Water Change Design ?

[hatty324]

Me and my buddy were thinking of some designs for the water flow with my 75G tank. My buddy suggested that on the water return, before it hits the sump I should have it T off into a focet, so that I can just put a 5gal bucket under it, turn on the focet and drain 5gal at a time, making it very easy to do water changes on the tank.

When I was talking with the guy at the LFS, he told me not to do that. He said I should just use this special tool that you push all the way down into the sand in the tank and it evenly grabs water from all levels of the tank, making sure to transfer water from all parts of the tank.

Which way should I go? The T design with a focet for draining underneath the tank, or using the special pump tool to pull water directly from the tank, but evenly from the tank?

[Jeff_edge540]

You should really have enough water movement already in your tank that it wouldn't matter how you drain it.

[hatty324]

For water movement I'm having 2 lines come off the pump. One will come in on the upper left side of the tank, the other on the upper right.

[noob101]

Are you still going to get the spliter for both those lines so essentially you will have 4 directions on your return? The "Special tool" Mike was talking about is kind of like a siphon hose that you can clean your sand with, essentially lol

[110galreef]

The drain would be nice...may just want to put it there in case you ever need it! Make sure you have a union so you can swap it out if it goes bad.

But most vaccum the sand while doing WC to remove the water anyway!

Up to you!

[hatty324]

I'm not sure yet....I think what I'll do is what to see how the water flow is with what I'm planning, if I need more I can always add on those splitters ur talkin bout Andrew.

Maybe I could use both systems?