Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

[Timfish]

None. The simpler the plumbing can be designed the more foolproof it is. My prefered design is two small submersable return pumps each with seperate flexable tubing return lines. Return lines are set so there is minimal siphoning back to the sump in the case of power failure.

 

[Fred A.]

Unions so every piece of equipment can be easily removed for servicing. I've never had a leak. Ball valves (blue handles, not red) for pumps. I don't use check valves because sooner or later they will fail to completely shut.

 

[monica HHF]

My tank doesn't have plumbing at all

Sweet

 

[vetteguy53081]

It so happens , I had yet another power outage last night as we had heavy wet snow and I yelled "my Tank!". I finally got to my cell phone and ran to the sump and not an ounce of water got past this valve- A true savior !

 

[Michael White]

Each valve has it’s place based on your application. Check valves are fine as long as you understand their limitations and clean them properly the same as you “should” be cleaning your pumps. Clear body flapper types with dual unions are actually better ime because you can see and access them for maintenance, and they don’t bind from debris like the float type. Ball valves are for isolation and are a poor choice for throttling flow. Gate valves are very effective at metering flow for a reef tank drain or return bypass applications but also tend to collect debris on the incoming side of the gate, effecting the flow rate. Simply cycling them full closed to full open once a month is a good way to keep them clear. Removing and cleaning them at least annually would be prudent. The same goes for ball valves but that’s less critical for them. Ball valves should be at least single union for removal and cleaning but double union valves are best. Cheap sealed ball valves without unions have been short lived in my past aquariums and always seized when I really needed them to isolate water so I never use them now. So right tool right job. Small tanks with simple durso overflow and drain setup and dc return pump usually doesn’t need any valves. Once you get into bigger tanks or really push more flow and want it quiet in a herbie or bean animal overflow, you start needing valves. I run a bean animal overflow with a basement sump and dual ac return pump for the 15’ of head pressure. I need all three types of valves because of this configuration. I hope this helps somebody. I learned this over 20 years of spilling water and splicing lots pvc for changes when things didn’t work correctly.

 

[B&CinB.C.]

I still don't have water in the tank ,(hopefully this weekend), but I just finished installing a manifold in the supplied plumbing for my tank . There's a gate valve on the main drain and other than that I used tru-union ball valves. I thought about installing check valves but after reading on here that you can't trust them decided not to.