starting a syphon

Hi all. I am constantly fighting with my syphon on my hang on as well as the drain vs fill amounts in the tank.
I need to re-do the system because it was hacked and jacked up from when I bought it.

Right now-
The water is syphoned via standard C pipe and hang on
---down to the wet/dry sump
--through a protein skimmer in the sump
--- and then through a surge 3500 (states 650 gph) with a in-line adjusting valve.

To start the syphon now, I use an attachment off of my vacuum with a small piece of hose. Sometimes I can simply add water to the tank and the syphon starts back up with the rising water level.


Would I be better off just buying 2 new pumps with equal gph rating and using one of them in place of the syphon to feed the pre-filter??

My next set up will definately have a drilled tank...lesson learned.

 

guess I didn't really address my main question.....
How do you all start your syphons?

 

Well if you use a properly made HOB overflow there should be no reason to need to restart the siphon. I think you have something that will give you a flood at some point from the problem you seem to have restarting it all the time. If you could post a few Pictures or brand name of the overflow maybe someone could offer more help .
As for starting a siphon ? I insert a section of airline tubing into the J tube and push that airline up to the apex of the J and suck out the air then remove the tubing once the J tube is full of water .
Then it all just sets until the pump is restarted then it flows until I break the siphon By lifting the J tube above the flood rim of the overflow boxes. Something about they way you describe yours and the need for a vacuum that just does not sound right to me

 

Instead of saving some money and making a DIY overflow I went and picked up one of these CPR CS90 Overflow/Prefilter: Premium Aquatics
I wanted the display tank to look nice and I wanted something functional. All you have to do is get all the air out of the channel with a Aqua Lifter or pipe it to a powerhead and it will restart after power outage averytime. I didn't want to worry about flooding the floor with a DIY that I messed up. I would rather have something that looks good then saving money. Plus it is QUIET! Just my $.02

 

I agree Otty in some areas in a aquarium the price of trying to save money is just to expensive and costly ..

 

Amen! Karma at ya Tangster

 

If your siphon keeps breaking you don't have enough flow going through it. There should be enough that any bubbles that get into the tube get pushed out. I have always used amiracle overflow boxes and the only failures I've ever had was because I'd let a snail or something get in the tube.

As far as starting the siphon goes, I do mine the same way tangster does. A piece of airline tubing run into the tube an then pulled out once the flow starts getting fast enough. If the power fails you really shouldn't be losing your siphon.

HTH