Originally posted by Rudy
Well I reposted on the Gen Marine portion of the forum and although the thread had 45 viewings it received no new opinions/posts. I surmise either nobody knows or noone cares. Such is life.
Nevertheless, here is an additional question(s). How, if at all, do I regulate the flow of water out the back tank holes heading down to W/D, sump, etc? Is it based soley on the water level in the tank?
I am admittedly confused on this part of the enitre project. I can visualize the entire mechanical set-up but the physics of the water flow concerns me. Of course it is very important to get right.
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Cheers, Rudy
Are the drains from the tank to the W/D going to be on the back of the tank or on the bottom of the tank? It doesn't really matter I'm just curious. It's better to have them on the bottom because that builds up more pressure and will get you higher flow rates.
But, how to regulate the flow.
You don't really
If for example the holes are on the bottom of the tank, you would have an overflow box in the corner, which is just an Acrylic square from the bottom of the tank to the top, and it has teeth or slots cut out at the top. The water over flows into the compartment which has the holes. YOu would then have a PVC stand pipe go from the hole to almost the top of the over flow box. If the power goes out the water will drain down that pipe to the W/D utnil the water level goes lower than the stand pipe. That doesn't really regulate the flow, it regulates the water level in the tank.
So really the only way to regulate the amount of gallons per hour that go down the hole is the size of the hole. For example a 1" hole flows about 600 gallons per hour. So if you want more, make 2 drains, or bigger holes, and so on.
You don't want to put a valve on the drain because that makes it more likely to get clogged, and if it gets clogged your screwed... water all over the floor!!!
So what you do is figure about how much flow will drain based on the size of the holes and get a pump that will match it or be stronger and restrict the pump with a valve if it's too strong.
However... A sponge prefilter on the overflow pipe will slow it down a bit, and it will get slower and slower as it gets more and more clogged.
Don't worry about how fast it's draining to the Wet Dry. Just make sure your pump is strong enough to handle the return. And make sure that the water level in the sump is low enough to accomadate the pump turning off and the water from the tank draining down to the overflow level and filling the sump/wet dry. It probably sounds more complicated than it is. Really it's not.
Hope that was some help.
Guy