re routing??

[hermit enthusiast]

This may sound confusing because i don't even know how i'm going to do it but here it goes. I want to use the pump that came with my eclipse 3 hood to pump water to a sump and then use a mag drive pump to put it back into the aquarium. I don't know exactly how i'm going to get the water from the eclipse pump into a tube to get it to the sump. It has a weird head and was in need of some advise. Thanks in advance for any info you guys' give me. That is if you can understand what i'm trying to do

 

[tangman99]

Hermit,
If I understand your question right, you are facing a difficult task. What you are effectively doing in pumping water each way between two resevoirs, the tank and a sump. The problem is that you would have to pump each at the same identical rate which is almost impossible. If you are pumping at different rates, then you have one filling faster than the other and depending on which means you have the sump or tank spill over. The first thing that comes to mind is to use two identical pumps, but this won't even come close as one is pumping down and the other is pumping up so the gallons per minute will be much different.
That is why the overflow method uses a single pump to return water from the sump to the tank. The total equilibrium is maintiained by how fast the overflow can gravity feed water to the sump. As long as the pump does not return water to the tank faster than the ability for the tank to overflow and gravity feed back to the pump, all is well as the overflow will match the flowrate of the pump.
You could try to use some type of inline valve to get the flow rate to match, but the equilibrium points would change with evaporation and you would flood unless you constantly adjusted your valve.
Tangman

 

[hermit enthusiast]

From what i've read it sounds like this isn't going to work. I was hoping to do this so i could put my heater, skimmer in the sump. I'm going to have to think about this one.

 

[johnnysalt]

Originally posted by TangMan99:
<STRONG>Hermit,
the overflow method uses a single pump to return water from the sump to the tank. The total equilibrium is maintiained by how fast the overflow can gravity feed water to the sump. As long as the pump does not return water to the tank faster than the ability for the tank to overflow and gravity feed back to the pump, all is well as the overflow will match the flowrate of the pump.
Tangman </STRONG>
Hermit, this is not difficult at all...it is fact and will work. There are TONS of ppl here that have this overflow setup with heaters, skimmers and who knows what else in their sump below.
Use an overflow box that has a HIGHER allowable flow rate than your return pump (at whatever head you will have) can return back to the tank. No, it didn't make sense to me at first either, I kept wanting the rates to match....but they NEVER EVER will! Email me for pics and more advice if you want!