How I accurately measured my sumps flow rate, and kept the basement floor dry!...

Holy Head Pressure Batman!

I've been using a Marineland 5500 for my RP from the get go.
It used to be in my stand, with 3 x90 bends and a 180 bend to get it into the DT. I didn't measure that though.

Now it's been in my Basement, with the sump on it's own stand-
so that I'm using a 10ft. SpaFlex hose straight up (a slight twist actually- very slight) thru the floor, to the 180 at the tank edge.

First, I got a one gallon plastic ice cream container, like a 1g bucket;
While the system was running/flowing normally I put the end of the flex hose coming from the DT into the bucket.
I watched my Iphone timer, and quickly put the the flexible hose into the bucket at the top of a minute. I carefully watched just when it completely filled.
I did this 3 times in a row.

Each time, I bascially got 7.8 seconds per gallon.
60 secs. divided by 7.8, = 7.69230769 (repeating?)
So, that's about 7.7 gallons per minute.

The original # above, x 60 minutes=461.538462 Gallons/hour
So about 462 gallons per hour.

**Did I get that math right?

I'm pretty happy with that since my Marineland 5500, using less than 50W (don't have a wattmeter, sorry) is rated at 1384 g/hr at 0 head height.

So with 10ft of head height, and a 180 on the tank edge- 462 g/hr.
That's just over 4 x DT flow / hour thru the sump.

Seems to work well.

Ir you're ever curious as to your actual flow, you may try in some time?

 

Looks right to me, always good to know your flow rate.

 

Thanks, nothing like knowin you got good flow

 

Looks right to me. Never thought about knowing exactly. Good idea. Thanks Todd.

 

Know the flow! J/K It actually made no real difference- I was curious Exactly what my sumps flow was, after all the head heights and the 180 bend to get over the tank edge.

 

Yea, that's a great idea. I want to "Know the Flow". I will close one side of my return and measure with the opposite return since my return is split and enters at 2 points with valved black flex fittings (don't know what their called ATM)

 

Your math is correct! To get a more accurate reading, just use a 5 gallon bucket, but you should be very close the way you did it.