Closed Loop Plumbing questions

[Shouse94]

So I plumbed and water tested my closed loop this weekend. My closed loop
consists of 2 drains on the bottom of my tank that go downwards, and than back upwards again before entering the pump, Than the outake continues upwards up the back of the tank and back into the tank (see Picture). I am using a Blueline 30-x which flows into a OM Super squirt. I was quite disappointed by the flow from Blueline, I was wondering if the intake was have any negative effects on the max flow. Is it alright to have the intake travel upwards vertically to reach the pump in a closed loop? ALso is it normal for a Blueline HD 30x to be louder than a MAg 7?? In the picture, the Red piping is the area i'm concerned about. Thanks in advance.

[Shouse94]

bump again, I thought this was an easy question

[Geoff]

that is not a very powerfull pump. it is only able to push up to 13' of head pressure. granted since this is a CLS (assuming you do not have any holes in the plumbing where the outlet goes above the water line) the vertical distance is not calculated in total head pressure for the pump. the total length of piping still counts along with all of the elbows and valves. you can quickly get up to 5' of head pressure with elbows and tubing length.

what size is your plumbing. it all should be at least the same diameter as your inlets and outlets. it is better if it is bigger.

as far as noise is concerned, do not know. if noise was a factor in choising a pump than i only suggest the Blueline Velocity series. anything else is noisy compared to these pumps. i would suggest a Velocity T3 for your application.

G~

[Dagrape]

How is the intake plumbed, is there an elbow right at the intake, or is it straight piped in? It is a bad idea to have an elbow right at the intake of a pump because flow through elbows is not uniform. This often will cause unequal preasures at the impellor causing high noise levels.

[Shouse94]

Thanks for the help Dagrape and Geoff. It could just be me but i was expecting more flow out of the HD 30x. I stuck my hand in the tank and felt the water output coming off both the squirt from the HD-30x and the single output from the Mag 7. Even with the pipe that's fully opened from the squirt it still doesnt feel more than half the flow the Mag7 output is pumping.

I have an acrylic 55g tank so I drilled two holes in the bottom of the aquarium. After the 1" bulkhead there are immediate 90's attached to both of the standpipes. They than both go horizontally towards the back of the tank and connect with a T. The piping is not symetrical either. Both the 1" pipes are T'ed off to a single 1" pipe. The single pipe than goes vertically upwards for about a foot before connecting to the Blueline pump mounted behind the tank on the stand.
There are no holes in the system, it's a fully closed loop setup. The pump has 1" intank and outake.
One thought I had was instead of the making the pipe 1" after the T, make it 1.25 or 1.5 and reduce right before the pump. ANy thoughts. It may be unclear still on how i plumbed my CL, I'll try and post diagram. thanks again for the help. My fish are sitting in a tank with no flow and no protein skimmer, hope to get this issue solved ASAP

[Geoff]

if you can use 1.25" pipe for all of the inlet side that would help a lot.

can you lock the OM so that only one outlet is firing? how strong does that feel?

G~

[Shouse94]

I think I'm going to try and expand the pipe after the T to 1.25
to further prevent any risks of starving the pump.
Also I'm going detach the union before the squirt and try and measure how much water the Blueline is pushing so i can get a general idea on GPH.

I took some pictures, figured I'd post them anyways just in case someone else notices some mistakes

As you can see my RIGHT INTAKE coming off the tank has to go around the skimmer so it ends up taking a longer path to get to the T than the LEFT INTAKE. I believe this should be alright thought correct?

Everything else looks good thought? thanks for the help again

[Geoff]

how do you feel about drilling more holes in your tank? i think you a good idea going, but i think it is backwards. i would not put the inlets there, they tend to get clogged and that can be a pain once the LR is over it. i do think it is a great place for an outlet though. that way you have flow under the LR and will keep things much cleaner. if this is going to be a BB tank than even better. put a 4 way outlet on it with elbows facing down so that the detritus is blown towards the outside of the LR structure.

of course this meand adding another inlet for the pump. i would put them towards the outside of the tank near the top so that they can be easily cleaned. make them a good 5-6" below the water level.

you can still use the OM. just reroute the plumbing. you will prolly want to go with a bigger pump though.

G~