f14peter
Member
Have a 90g AGA drilled w/overflow, MegaFlow 3 sump.
Running a freshwater system/leak test (So far so good, sort of, not a drop of stray water and heaters/pumps/PHs working fine) and the water in the overflow fluctuates a bit (couple of inches), periodically sending a cascade of air down the drain into the sump. The water level in the overflow is about two inches below tank level and the top of the drain-pipe cap is currently about even with the inner lip of the overflow . . .
I fiddled with the height of the drain-pipe and while it sometimes made it worse, sometimes a little better, it didn't alleviate the surging. I even added/subtracted water from the tank, but that only affected the level in the sump.
I did a search and one suggestion to a similar issue was that the return pump was marginally outflowing the drain. I have a Mag7 with about a 4ft vertical, probably 5.5 ft total run so I figure I'm about 400+gph at the head. As most of you know, the overflow is rated at 600gph under ideal conditions, but I'm using the provided flex hose which mandates a loop before entering the sump. Is the ribbed hose and loop cutting down the flow so that it's less than the return pump?
First I had the hose like this . . .
Then moved it around to like this, hoping maybe the smaller loop would help with the surging, but it didn't seem to make much difference . . .
Because there's not much vertical seperation between the drain bulkhead and sump intake pipe, I'm not sure if I could fit a couple of 45-degree fittings with PVC/vinyl hose between them. If not, would a couple of 90-degree fittings with either PVC or vinyl hose be better, and possibly increase drain flow to address the surging. I also have a ball-valve I could put between the return pump and return bulkhead to cut down the pump flow.
Running a freshwater system/leak test (So far so good, sort of, not a drop of stray water and heaters/pumps/PHs working fine) and the water in the overflow fluctuates a bit (couple of inches), periodically sending a cascade of air down the drain into the sump. The water level in the overflow is about two inches below tank level and the top of the drain-pipe cap is currently about even with the inner lip of the overflow . . .
I fiddled with the height of the drain-pipe and while it sometimes made it worse, sometimes a little better, it didn't alleviate the surging. I even added/subtracted water from the tank, but that only affected the level in the sump.
I did a search and one suggestion to a similar issue was that the return pump was marginally outflowing the drain. I have a Mag7 with about a 4ft vertical, probably 5.5 ft total run so I figure I'm about 400+gph at the head. As most of you know, the overflow is rated at 600gph under ideal conditions, but I'm using the provided flex hose which mandates a loop before entering the sump. Is the ribbed hose and loop cutting down the flow so that it's less than the return pump?
First I had the hose like this . . .
Then moved it around to like this, hoping maybe the smaller loop would help with the surging, but it didn't seem to make much difference . . .
Because there's not much vertical seperation between the drain bulkhead and sump intake pipe, I'm not sure if I could fit a couple of 45-degree fittings with PVC/vinyl hose between them. If not, would a couple of 90-degree fittings with either PVC or vinyl hose be better, and possibly increase drain flow to address the surging. I also have a ball-valve I could put between the return pump and return bulkhead to cut down the pump flow.
