used to control the flow to the sump

A little better view of the plumbing path, I wanted to go through the wall instead of the floor in case the tank has to be relocated. It will be a lot easier to repair a hole in the wall than one in the floor.

View from inside the stand

 

bump for your question (sump clueless here) but I think I've read some posts that say you don't want to valve your drain pipe.

 

Thanks for the bump I have read the same here about a valve in the feed to the sump but have seen it on many of the bean animal style overflows. I will have a valve in the return from the pump to the tank, just wanted to have the extra protection in case the flow from the tank is too much for the return pump to handle.

 

everything looks great,cant wait to see this progress.The tank cant overflow any more than the return pump puts into it so that should not be a problem

 

So...the answer is, don't use a ball valve on your drain! Use a ball valve on the return line of your pump to slow the flow as needed, if needed. Otherwise, you are asking for trouble. One snail, or big piece of algae gets caught in the valve, and you have a flooded room :-/

 

Ok this is where my ignorance comes into play and hopefully someone can give me some information here. Since my overflow to the sump is capable of roughly 1500 gph through the syphon and my return pump can only handle about 600 gph dont I have to regulate what goes down to the sump? I do have a ball valves in the plans for both sides of the return pump, they are there so I can remove the pump for cleaning without loosing alot of water.

 

Your overflow will only flow what your return pump pumps back up. So since your return pump is 600 gph than your overflow will only flow 600 gph and no need to regulate your return pump. If your return pump was close to what your overflow could handle than you would want to regulate your return pump.

 

Thanks DustyE, my thought was that a siphon will try to drain as much as it can which would empty the overflow breaking the siphon until the return pump could refill the over flow box. I have enough room in the sump to handle this type of situation, which could occur during a power outage or return pump failure.

 

Let there be water!

 

As it turns out I did need to regulate the flow to the sump, with a full siphon the overflow box was emptying quite rapidly which breaks the siphon. The return pump would then refill it to just have it empty again. This kept repeating until I adjusted the flow to the sump, I have a screen that should block any critters from getting into the overflow but I will be keeping a close watch on this to avoid any issues.