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RE: Wet-dry standpipe size
>From: Todd Smith <toddsmith at earthlink_net>
>I just filled my soon to be planted 75 gallon aquarium and the
>3\4 inch standpipe is making a horrible sucking sound. My pump puts out
>350 gph at 4 foot head. is the pipe too small or large?
>What size should I use? TIA.
Since I took the day off, I have time to answer this :-)
In my never ending search to quite prefilter standpipes, I have
found the diameter can seldom be optimized for the flow.
So... I took another approach.
By using a center breather pipe, you can regulate the "cone"
the water forms as it goes down the pipe. By ensuring that the
water flows smoothly, the noise goes away. The trick is in
controlling the waters flow.
Basically, the water crosses the overflow into the prefilter
area and runs through a "blue" filter floss,
prefilter sponge (Aquaclear 300 sponge fits most prefilters,
and eggcrate (eggcrate just adds support). In this way, the
filter floss rests above the water level in the prefilter
and the water is buffered by the sponge. The breather pipe
allows you to regulate the air being displaced as the water
goes down the pipe.
You will find that a setup like this results in steady water
height and virtually no noise. You can also rotate the fine
filter when the "dirt" reaches the breather pipe in order to
effectively remove it from the system since the water goes down
at the first clear area. (You are keeping the prefilter nitrate
farm clean, aren't you :-)
The breather
(beware: crude ASCII drawing)
|
|
| | |
| | |
overflow | | |
| | | |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| <- filter floss
|-------------------| |-------------------|
| | | |
| | | | <- prefilter sponge
|-------------------| |-------------------|
|###################| |###################| <- eggcrate
| | | | | |
| | | | | <- standpipe |
| | | |
|---------------| |---------------|
| |
Hope this info helps... Don't worry, the breather
works with a pretty broad range, just push it past
the sponge slowly until the noise goes away. The
sponge should have enough tension to hold it in place.
Jon Wilson
jwilson at mnw_net