Is there a water flow rate calculation? Plumbing ?

[100Grand]

Or maybe one of you pros can take a guess. I have a 100-gallon tank with three 1" bulkheads through the back near the top. these three feed three 1" tubes that meet at a 1" insert cross into a single 1" tube into a wet dry (10 gallon tank).

My question is, how much of a return rate can that handle? I had a problem with an earlier design where I only had one hole in the back for the "out" tube, it didn't flow fast enough, my 10 gallon tank was depleted of its water, and the pump went dry and lost its prime.

The return pump is actually a fluval 404 plumbed into the lower back of the tank. Even with the head pressure it turns over a nice rate. I have no idea what though.

Another question. My first design used a 90 elbow connection for the "out" tubing. Would a tee connection work better? I figured it would because little to no air would get caught in the tubing. It would release out the unused part of the tee pointing ^up^.

[BOB_Gorden]

100Grand, here is what I would do. You can give it some thought. There is a design called the durso standpipe used in Marine tanks that should work for FW applications as well. I use this design, but I added ball valves on my two standpipes it works real well for me and I have excellent rate and controll. Here is the web sight. Hope it helps <a href="http://www.rl180reef.com/pages/standpipe/standpipe_frame.htm" target="_blank">http://www.rl180reef.com/pages/standpipe/standpipe_frame.htm</a>

[100Grand]

Thanks for that post. It has been a while. I actualy found the durso page before I thought of my own design. I did go ahead and use the T instead of the 90 el. Very noisy though. So I stuffed peper towels in the unused pert of the T. That cut down on the gurgle sound a lot. The stand pipe would have been good but I didn't want the pipe sticking out and I do not have any overflow boxes. Didn't want the hang on kind either. My overflows are the bulkheads through the back.

My next project will be cleaner. I am going to switch back to 90 els instead of the Ts and put a valve where the three lines meet. This will be more durso like.

[Alf]

100Grand, Glad to see you on the boards. we'er sorry for the slow response. Bob, Eric and I have just came around and are trying to get to all the old post. hope to see you around more often.

[fishfool]

hi

we here (http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f217/head-loss-calculator-112890.html) were discussing whether or not the calculator found here (http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php) is accurate or not, but it sounds like this is what you're looking for...

[fishfool]

gosh, this thread was old...
umm
don't be annoyed
hee
least the information is there now for any yo-yo who comes a-Googling :D