drilled overflow bulkhead help!

just had my tank drilled. it is a bulkhead with a strainer intake inside the tank and it sticks straight out the back of the tank and it is threaded. how do you guys hook the back up? i would like to use a pvc elbow on the back to make it verticle instead of sticking right out the back of the tank. i want to use some type of hose so i can just cut it to length and put the flow into a filter sock like i have always done. also i am worried that my mag 5 return pump will be too much for the bulkhead to handle. is it easy using a ball valve on the pumps? so far it doesnt seem like anything is going to be easy

 

Like you were thinking, just use an elbow turned up so the strainer sticks strait up. I would leave the strainer un-glued, so you can pull it out for easy cleaning.

Ball valves are very easy to use. Just install it after the pump and adjust as needed.

 

How big of a bulkhead did you use?

FWIW,a 1" bulkhead used with schedule 40 PVC will flow just under 1000gph. The elbow might not allow the full gph capacity of the drain, but you can tweak that.

Also, if you use a valve after the mag5 (you should not need to because a mag 5 only makes half the gph that your drain pipe can handle assuming it's 1") don't simply put a ball vale in without allowing the excess flow to go somewhere else. Make a tee off and recirculate the excess flow to the sump. Danner mag pumps don't do well with any extra backpressure and will fail prematurely.

 

It is better to throttle the pump than to recirculate the excess flow back to the sump. By reducing the flow you also reduce the watts consumed and the corresponding heat produced. When you install the tee and dump it back in the sump the pump is working harder since it is pumping higher GPH this drawing more power and producing more heat.

Its a hard one to grasp but centrifugal pumps work better with head on them and valving them down in no way harms them or shortens their life. It often makes them more efficient in fact.

The problem I see with a overflow as you describe is they are not very good at surface skimming and are usually noisy. I would design an overflow box to silicone or glue on the back wall so water has to flow over a weir for better surface skimming.

 

I can say for a fact that magdrive pumps don't take well to them being restricted.

In any case, I highly doubt you will need any reduction from the pump.

 

Thats one reason among many why I sold all my Mags and went to Ocean Runners or Eheims.

 

Ain't that the truth. I put a threaded barb elbow on the output of mine for my skimmer and production went down significantly. They are workhorses, but don't like any added head restriction like you said.

 

I'm seconding this fact. I got lucky, mine just quit before heating my tank.