Sump plumbing materials and color - what say you?

Hello All,

Soon I embark upon making my first sump etc. I am very excited about that. I have begun making the grand master shopping list for plumbing parts and pieces.

There are choices between clear tubing versus black tubing versus flex versus hard white pvc. As usual, I find myself overwhelmed - hence my asking all of you.

Personally I am leaning towards black flexible PVC just to keep things neater and to conceal crud that might show up in the tubing.

That means I would also go with all black fittings as well.

Incidentally this is a simple setup - 20L sump/fuge under a 50 breeder w/ a HOB overflow - so there wont be loads of plumbing.

Questions:

Which do you use / prefer?

What are your thoughts on ease of maintenance / cleaning of tube buildup? (or does that not matter)...?

Is one type of tubing / piping noisier than the other?

For those of you Home Depot / Lowe's veterans - do they have all the black fittings etc there too?

Thanks in advance !

elizabeth

 

I initially used standard, hard pvc pipe. However, I just replaced it with clear vinyl tubing as it allows for a greater return rate as you can get a more direct return. The pvc had a thick deposit of calcium carbonate on it and the flow was severely restricted. I like the clear b/c you can see anything that builds up inside of it.

 

I personally use a combination of hard PVC mounted to the stand, and then either Spa-flex or reinforced vinyl tubing to to go between the sump and the hard plumbing.

 

IME clear tubing tends to get things growing inside it (algea,etc) overtime which start to restrict the flow and looks nasty. i use spa-flex/pvc combination, or black vinyl depending on how much flow I am doing.

 

I generally use standard PVC if you can make the connections with only a few elbows. If you have to snake tubes all over the place, then flex tube is the way to go. I personally do not like clear for the reasons stated above, it tends to grow stuff inside.

 

I use clear tubing. I like being able to see inside my plumbing to make sure there is nothing that could impeded water flow. A good medium is s smokey vinyl tubing. This is hard to find though. Unless you cut your PVC in half, there is no way of truly being able to tell if nothing is growing in your plumbing. Because you can't see something, it doesn't mean nothing is there.

Lowes and HD won't have black fittings, but you can easily spraypaint them black.

 

yup...certainly cannot disagree ;D

 

Its inside your stand.. IMO get the cheap white PVC and save your money for a fish or something you like..

 

no light inside means much less growth, and since the return pump pipe isn't under much pressure i don't even cement the fitting and get no leaks. This makes it very easy to clean it out occasionally.

 

The clear plumbing does not get much growth and you can easily block the light from reaching your plumbing. Since she is using a hang-on overflow she doesn't have to worry about light from the tank. Light from the fuge can be easily blocked by positioning the fixture closer to the fuge and angled away from the plumbing.

I personally wouldn't risk not gluing all the PVC together. Even if there isn't much pressure, it is better safe than sorry.