Manifold design help

[WTJReef]

Hi All,

Ive attached some pictures of my DIY manifold I put on my water box tank. I built this one myself but now having used it for a few months I realise it has some serious functionality/design flaws - primarily a loss of head pressure feeding through the UV and back up into the display. After getting my desired flow through the reactors I’m left with a trickle feeding back in to the display once I turn the main return pump off.

I would appreciate some advice on how this should be modified or rebuilt to increase flow through the UV steriliser and up to the display. At the moment the UV is off because I know it would not have sufficient flow coming through and the Main return is running at higher setting to compensate for reduced flow coming from the other pump.

It uses a 6000 LPH running on max to feed a media reactor and an algae reactor, each with ball valves to regulate flow to the requirements of each reactor. The plumbing then takes a dive back down to floor level into my UV before heading back into the main return which is plumbed to a Vectra M2. I have used one way valves to try to ensure the two pumps aren’t fighting each other where they meet. I suspect my issues are because I’ve either got too many 90 degree bends or because I’ve gone down to the UV which is slightly below the level of the pump and all the way up the weir again and the water is pooling in the UV, but don’t know enough to be sure trying to eliminate these things would help or what to attack first.

Advice much appreciated on how this can be done better.

 

[Quietman]

Hard to see actual piping...a representative diagram is usually much more of help when troubleshooting and before you build.

But just a couple of notes on the comments that could lead to issues.

While check valves will guarantee (if working correctly) flow in one direction, if you're using in parallel and one pump is significantly stronger than the other, it will shut the check valve due to back pressure.

Also, it's very hard to calculate flow in a manifold and the effects such as filter clogging, pipe fouling, media channeling will have on flow elsewhere. That's fine for most of our reactors as inefficiencies in flow don't impact their overall performance much. UV requires specific flow to operate correctly. I think you have it on your return which is optimal but wasn't completely sure. Just don't have on a loop from sump back to sump.

If I understand your setup right, I would try removing the connection between the pumps and direct flow to sump and then draw flow from sump as normal return. See what your flow looks like then.

Good luck!