Underwater sprayer bar.

patoloco

patoloco

De seguro no sabes lo que dice aqu
Oct 20, 2005
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wetpatoloco.tripod.com
Well, here I am again with my DIY projects.

Last weekend my tank sprung a leak. It's currently half filled for a leak test. now that it's empty, I'm reconsidering my set up, including my filter.

My return line ends up in sprayer bar that does the usual stuff. However, I was considering to build an "underwater sprayer bar" This would be a PVC pipe runnig thru the whole lenght of the tank in the bottom against the rear wall, with holes in it. What I want is to do is create an underwater current that will "lift" debris instead of sending them down to the substrate, so it will be easily trapped by the overflow pipe.

The filter is a wet dry, so gas exchange won't be compromised by the abscense of the water surface agitation normaly provided by the sprayer bar.

There will be a check valve in the return line to avoid any backsiphoning in case of a power failuire.

Anything else I have to consider? Would it cause trouble?

Thanks in advance.
 
never tried such a thing nor am I any sort of engineer but you'll probably be limited by pressure on the filter depending on depth of tank and length of bar. It would probably still be a good thing to have as far as circulation although most of my spraybars will get clogged from time to time so you'd have to be able to remove it to clean it and I doubt you'll get the "lift" you're wanting without a pretty high psi pump. Kyle
 
Will calculate the backpressure first. Thanks a lot.
 
You can also easily prevent it from creating a siphon by drilling a medium sized hole just above the normal water line--the water within the tubing will drain down, but very little will be pulled from the main tank. SW systems that run with sumps are setup this way all the time.
 
I much prefer the safety hole idea to a check valve. The most important thing to know about check valves IME is that they can and do fail. The hole will not if you brush it regularly. I do prefer my safety holes just below the water line in the diplay - no splash.

Spraybars can be customed many ways to make the best flow for the particular setup. I also am quite fond of the spraybar across the back bottom of the tank in some setups. If you set it as a Tee, with center feed rather than from either end, flow is more even. If not, you can also graduate the hole size and number along the length - playing with such is a great way to burn up time when you should be doing water changes... I have quite a collection of pipes with holes...
 
while your at it if you like the air bubble add a hole that you can run an airline tube into and feed air into the water. you won't even need an air pump as in the vacume of the water will pull in the air.
 
UPDATE: Now the sprayer bar is set, and I did as RTR said ans made the hole distirbution so water is flowing evenly on all the holes. Thanks a lo RTR, never thought of that.

About the backsiphoning issue, I will stick to the check valve, but will also do the safety hole. My filter is outside the house and at a lower level than the tank, so I will install a ball valve in the return line that will work as a drain when I need to do a water change. Tunf of the pump, open the ball and voila, water change has begun. I will drill the safety hole exactly at the 50% water level, so it will stop automatically when enough water has been drained.

Thanks a lot for your support.
 
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