need help with new wetdry

[buoymarker28]

okay, the water outflow can't keep up with the water inflow. i have to keep the pump sucking air just to keep the tank from over flowing and plus the drop is full of water. it's almost like the hole in the drop isn't big enough. it's a 1inch hole and return to the tank is 3/4. any ideas?

It drops directly to the filter and there is one elbow curve coming right out of the top of the trickle. the thing that gets me is the drop is full of water as well.

help

 

[buoymarker28]

The only thing i can think of doing is to install a valve that lead from the sump the the little giant pump where i can decrease the water flow back into the tank. Please tell me i'm not the only person to have this problem. I've alway had DAS tanks and this is my first wet dry. thx

 

[MI0706]

buoy: Is the overflow box a HOB or is your tank predrilled?!?

Let me see if I'm getting what you are saying... Your overflow box on your tank is full of water. It has a 1" drain fitting going to a wet dry. The wet dry connection has an elbow connection right at the top. Now on the other end of the sump, you have a return pump back to the main tank. The return pump is pumping more water out of the sump, then what the overflow is supplying to the sump?!? Am I reading what you posted correctly?!?

 

[buoymarker28]

exactly but the over flow is in the tank built in a corner. The pump instructions say if i need to limit flow to do it on the pumps outflow side and not on the intake side. Any other suggestions?

 

[MI0706]

I'd say make doubly sure that your inlet tubing to your wet/dry isn't clogged or partially clogged.

Also, the wet/dry I had, right after the inlet there was a really flat sponge/filter like type media. This became clogged within a few hours of operation. I ended up removing that all together.

Other than that, if your pump capacity way over exceeds your overflow capacity, then it is possible to have problems similar to this. But that would have to be a really big pump as compared to your overflow.

One last note. If you do end up throttling flow of your pump use a gate valvle. Never, ever, ever throttle the inlet to the pump. Throttle only the outlet. If you throttle the inlet to a pump you run the risk of causing cavitation. If the pump starts cavitating, then you run the risk of damaging the impeller.

I hope I've helped you somewhat, even though I don't think I really have.

 

[buoymarker28]

No obstructions in the inlet tubing to the wetdry. I think the pump is just way too big which is weird because it was a package deal from tenecor.
which would be better
1. INstall gate valve back from the pump the aquarium
2. Split the return line and have one going back to the sump and one going back to the aquarium and have the gate valve on the one going back to the sump?

whatever I don i have to decrease the flow rate back to the tank. I guess that's a good problem to have. At least i know my pump is big enough.

 

[ricky1414]

your return is 3/4 inch and your drain is 1 inch? sounds like you need a bigger drain. pressure applications flow water a lot faster than gravity feeds do.

 

[buoymarker28]

it's actually a 1 in drain and 1 inch return until the very end and then it goes down to 3/4 inside the drop.

I think the problem is the elbow going into the sump. that's where it starts backing up. If i could increase the size of this elbow to 1.5 i think i'd be okay...or heck, get rid of it and let the water go right into the sump without going through the elbowl

 

[ricky1414]

as few direction changes as possible. I learned the hard way. here's what mine looks like. Sorry MS paint program

 

[MI0706]

Head loss, bends, etc... won't matter that much if it is a short run. Now if you were running line from greater than 10 feet away, then yes, you would have to worry more about head loss, bends, pump head, etc...

My current setup is exactly what bouy has. I have a 1" drain going to a modified wet/dry (only mod was removing bio balls and taking out the piece of plastice that had a lot of holes in it) and a 3/4" return line back to my tank. Total length of run for the inlet to the sump is about 1 foot and total length of run from outlet of sump back to the main tank is about 3 feet.

Anyway, yes you could just get a gate valve and throttle the flow of the pump or use a "T" and have some of the water return to the sump. Only problem I see with that is possible heating issues in your sump (which should be minimal giving the ambient loss conditions).

 

[buoymarker28]

whew hew problem solved. I removed the elbow piece going to my wet dry and increaded the length a little to the pump. I guess the power of the pump along with the elbow was just a little too much for that elbow to handle and the water was backing up. been running since last night with only small drip leaks that i'm battling.

Thanks to those that responded. The tank is already starting to clear up. I put 80lbs of uncured fiji show live rock in yesterday as well. Kinda cloudy but that's expected. thanks again....