Making A Sump/external Filtration

[Gnatfish]

Hello

I have a empty 10 gallon tank. With 2 Internal Filters and a heater, but i want the tank to be equipment-less (as much as possible)

My idea is...could i somehow put all these in a bucket. Then somehow circulate water from the tank, to the bucket, then back to tank. Kinda like sump, except the bucket might not be directly underneath the tank.

I was thinking i could use a siphon to continuously take water out of tank, but then i would need some other pump thing to take it back..

I don't really know much, or how to do this. Is it possible?

Thanks

Nathan

 

[andywg]

Read up on sumps. This is what you would be creating. A sump does not have to be directly underneath a tank.

you would be best off having a hole drilled in the 10 gallon and fitting a mini-weir with an adaption of the durso standpipe to drain down, then a pump returns the watter from the bucket. This way if there is a power cut you don't have to worry about either bucket or tank dumping all the water into the other.

 

[Gnatfish]

Read up on sumps. This is what you would be creating. A sump does not have to be directly underneath a tank.

you would be best off having a hole drilled in the 10 gallon and fitting a mini-weir with an adaption of the durso standpipe to drain down, then a pump returns the watter from the bucket. This way if there is a power cut you don't have to worry about either bucket or tank dumping all the water into the other.

Hey

What do you mean, by mini-weir? And how would the stand pipe come into it?

Thanks

Nathan

 

[saboy]

A wier is a glass or acrylic box section, where inside it would be a pipe of some sort coming out the tank(drillled in glass), where water will flow through it down into a sump and in your case this all would be mini

 

[Gnatfish]

A wier is a glass or acrylic box section, where inside it would be a pipe of some sort coming out the tank(drillled in glass), where water will flow through it down into a sump and in your case this all would be mini

Ahhh not liking the idea of drilling glass...

So is the simple siphon idea out of the question?

 

[saboy]

You can make a hang on tank siphon, then for safety(overflowing of sump if powerfails) you need to drill a little hole in the siphon pipe that is just below the water surface, this make it so that if there is a power failure, the water will drop until the little hole breaks the siphon by letting in air.

 

[Gnatfish]

You can make a hang on tank siphon, then for safety(overflowing of sump if powerfails) you need to drill a little hole in the siphon pipe that is just below the water surface, this make it so that if there is a power failure, the water will drop until the little hole breaks the siphon by letting in air.

Ahh yes!! That's a great idea!

So let me get this straight. I need a siphon tube with a little hole in it. This goes in tank and takes water from tank to bucket. Then a pump takes the water back to tank?

As far as pumps are concerned, what pump will need? Any recommendations?

EDIT: Also how will i make sure the rate the water is siphoned is the same as the the pump is pumping?

 

[BigIan]

or get a secons hand external filter like the eiheim with the built in heater??

 

[Gnatfish]

or get a secons hand external filter like the eiheim with the built in heater??

You can get those??

EDIT: I just looked at some and they are for much bigger tanks.

 

[smurfyy_2k3]

or get a secons hand external filter like the eiheim with the built in heater??

You can get those??

EDIT: I just looked at some and they are for much bigger tanks.

so you over filter your tank a little

 

[Gnatfish]

Umm...they would be over over over over filtered. And they cost loads.

 

[andywg]

You can get inline heaters as well.

Just having a syphon tube with a hole drilled would work fine, even as the power went off, but it wouldn't start the syphon again when the power came on, so would put all the bucket into the main tank giving a burned out heater, dead filter, and probbly a flooded tank.

If you don't want to drill (which is easy and safer - I have done 9 holes in the last 10 days) then you can make an overflow box. But I don't like these as they can fail far easier than a drilled hole can, and I always plan assuming everything wthat can go wrong, will go wrong.

 

[saboy]

Whoops, I didnt think about the power coming back on part.

 

[petpirate]

The little hole is drilled in the return pipe coming back from the pump, not in the siphon pipe. The idea is to prevent a siphon from forming if the power goes out and the water flow through the pump reverses. Even easier in this situation, rather than drilling a hole, is to have the outlet just a few mm below the water's surface. Then there will be no water to suck down.

Anyway, as mentioned before, the main problem here is the siphon. You only want it to siphon at the same speed that the pump is pushing water back up.... so it's not really a siphon at all -- and therefore it must take water from the very surface.

A drilled tank is best.. .stay tuned for an upcoming article on how to do this safely, but I do not have huge reservations about store-bought hang-on siphons either, provided they are kept clean, have the proper flow through them, and you have considered all eventualities (extra space in the tank for sump water, a pump that can run dry, etc).

Is this for a freshwater tank? If so, flow rate doesn't need to be so fast, and a noiseless standpipe isn't really necessary (for my freshwater tank, a straight hole and bulkhead works just fine).


However, whether freshwater or marine, it is perfectly possible to build an overflow siphon that never breaks -- just using a few simple pieces of PVC pipe, a few elbows and a tee.

This design will need playing with a bit. It would need a bit of experimentation to get the right positions before being glued together, and you could finesse the design by using a variety of diameters of PVC, but it should get the job done reliably. One of the tricks to making it reliable is sizing the pipe to the flow rate - if the pipe is too big, the water will flow through it too slowly, allowing air bubbles to build up.

Please excuse my MS Word drawing skills! You could start the siphon by capping the open part and immersing it in water, or by shoving an airline up inside and sucking out all the water. You'd only have to do it once.

 

[Gnatfish]

Hey

The little hole is drilled in the return pipe coming back from the pump, not in the siphon pipe. The idea is to prevent a siphon from forming if the power goes out and the water flow through the pump reverses. Even easier in this situation, rather than drilling a hole, is to have the outlet just a few mm below the water's surface. Then there will be no water to suck down.

Wouldn't the water just flow into bucket and then no flow out again?

Anyway, as mentioned before, the main problem here is the siphon. You only want it to siphon at the same speed that the pump is pushing water back up.... so it's not really a siphon at all -- and therefore it must take water from the very surface.

A drilled tank is best.. .stay tuned for an upcoming article on how to do this safely, but I do not have huge reservations about store-bought hang-on siphons either, provided they are kept clean, have the proper flow through them, and you have considered all eventualities (extra space in the tank for sump water, a pump that can run dry, etc).

Is this for a freshwater tank? If so, flow rate doesn't need to be so fast, and a noiseless standpipe isn't really necessary (for my freshwater tank, a straight hole and bulkhead works just fine).


However, whether freshwater or marine, it is perfectly possible to build an overflow siphon that never breaks -- just using a few simple pieces of PVC pipe, a few elbows and a tee.

This design will need playing with a bit. It would need a bit of experimentation to get the right positions before being glued together, and you could finesse the design by using a variety of diameters of PVC, but it should get the job done reliably. One of the tricks to making it reliable is sizing the pipe to the flow rate - if the pipe is too big, the water will flow through it too slowly, allowing air bubbles to build up.

Please excuse my MS Word drawing skills! You could start the siphon by capping the open part and immersing it in water, or by shoving an airline up inside and sucking out all the water. You'd only have to do it once.

So would i just have to expriment with flow rates and get my room wet?

Thanks for the help.

Oh yeah, this is for a Freshwater tank.

Nathan