Hard Piping or Flexible Hose ?

Although many Hobbyists prefer hard pvc pipe for all the hook-ups and connections, flexible hose is just as good and reliable. Additionally, if you source the flexible hose from a discount supplier, you will save quite a bit of money.

You will still need ball valves and check valves, of course, but you can mail order those from companies such as U.S. Plastics in Lima, Ohio, or other ones that advertise in the aquarium magazines. Alternatively, get them from a local plumbing supply house, or from swimming pool places. Shop around! Prices can vary tremendously, as some of you may have found out.

Hard piping requires that you familiarize yourself with how to glue PVC pipe together, and also which fittings will do the job you are trying to accomplish. Check the Marine Fish and Invert Reef Aquarium book, the chapter on Fittings, if you are not familiar with them.

Flexible hose installations are usually simpler to perform, quicker to finish, but do not look as "tidy". Remember to always use hose clamps wherever you join flexible hose to an instrument, a device, or to pvc pipe and plastic fittings. This is most important to prevent leaks, and ensure that the hose will not slip off as a result of the internal pressure building up inside the system. If that happens to you, you will have a lot of water on the floor!

Fittings other than on the filter:

You will need at least one ball valve and at least one check valve per water line running back to the aquarium, to ensure that your system is totally safe.

The ball valve will allow you to adjust the water flow going back to the tank from the filter, preventing too great a flow, and the check valve will prevent back syphoning through the line running up to the tank, should the pump break down, or should a power failure occur. More details can be found in my other two books as well.

Shop around for these and other valves you may be using, as mark-ups vary widely from dealer to dealer, even from plumbing supply place to plumbing supply place.

Place the ball valve about 1 foot away from the output of the pump (see diagram). Place the check valve either inside the trickle filter, or between the filter and the system's main pump.

If you place the check valve inside the sump, right on the pump intake, you will be able to prime the pump (getting the air out) much faster and in an easier manner. When you do so, you should cover the intake side of the check valve with a special screen, which converts the check valve to a so-called foot valve.

Depending on how elaborate your system is, or becomes, you may find it necessary to install more than one ball valve and more than one check valve. Refer to The Marine Fish and Invert Reef Aquarium, and also to Advanced Reef Keeping, for more details on how to set such systems up.

Some type of installations need 2 lines of water flow, e.g. one to the aquarium and one to the protein skimmer. This is done by means of a Tee-fitting, either barbed, or straight PVC. You may then need a second ball valve to adjust the amount of water going to the skimmer.

A typical installation, e.g. using the Thiel Aqua Tech filter, looks like this :

Only one ball valve is shown in the return line to the tank. That usually suffices, but as an extra safety, especially to make servicing of the pump itself easier, you may want to include an inexpensive ball valve (usually called throw away types) between the pump and the sump of the trickle filter. This will allow you to take the pump out of service without having to lower the water level in the sump.

Although they will cost more money, "true union valves" are a much better choice than regular slip/slip valves. They are also easier to maintain, can be opened, and allow for easy and quick disconnection of pipes, should the need arise.

Adding Canister filters

Earlier I referred to installing extra compartments inside the sump of the filter. Not everyone wants to go to the trouble of doing so, or may not need to, because they have one or more canister filters standing around from previous filtration systems.

Canister filters obviously make great container/pump combinations for compounds through which the water needs to flow. I use them myself, and prefer the Eheim models 2217 and 2017 because of the large size of the canister itself. But there are, of course, other models available, for example Marineland's Magnum, and various Fluval types, including their large 403 model.

Since we are trying to set up a Reef Tank that will be correctly equipped on a smaller budget, you may want to shop around for canister filters. Try the bargain newspaper ad in your area. Or check if your Pet Store can sell you used ones.

Remember to change whatever compound you are using regularly. If, for instance, it is supposed to remove nitrates, as X-nitrate does, make sure that you test for nitrates from time to time, to double check whether your nitrates are still going down, or at least remain stable. If they do not, you obviously need to replace the compound. Using quick disconnect valves will make this a much simpler process.

Flow rates through Filters and the Tank:

First of all, you must differentiate between water flow through the system and water current in the tank. The former is pretty obvious: how much water is flowing through the filter, e.g. per hour. The latter represents the amount, and strength, of flow in the tank itself.

They are not necessarily the same. In fact they shouldn't be. It is often recommended that you cycle the water content of your system anywhere from 2 to 6 times per hour through the filter. I find that latter figure much too high.

My recommendation in The Marine Fish and Invert Reef Aquarium was, and still is, that the water content of the tank be flowed through the biological filter 3 times per hour. More, and you risk bacterial wash-off, less, and you may not get enough biological filtration.

If you want more current in the tank itself, e.g. to simulate the wave action and movement around the Reef, use one or several power heads. One power head on the short side of the tank will usually do, but you can get more sophisticated, and use several that alternate, using an Ocean Motion machine, or similar. This was described in much more detail in Advanced Reef Keeping Made Simple.

The key to get the right flow rate, is to select your pump carefully. Ratings for pumps are given, most of the time anyway, at 0 feet of head, meaning when no back pressure whatsoever exists.This can mislead you, inasmuch as you will be putting back pressure on the pump, and quite a bit of it, once you operate the tank . Here are just a few reasons for "head" (also called back pressure):

Height difference between the level of the pump itself (where it is positioned), and the water return level (how high up the water is being returned, meaning to the tank.

The type of pipe or hose used. Is it of the same size as the output size of the pump, or are you downsizing

Are you downsizing the pipe or flexible hose elsewhere,

is the intake pipe or hose the same as the pump fitting,

are you using many fittings, especially 90o ells and 45o ells (angled fittings), as they reduce the flowrate greatly ,

are you returning the water to the tank from the bottom, or from the top of the tank,

is the pump pushing water through canisters, or other filters, that restrict the flow, especially once they start plugging up,

are you using a micron, or submicron, filter in-line ?

Any and all of those, but usually a combination of them, added to frictional head, reduce the output of the pump, and result in the true output being quite somewhat lower than the stated output at zero feet of head. Frictional head is the head produced by the pipe or hose itself.

You should therefore think carefully before buying a pump. More so even when you plan to use the pump to run additional devices that require a good flowrate as well, and put additional back pressure (head) on the motor.

Talk to people in the Hobby that you respect, and whose opinion you value and trust, e.g. a Pet Store owner or employee, someone at an Aquarium Society, a manufacturer, etc. Explain exactly what you are planning to do, then decide on which pump to buy.

Presently a lot of people use the Iwaki brand of pumps. I was responsible for introducing those pumps to the Hobby in 1987 on behalf of another company, and they had very good success with them. I have used many models myself, but have continued to look for a more aquarium specific pump, not one developed for the photographic chemical processing and similar industries.

This has led my company to putting together our own pumps, The Tech - Z series, labeled Za, Zb, Zc, Zd and Zz, putting out respectively 300, 600, 900, 1200 and 2400 gallons per hour. All these pumps have totally encapsulated impellers (polypropylene), use a special form of cooling and run very "cool" as a result, and incorporate only Viton seals. All these pumps carry a full one year warranty to boot.

Other brands you may wish to consider, US made ones, include Little Giant, March, Teel, and if you need a strong pump, Hayward. The latter only if you are using 1.5 or 2 inch pipe, and running a real large system. This is not something you would be doing on a small reef tank.

For medium type flow rates I strongly recommend the "Aqua Pump", a 3-speed model that is excellent for running the kind of tank that we are looking at in this book. It is super quiet, can be adjusted for output, and is made of a combination of 316SS and a plastic volute, totally salt water safe. This is definitely one of the pumps to consider for smaller systems.

It is also an excellent pump to run columnar skimmers with. I have used the Aqua Pump with 30", 46" and 84" skimmers, running the pump at respectively, 2nd, 2nd, and 3rd speed. In all cases it performed exactly the way I wanted it to and, combined with 2 airstones in the skimmers and a good air pump, it never let me down.

You must keep one important fact in mind when selecting a pump : the life of the animals and invertebrates that you want to keep, and for which you paid good money, depends on the pump that you ultimately select, running 24 hours a day, for many many years, hour after hour, day after day, month after month. Do not overlook this, invest in a good pump. Don't take any chances.

Pumps need to be cleaned from time to time, especially if its intake in the sump is not outfitted with a fine filter. Schedule it as part of your maintenance routine. Once every 3 months is probably a good time frame. Additionally, open and clean the pump and impeller, any time you know for a fact that a large piece of dirt got into it.

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