Plumbing Drains with Elevated Sump

[trevorhiller]

I have a plumbing question:

I'm building a fish room in the basement and am finally getting ready to move the tank into position and I'm trying to plan how to route the drain lines. The tank uses a Bean Animal overflow with 3 pipes. The tank stand is 42" and the sump stand is elevated around 24".

Since the tank is being built into the wall, I want to maximize rear access to the back side of the tank. Therefore I would like to avoid having pipes "floating" in the air between the two stands. [If I ran the pipes horizontally from the overflow to the sump I would effectively have 3 1.5" PVC pipes blocking access to the right side of the tank].

My thought is to run the pipes down and under the stand across the floor and up over the side of the sump. This way I can easily put a step stool spanning the pipes and still have good access for cleaning.

Any suggestions? Here is a video of the space and a picture of the tank to help visualize. Pardon the mess, it's become quite the construction zone!

 

[Jamie814]

run the pipes down and under the stand across the floor and up over the side of the sump.

If I understand you correct you will be creating a u shape "trap" in your drain lines which may become problematic. You could end up with an air lock or lots of gurgling and or siphoning. Think how a toilet works when you flush it, similar to this. You would need to vent the other side of the trap to prevent this.

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics]

I think this will work - but you may run into some vapor-loc issue with the long horizonal run, and essentially two nearly equal height risers. This can usual be over come with higher pressure and throughput, but it may, in some cases make it hard to really get the flow moving in the drain.

One solution could turning your main sump into a remote sump setup - this would definitely make things more complicated, but it would work more reliably, and give you more flexibility in terms of where the plumbing goes.

Setup a smaller sump, directly under the tank - assuming the space will remain open. this will house your return pump and at least oner other pump that will supply the remote sump.

This smaller sump should be big enough to handle any backflow for the main tank, but it doesn't have to be big enough for all your equipment - that will all remain in your remote sump.


here's a very crude drawing

In this setup, then you could run the plumbing to the remote sump on the wall - up and out of the way, without limitations

 

[trevorhiller]

If I understand you correct you will be creating a u shape "trap" in your drain lines which may become problematic. You could end up with an air lock or lots of gurgling and or siphoning. Think how a toilet works when you flush it, similar to this. You would need to vent the other side of the trap to prevent this.

From what I am reading, a Tee on the vertical outlet would accomplish this with a short riser pipe open to atmosphere. Is that what you are referring too?

 

[trevorhiller]

I think this will work - but you may run into some vapor-loc issue with the long horizonal run, and essentially two nearly equal height risers. This can usual be over come with higher pressure and throughput, but it may, in some cases make it hard to really get the flow moving in the drain.

One solution could turning your main sump into a remote sump setup - this would definitely make things more complicated, but it would work more reliably, and give you more flexibility in terms of where the plumbing goes.

Setup a smaller sump, directly under the tank - assuming the space will remain open. this will house your return pump and at least oner other pump that will supply the remote sump.

This smaller sump should be big enough to handle any backflow for the main tank, but it doesn't have to be big enough for all your equipment - that will all remain in your remote sump.


here's a very crude drawing

In this setup, then you could run the plumbing to the remote sump on the wall - up and out of the way, without limitations

I do have an abyzz 200 to power the whole setup and with 3 1.5” drain lines with a 5 foot overflow so I’m anticipating being able to move some serious water if needed.

The remote sump is an idea I hadn’t thought about, but it would be nice to avoid having to add a second pump.

 

[Jamie814]

From what I am reading, a Tee on the vertical outlet would accomplish this with a short riser pipe open to atmosphere. Is that what you are referring too?

The vent would need to be very near to the downstream side of trap to be effective. If you run a long horizontal section of pipe after the trap, then the vent it won't do much good.

 

[Jamie814]

abyzz 200 to power the whole setup

Very nice pump....and expensive!

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics]

I do have an abyzz 200 to power the whole setup and with 3 1.5” drain lines with a 5 foot overflow so I’m anticipating being able to move some serious water if needed.

The remote sump is an idea I hadn’t thought about, but it would be nice to avoid having to add a second pump.

The abyzz would certainly overcome any issue with supply flow returning to the display tank form the sump - however you plumb it. But its the drain from the display to the sump that i would be concerned about with that many bends and turns, and then a rise to the sump level.

I think what you are proposing (if i understand it correctly) could work, but over time it may cause more issues than it solves.

 

[Biff0rz]

I think this will work - but you may run into some vapor-loc issue with the long horizonal run, and essentially two nearly equal height risers. This can usual be over come with higher pressure and throughput, but it may, in some cases make it hard to really get the flow moving in the drain.

One solution could turning your main sump into a remote sump setup - this would definitely make things more complicated, but it would work more reliably, and give you more flexibility in terms of where the plumbing goes.

Setup a smaller sump, directly under the tank - assuming the space will remain open. this will house your return pump and at least oner other pump that will supply the remote sump.

This smaller sump should be big enough to handle any backflow for the main tank, but it doesn't have to be big enough for all your equipment - that will all remain in your remote sump.


here's a very crude drawing

In this setup, then you could run the plumbing to the remote sump on the wall - up and out of the way, without limitations

The smaller tank will need to be able to handle backflow from both the display and remote sump

 

[FishTruck]

I have two frag tanks plumbed this way... and my LFS too does this "U" shaped. My LFS and I did this so we can step over the pipes... which is, I think, what you are getting at.

Make a clean out at the bottom so you can vacuum out any heavy stuff that accumulates there and vent it.

There will be more noise on the uphill side of of the U - but I can't say how much since my setup is in a loud environment. There might be some other nuances to minimize noise and maximize siphon capacity that someone smarter will chime in with.

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics]

The smaller tank will need to be able to handle backflow from both the display and remote sump

DOH!
You are right.

Every time I've done something like a remote sump, i always use some sort of overflow to maintain water levels in the sump and to help back flow, and I totally neglected to include that in my drawing.

Thank for catching that.

 

[trevorhiller]

I have two frag tanks plumbed this way... and my LFS too does this "U" shaped. My LFS and I did this so we can step over the pipes... which is, I think, what you are getting at.

Make a clean out at the bottom so you can vacuum out any heavy stuff that accumulates there and vent it.

There will be more noise on the uphill side of of the U - but I can't say how much since my setup is in a loud environment. There might be some other nuances to minimize noise and maximize siphon capacity that someone smarter will chime in with.

Thank you for that. That’s exactly what I’m trying to accomplish. Essentially lay the pipes just above the floor and then have a walkway over top of them so they aren’t blocking my path.

I'm already planning a union between the sump stand and tank stand so that should suffice for the clean out.

As for the noise, it probably doesn’t matter because this is a fish room and there’s a wall between the living area and the tank although I would still appreciate it not being overly noisy.

I think I'm going to pickup some sweep elbows for the turns and I suppose there's only one way to find out!

 

[FishTruck]

The way I did this and the way I saw it done - is to have a big… say 4 inch pipe on the ground that set up like a manifold. Mine has a slight downhill slope from the frag tanks to the sump. The frags drain into the high side of the manifold, which carries the water on a slight downhill slope over to the sump is. The extra drains provide venting of the high end of the manifold. On the low end of the manifold, there is a cleanout and I have 1.5 inch PVCs that come up and then dumps into the filter socks of my sump. I just drilled small holes to strategically Vent the side of it, but your plan with Tees would be better.