Sump maintenace / water changes

[bluce]

So recently I built a custom sump with 5 baffles - it is working great.

My problem is easy / fast / clean water changes. Sometimes I pull water from the main tank with a siphon, but sometimes I like pulling water from the sump - it should be faster, and it's good to get any debris that builds up.

My baffles are pretty close together, so the best way to get water out, is with a hose. I though a pump would work - i tried with a maxjet 1200 and a rio2500 - problem is these pumps need to be primed, and there isn't a siphon since the sump is the same level as the waste water bucket.

 

 

Any good suggestions where i could use vinyl hosing to drain different sections of the sump for cleanup and water changes?

 

Thanks!

[Guest thefishman65]

1) Put a little water (3 inches) in the waste bucket to start. It will eventually get the air out of the line. Or maybe a little less and tip the bucket until it is primed.

 

2) Put a little water in the bucket. Pump water into the sump to fill the hose. Keeping both ends under water turn the pump around.

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Buy one of thoes hoses you hook to your sink.

[bluce]

The Sink thing may work, but I sorta wanted to use a pump that I could quick turn on and off to make these changes a snap!

[bluce]

1) Put a little water (3 inches) in the waste bucket to start. It will eventually get the air out of the line. Or maybe a little less and tip the bucket until it is primed.

 

2) Put a little water in the bucket. Pump water into the sump to fill the hose. Keeping both ends under water turn the pump around.

 

 

The problem with this way is it lends itself to be messy - plus it is tricky to prime - you have to make sure none of the hoses come out of the water when you attempt to turn the pump around - not sure how you even do that?

hold both ends of the tubes and switch them?

[Hayden]

Buy one of thoes hoses you hook to your sink.

 

I have one of those and it doesn't work too well. I always had prime it to work first.... fill the hose with faucet water then flip the switch on the faucet adapter to start the suction. Also, the suction isn't very good. If the water level you are sucking out is more than ~10 inches below the bottom of the faucet adapter the suction comes to a slow stop. But this is from my experience with it.

 

 

For my water changes, I keep a small maxi-jet 400 in the bottom of the sump hooked to a power strip all by itself. The vinyl tube is hooked to 2x90deg barbed fittings to form a small u-hook that I hook to the rim of a 5gal bucket on my table/work bench next to the tank. I just hit the on/off on the power strip and wait a few minutes for the maxi-jet to pump out the water into the bucket. I also have a similar setup to fill the tank... a second 5gal bucket that I mix SW in is on the table next to the 'drain out' bucket i just filled up with tank water. Another small maxi-jet 400 is in that bucket with 2-3ft vinyl tube I keep wrapped inside the bucket running to mix the SW. I just shut off that pump, grab the vinyl tube out of the bucket, point the tube to the overflow area in my tank and turn on to start filling the tank again.

 

I hope to automate much of this with multiple float switches and a program on my controller whenever I get the time.

 

Hope this helps.

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Wow thats wierd, mine works great, I clean the fish gunk out of my sump with it no problem and its on the floor. It depends on how much water pressure the city is giving you though. Good thing about them is you don't have to carry a bucket of water around. Trust me that made my life EASY.

[Guest thefishman65]

1) Put a little water (3 inches) in the waste bucket to start. It will eventually get the air out of the line. Or maybe a little less and tip the bucket until it is primed.

 

2) Put a little water in the bucket. Pump water into the sump to fill the hose. Keeping both ends under water turn the pump around.

 

The first way is easier. I would not think it would be messy since you can use tap water to start. The pump will cavitate (?) for a while as it get the air out.

 

The second is trickier. Put dirty water in the bucket. Pump it into the sump (pump in bucket). No turn the pump around so it sucks water out of the sump (pump still in bucket).

[Hayden]

Yeah it's the water pressure where I am, I constantly have issues with it. The faucet attachments never work well for me because of it, I've tried 3 different brands with no luck. I've given up on them. I just hook up a maxi-jet to the 25' hose that came with it to pump out the buckets.

[bluce]

Thanks for the ideas - If anyone else has any thoughts let me know.

I'm not really trying to automate the water change, but I do want to make it as easy and quick as possible - without any mess as my tank is in my living room.

 

Thanks again!

[FearTheTerps]

Have you thought about teeing off a line from your return pump? All it would take is a pvc T, a ball valve, a hose barb fitting and a few feet of flexable tubing. Keep the tubing connected and just coil it up under the stand when not in use. To do the water change all you would have to do is uncoil the tubing and place into a buccket, then turn the valve to start pumping the water.

 

Obviously you would need to make some changes to your plumbing, but its pretty simple.

[bluce]

Steve - good idea, but one problem with my setup. The return pump is in the middle of the sump and as I said there are 5 baffles - 2 of which are on each side of the return. This would only allow me to empty the small section of the sump where the return is.

 

This is why I need something with a hose so I can use it to empty any part of the sump I want too, and suck up some of the waste that settled to the bottom of the sump.

[Guest thefishman65]

One more though. Get something like a maxijet and put a hose one both ends. Leave the pump in the sump. When you move the hose from compartment to compartment turn off the pump. There should be enough water in the pump to get what little bit of air gets in the hose as you move from baffle to baffle. Maybe you could place a finger over it as it moves.

 

It would always be in the sump so

1) Place release hose in bucket

2) Place suction hose in area to clean

3) turn on pump and clean and turn off pump

4) move to next area

repeat 3-4 as needed.

[Aaron]

Maybe you could use a pump that doesn't need to be primed?

I don't know, maybe that doesn't work/make sense for your situation, but on mine I use a Mag 5, and I have two 40 gallon Rubbermaid containers - one for waste water, and one with a submersible pump and heater for new saltwater.

I use the Mag 5 to pump out what I need to into the waste container, then I reverse the process and put the pump in the new saltwater and pump it in (the fill line is marked on my sump with a sharpie so I know when to stop. I have no problems pumping "up".

Doing it this way has been awesome for me since I used to make saltwater and do the whole process using individual 5 gallon containers, what a pain in the butt.

Now I make about 35 gallons of RODI at a time, and refill two 5 gallon topoff containers, and then mix the remaining 25 gallons of saltwater. I keep a pump and heater in the saltwater, cover the container, that way I always have enough water on hand regardless of the situation.

Has made my weekend maintenance much, much less time consuming.

[Rosco's Reefs]

I am still completely new to all of this but just wanted to take a second and thank you all! I have only had my tank running for about two weeks but have already spilled way too much water. It is threads like this that make it seem possible. Thx again.

[Guest thefishman65]

Thread like this make it real easy to spill water.

[bluce]

"I use the Mag 5 to pump out what I need .."

 

So your saying a Mag 5 doesn't need to be primed? I didn't know this. I think this would do the trick if it works, but on the decription of the mag 5 on Fosters it says "You need to siphon water into the pump before turning it on." Which to me indicates it does need to be primed. Please respond back if this is wrong and it really will work without any priming - don't forget I won't have any siphon affect at all, as my sump is floor level with the bucket.

 

 

 

"One more though. Get something like a maxijet and put a hose one both ends. Leave the pump in the sump. When you move the hose from compartment to compartment turn off the pump. There should be enough water in the pump to get what little bit of air gets in the hose as you move from baffle to baffle. Maybe you could place a finger over it as it moves."

 

Fishman - I will probable take your last solution if the Mag 5 needs to be primed - not a bad idea leaving it in the sump like that.

[rioreef]

As far a cleaning the sump. I just did mine for the first time in 6 years. I talked to Sean at Fins & Feathers and he suggested Bucket Head for siphoning the junk out of the bottom. What is bucket head? It is a wet/dry vacuum that snaps on top of one of those HD orange buckets. This this is awesome, sucked up the water in the chambers while I had the hose on the bottom getting all the junk. The unit has a large ball float inside that will cut off the motor as the bucket fills. However, as the water get about 3/4 up it start to be spit out the outlet port. No biggie on that though, I just stopped and emptied the bucket.

 

I have other wet/dry vacs, but this one will be dedicated to the tank and is small and the bucket is easy to empty and start again. Also, this thing is only $20! Cant beat that.

 

Thanks for the tip Sean! My sump is clean again.

[treesprite]

1. You could drill a hole in the sump in or near the bottom - my bottom hole is behind the overflow, so it does ne no good for water changes and I just have it capped/sealed.

 

2. If you have the sump feed split off with valves, you can just open the valve while the pump is still running and the water will go into the container or bucket until you turn off the pump. Then you just put new water in the sump.

[BowieReefer84]

So recently I built a custom sump with 5 baffles - it is working great.

My problem is easy / fast / clean water changes. Sometimes I pull water from the main tank with a siphon, but sometimes I like pulling water from the sump - it should be faster, and it's good to get any debris that builds up.

My baffles are pretty close together, so the best way to get water out, is with a hose. I though a pump would work - i tried with a maxjet 1200 and a rio2500 - problem is these pumps need to be primed, and there isn't a siphon since the sump is the same level as the waste water bucket.

 

 

Any good suggestions where i could use vinyl hosing to drain different sections of the sump for cleanup and water changes?

 

Thanks!

 

Not really sure, but can this http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/specials/jbj-instant-siphon-in-an-all-in-one-gravel-cleaner.html help prime the pump you are trying to use?

[bluce]

"Not really sure, but can this http://www.bulkreefs...el-cleaner.html help prime the pump you are trying to use? "

 

Probably not, but thanks for the idea.

 

 

I'm going to try out just leaving the maxjet 1200 in the sump and hopefully even though I will be moving the hose around to get at the different sections, it won't get too much air, and remain primed.

If that doesn't work well enough I'm going to try the bucket head!

 

Thanks for the info on the bucket head Rio - for $20.00 you can't go wrong. In fact I'm probably going to get one anyways (whether I use it for sump cleaning of not, as I currently do not have any wet / dry vac).

It looks like a great value product - all the reviews I read were rated high.