Before I start my house is elevated nothing but dirt below and the new tank will stay where it is

I dreaded the thought or siphoning enough water out of a 175 gal tank each week so came up with this idea



drill a hole in the floor to take the outlet pipe (after thought up sweep the inlet to stop draining the system)the ball valve being either inside or outside your choice mine will be under the house with a SS lockable ball valve

Pipe work will be fitted to suit the tank and tucked away in the corner with some long sweeping artificial plants glued to it

Once primed come weekly W/C simply open valve, drain to the level you want close valve and refill
walla

what do you think open to both + and -

refill will be done via hose on a mixer tap and again ball valve on end of hose so you have control of your supply water @ the business end adding conditioner as you go

cheers Gazza

Gazza....My only thought is great idea but on thing would concern me is if the ball valve did start to leak and they do sometimes (I work with them all Day) you wold lose the water to the bottom of pipe in tank. Careful how deep you take that pipe.

I too work with SS ball valves every day but saying that you are correct and the lowest point of intake should not be lower than the lowest point you do for a W/C

so if a leak occurs it will only drain to that point simple to change then

Cheers Gaz

@ work we use very good valves which have a lot of pressure up their arse and very rarely leak

your idea is sound but you will have to figure a why to keep the syphon in your drainage line.
if you were to empty to the lowest point then how would you restart your syphon again...

of course you could always drill the drain into the tank at the lowest point you want for a water change. this would allow for a quick and easy draining system for your tank. i believe that monsterfishrescue did something similar to this when he plumbed his 1500 gallon tank......

interesting concept.

The system is never fully drained

see Diagram



Then the system stays primed for next time simply open the ball valve and the escaping water will suck new water up the inlet to crate a new siphon effect (The real term is allow atmospheric pressure to force water up your inlet to fill the void created by the escaping water )


Once the ball valve is closed water can not flow even with out a check valve the water level cannot rise above the highest point of your tank and any excess should drain back into your tank leaving the inlet empty to the level of your tank water

If concerned about flow back fit a non return Valve .

An interesting fact about fitting non return valves to your air lines

That is the biggest load of crap

Your pushing air in thus making bubbles turn the air off bubbles stop water enters the line up to the level of the water in you tank ( unless your tank is pressurized above atmospheric pressure )

hope this helps answer your fears

cheers Gaz

no blue line other side of ball valve my bad

u could use a powered solenoid valve operated by upstairs so you wouldnt have to go under house to open the valve every time.........

im an electrician, lol

Gazza wrote:


This is wrong. I only just recently had an air pump fill with water when the power was turned off. The water stopped my air pump working, i didnt notice and ended up losing fish due to lack of oxygen

Fit non return valves on air lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what sort of pump was it ? A standard diaphram pump works like a non return valve or it wouldn,t work !!!

when you siphon your tank do you put the hose in and away it goes

Gaz