need help with my sump

[warriors]

hi there everyone.

i have just moved over from a tank with a canister filter to a much bigger tank with a sump and bean animal overflow with a weir and i am having trouble with in and out flow balance.

tank size is 6x2x2 and sump is 58x18x17

i have 3 x 40mm drains one is full siphon and one is open channel and the third is emergency drain

1 x 1in return

i am using a TMC reef pump 8000

i have 2 filter socks

the problem i am having is if i open up the gate valve too much the pump cannot pump it back in fast enough so have to turn the gate valve 90 percent closed which in turn does not let enough water flow out the DT and end up with loads of floating and debris on the substrate even though it looks fairly clear there is loads of bits floating in the water

i am not sure if i have packed the sump out with too much mechanical media and that is restricting my flow out of the tank .

please see photos i am pulling my hair out as not really sure what too do so any help would be great or if someone lives in the east london area that would be willing to come and give me some hands on guidance that would be even better

regards
Gary

 

[hypnogogia]

Thinking about this logically,, turn off the one on the siphon. Then, the water outflow from the weir should equal water I flow rate. If not, then you have too much filter material in the sump. Remove some until the flow is balanced. At that point, shut off the weir and use the siphon only. Adjust this until flow into sump is just less then flow back into tank, now you can reopen the weir. Any excess not picked up by siphon now goes down the weir and the system should be balanced.

 

[warriors]

hi thanks for the reply but could you break that down as a bit lost in what you are saying to try.... can you list step by step

sorry just a bit confused

regards
Gary

🙄😳

 

[zozo]

i am not sure if i have packed the sump out with too much mechanical media and that is restricting my flow out of the tank .

The volume of media in the sump likely is not the restriction... Or it is packed too densely together that it can't handle the water volume flow through. By the looks of it in your pics that's unlikely.

Anyway, the way you describe it doesn't clear up what's actually happening.

Basically for all sumps...
The overflow has a maximum drain capacity, the pump's capacity L/h should be in sync with the overflows L/h capacity. If both are in sync the water level in the tank and sump should stay fairly unchanged... (Evaporation not taking into account)

I'm not familiar with the bean animal overflow design. By the looks of it, I think it's a syphon concept that needs to be primed correctly? Then make sure it is totally primed, air bubbles in the syphon restrict flow.

Make sure the overflow runs unrestricted (completely open) and sync the pump capacity with this... Then if your pump at full capacity is lower then the overflow drain capacity, then use the weir position in the tank (up or down) to regulate the water level in the tank. 🙂

If/when you restrict the outflow from the overflow box with valves you will clog and block it in time. Causes irregular outflow... This is not what you want, it needs to be fully opened all time without any bottlenecks can and will that trap dirt. The valves are there for occasional maintenance purpose not to regulate flow. You should regulate flow solely with the pump.

 

[zozo]

Tho i see one thing, i see a lot and have done myself, too, the filter socks are logically seen 9 in 10 times in the wrong place in most sumps... They are from such fine material filtering in microns that they always clog to soon when the are the first media the water runs through. Filtering microns is polishing the water. Then if the socks are the first step in filtering they get the dirtiest water, thus will clog rather soon stop filtering and flow over... They require a lot of cleaning or regular replacement if not cleaned often enough.

It actually makes not much sense, you should polish in the last stage and catch all big debris in a coarse media that doesn't clog that easily in the first stage... 🙂

 

[webworm]

@warriors Just for clarity could you confirm the function of each pipe in the weir photo, and also the role of the four pipe in the picture showing the right hand end of the sump.

The idea with a Bean overflow is that all the control is done using the gate valve, which is on the primary drain, the secondary drain than handles a small amount that the primary drain isn't taking. The secondary drain controls the height of the water within the weir.

 

[webworm]

Ok, a bit more analysis. I've made some assumptions as follow

1 - Your tank height including stands is 1.5m
2 - The pump is running at 100%

Your main tank is ~600 litres. Taking into account the head on the pump, you'll be getting 6000l/h

The main open drain will flow ~18000l/h running fully open, so you'll need to run with the gate valve around 60% closed.

Obviously all theoretical, but hopefully some more pointers.