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Connecting a dehumidifier to aquarium drain

castle

castle

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I’m not a plumber, even though last weekend I dug up all our drains and relaid them 😅

I am in the process of fitting a 25mm out drain from beneath my aquarium to rainwater drain outside. 25mm is internal diameter.

I have a 12mm internal diameter hose that comes from the dehumidifier; I am thinking I could connect this at a t section to the drain of the aquarium somewhere beneath the floorboards. I’d like to connect them as drilling two holes out of the house is 2 more than the wife would like. As this drain is also at the front of the house it needs to be “neat”.

The only real issue I can see is that if the drain gets blocked, the aquarium water will back fill from the blockage and possibly kill the dehumidifier. As the dehumidifier is gravity siphoned, I don’t think a non-return valve would work as the flow rate of the humidifier is probably 1lph 😅. An air gap makes no sense either as a backfill then floods my “cellar” (if you’re a hobbit).

The drain technically would only get blocked due to freezing, and or explorative mice.

I guess, if I drill a hole into the side of the rainwater downpipe, the pipe could be blocked from stuff from the roof, so there is that too.
 
Drain would be manual, so I would be able to check it’s not blocked beforehand 👍 but this question is still somewhat valid as I have another aquarium on order which has a constant drip and drain 😅
 
If you were to lag the outside section of the pipe it should prevent against freezing and as long as the end of the pipe was a good few inches above the ground level mice would be unlikely to gain entry. Also make sure there is a good gradient on the outside section of the pipe so that water does not sit in it in possible freezing conditions.

The nearest thing to this I can think of in real life are the pipes that drain the condensate from condensing gas boilers. A few years back we had a severe winter after a decade of mild ones and, because of lazy installers running long runs of condensate pipe outside without insulation, loads of them froze up borking the unlucky owner's central heating until it thawed. Anyway the diameter of these pipes is not too far off what you are using so plenty of suitable outdoor insulation options will be available.

(I am not a plumber either)
 
As the dehumidifers outlet is far lower than the aquariums you always run the risk for back flow flooding when draining the tank, so think the only safe way would be to fit a 12mm tap to the humidifiers outlet so it cannot flow back, but then of course there is the chance you forget close it or to open it afterwards and internally flood it anyway !

What is the constant drip from the other tank caused by - sounds unusual ?
 
Ah, this makes me feel a little better - as I am drilling a hole almost above the drain cover, I should have minimal pipe outside exposed @Maf 2500 👍 I may every be able to drill a hole into the roof down pipe, which would look better from the outside but with other blocking risks.

A tap on the pipe is totally the right call; it’s a little more hassle that I’d like but it removed a risk. @dino21 - I may end up using aquarium hosing and an Eheim tap!

The drip system I have plumed in, it basically is my main water supply going through a valve to drip about 1ml every 4 seconds. This rate isn’t enough to cool the water and the overspill of the tank water overflows into a drain. This goes straight out into the waste supply from an existing drain. I don’t have that aquarium yet, but it’s coming 😊 it’s basically my “dream” set up, as I need a lot of automation these days. It’s just shy of 1300l 😬
 
castle said:
The drip system I have plumed in, it basically is my main water supply going through a valve to drip about 1ml every 4 seconds. This rate isn’t enough to cool the water and the overspill of the tank water overflows into a drain. This goes straight out into the waste supply from an existing drain. I don’t have that aquarium yet, but it’s coming 😊 it’s basically my “dream” set up, as I need a lot of automation these days. It’s just shy of 1300l 😬
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Not quiet sure what you are trying to achieve by that drip feed as at that rate would guess the 'drip' would be about the same as the tanks natural evaporation so little or no overflow.
Are you trying to use that instead of an ATU ? they are quiet easy to use and set up, not that expensive and if set up well cannot overflow the tank. We use a little micro to control ours.

As for an open mains tap going into the tank, even set to a drip, think that would be a recipe for a big flood if something when wrong !
 
Aha, yeah the drip feed is a little contentious - my belief is that a constant (albeit tiny) amount of fresh water is a good thing, it may be that I increase the drip rate, but I have to also combat chlorine etc; at less than 22 litres a day that drip is not enough haha, will need to be more like 1ml every 2 seconds which is a fast drip. There will be some more calculations I’ll need to do, and I could filter this water into carbon before it goes into the tank (missus ain’t going to like that) which may work better. It also means the heaters have to work a lot harder.

If the mains water fails and dumps a load of water into the aquarium, the drain in sump should handle it, but the fish will die… ☹️
 
You can fit various inline dechlorinators out of sight under the tank, but not sure its a risk we would want to take having an open mains water connection 24/7.
Would be tempted to have some form of mains pipe automatic shut off device once a float/sensor detected a level higher than your overflow pipe .
Assume you are trying to avoid water changes , though you will still have to do the usual tank maintenance.

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Online dechlorinator is a great idea; you’re right keeping the flow open at all times is a risk but I’m quietly confident in my plumbing ability 😅

I have everything I need to plum in the dechlorinator now; eheim do a single tap which is pretty darn sturdy (4004512/ attached) though I may replace the whole line to be 12mm from dehumidifier to 15mm pipe which I can then use a fit for purpose tap etc but it’s a small thing
 

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Just a word of warning with inline de-chlorinators.

I bough the Oase model and it only works up to 0.5ppm for a single pass. You need a second (inline) unit to cover yourself up to 5ppm. It also has to be at a slow speed:

My in / out testing showed that a single unit did decrease the chlorine levels, but it was 0.86ppm in, and their was (of course) residual chlorine after the pass.
 
Yeah, I’ll share the plan when I’m there but I’ll reduce the pressure into the dechlorinator to its rated bar, and it should be OK - as the drip is external to the aquarium it will be moderately aerated before the water hits the tank, it should be enough, the only draw back is that inline canisters create waste water and I’m not sure that’s the path I want to take
 
Not sure if this page is helpful at all. But sharing just in case it is @castle !

18.2. Drip Water Changes

How to set up continuous drip water changes in an aquarium.
aquariumscience.org aquariumscience.org
 
Ahh nice link, certainly will be helpful in the future 👍
 
castle said:
Yeah, I’ll share the plan when I’m there but I’ll reduce the pressure into the dechlorinator to its rated bar, and it should be OK - as the drip is external to the aquarium it will be moderately aerated before the water hits the tank, it should be enough,
Click to expand...
Both those units are designed for far greater pressures than in domestic water pipes.

castle said:
the only draw back is that inline canisters create waste water and I’m not sure that’s the path I want to take
Click to expand...

If you are saying those dechlorinators need a waste outlet , not so, just just replace the element in the 10" cansiter types. Assume you discard the whole Oase unit ?
You might want to consider Chloramines which standard cartridges remove little, though you can buy 10" catridges that remove Chlorine and Chloramines; check your local water board report as most use Chloramines these days.
 
Yeah sorry @dino21 I didn’t explain my internal thoughts there; I am thinking I would go for an RO unit but just run carbon and maybe a chloramine remover and I remember some units when I looked into this in the past had max pressures (which my mains exceeded) and required a drain

I have the space in my “cellar” to run a self contained trickle filter but the head height to pump to tank, and the siphon depth… not worth doing imo
 
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