surge device

[t gallo]

well i got bored last nite so i pulled out a old acrylic sump, 10 gallon and drilled a 2 inch hole in the bottom, went to home depot and bought a flush valve and installed in the 10 gallon sump. then i built a small shelf over the stock tank wich i have set up to house the corals when i do the tank transfer and let me tell you this thing rocks, it sends about 9 gallons of water into the tank in about 5 seconds and creates an incredible surge.

 

[t gallo]

sitting over the 100 gallon stock tank.

 

[t gallo]

front shot.

 

[t gallo]

front shot

 

[Anonymous]

Nice! Can the overflow handle it in case of malfunction.

 

[t gallo]

it sure can handle the over flow, rite behind the float ball in the surge bucket you can see a 3/4 pipe riseing almost to the top and i purposlly held the flapper down with my hand to see if it could handle what the pump was feeding into it, so far so good.

 

[Will C1]

that is so cool. i wanna go do it to my tank lol. i couldent tell from the pics, is the 3/4" plumbed into the 2" pvc return?

 

[t gallo]

no the 3/4 pipe is part of the flush valve , wich in turn drains thru the 2'' pipe, once the flapper opens air rushes out the top of the 3/4 pipe and lets the surge bucket empty, but if for some reason the flapper does not open the 3/4 riser will let the bucket empty so not to overflow the surge bucket / 10 gallon tank.

 

[t gallo]

heres a better pic of the 3/4 pipe, the top is open to let air out or water in if the flapper gets stuck. the smaller jet wich is seperate top left feeds the bucket from the main pump.

 

[Marrowbone]

Pretty cool man.

Check out my new surge avatar. Now I just gotta finish the new version of the real one for my tank :lol:

 

[t gallo]

looks awsome tell me more about it, any pics would be great for all of us to check, i love this stuff. :lol:

 

[Marrowbone]

No pics of anything just yet but here's the plan. (Carlson/autosyphon type)

4 gallon bucket on top of the tank. 1.5" bulkhead and U for the drain. Fed from a tee from my Gen X return pump. Nice and simple

The previous version used 1" plumbing and didn't drain fast enough. Plus I installed a nice Durso pipe which I'm hoping I can tweak to handle the surge- I'm hoping I can get the whole tank to autosyphon off the excess water... it makes me nervous :lol:

 

[reefland]

Does the surge cycle make any noise?

 

[t gallo]

well once the flap opens up, the surge of water does make some noise . with a little tinkering maybe i can make it a little less noisey .

 

[Will C1]

where did you get the fitting that connects the 2" and the 3/4" together? is that standard? i like your idea and i might set one up this weekend if i can find the parts.

 

[t gallo]

its a one piece unit, but you will have to buy the float ball . all together it came out to 12 bucks and you will need a 2'' threaded coupling pvc for the bottom of the unit , home depoy has all the parts .

 

[t gallo]

go for it.

 

[t gallo]

the bottom of the flush kit is threaded and comes with a gasket and locknut. wich in turn you screaw on your 2'' pvc threaded coupling to add some teflon to the threads and your good to go.

 

[liquid]

marked for archiving

 

[wombat1]

Thanks liquid, I was about to do that myself

t gallo, great pics! Do you have any problems with the float ball interfering with the closing of the flapper? What are you using to connect the float to the flapper?

I've found mine make very little noise, but maybe I'm just deaf. I laid a piece of acrylic and a towel over the top to dampen the sound. Since you asked for pics, there's a pic of one of my surge buckets in my sig. There are two identical surges on my 30 gallon tank that dump about 1-2 gallons every minute. I think they're pretty low profile and simple for a small tank. Pretty soon you will see a ton of tubeworms, sponges, coralline, etc. growing in that surge tank. Your corals will love it as well!

Marrowbone, sweet avatar!