Water change plumbing issues

[Ed R]

I've set up a fish room with so far 9 tanks, and I have a Rain Bird sprinkler system controller , a 9-valve manifold, and 9 rain bird sprinkler valves all hooked up and ready to go.

I use a Quiet One 6000 pump at the bottom of a plastic 55 gallon drum to feed the manifold, which is connected to the pump at around 3 feet of head, and the top valve i another 3 feet above this connection point. The pump is wired to a pumnp tart relay that's connected to the controller, andIknow it turns on and runs properly when a station turns on.

 

I know the valve opens when the system turns on the top vlve, as there is significant bubble-action in the tank when I turn the station on - and then, no water comes out.

This seems to happen on every single tank. Does anyone have experience with setting up a system like this?The only thing I can think of is that the pump just isn't strong enough to push the water, butthis can't be true because every single tank was filled using the same pump, pipes, and controller.

 

I THINK it may be that the Quiet One 6000 ( 1876 gph at 5 feet of head, about 800gph at 7 feet) is no longer pushing the water as well.

Anyone got any ideas? I really need this to work.

 

[lefty o]

if its just when you start it up, i would tend to think it is because the line goes empty at the end of the last use, so you now have a line full of air that gets pushed out into the tanks when the next flow starts.

[Ed R]

Sure, but then you'd expect water to come out after all the air has been expunged,  right? Doesn't happen.

[lefty o]

On 9/1/2024 at 9:31 PM, Ed R said:

Sure, but then you'd expect water to come out after all the air has been expunged,  right? Doesn't happen.

yes, it should purge all the air. 

[Ed R]

It does purge all the air, but after all the air's gone, the water doesn't come out. I can wait 5 minutes and there's no water coming out. It's as if the pump is pushing water up about 5 feet and then can't get it any higher, but I know better than that, this pump has worked for weeks, maybe months, and I checked its output just this afternoon to see if that was the issue, and it seems to be operating normally. I switched valves from Orbit to Rain Bird today , and I made sure the new valves were purged and bled and tested before I replaced them, and they all worked fine. 

 

 

[TAB]

The pump probably  does not have enough pressure  to open the valves.

 

They need about 20 psi to open

[Ed R]

so once the air is gone, pressure drops?

[TAB]

Yes, air can compress. Water cant.

[Ed R]

Sounds like vapor lock.

[Ed R]

This isn't vapor lock, unless it's happening across all 9 valves. I've ordered the big daddy pump, the Mag 3600, to see if that will address the issue, but I'm not very hopeful. Where can I go to talk to people with experience in using water sprinkler systems with pump-powered cisterns?  My Quiet One 6000 ought to be strong enough at 1876 gph, but I guess we'll see....

 

[Woowala]

If no one else knows, you might try finding someone doing something similar on youtube.  I have very limited experience but I suspect @TAB is right and that there just isn't enough pressure to make the valves work properly.  Impeller driven pumps are pretty bad for this application, at least that's my admittedly limited understanding.  You might try looking into a diaphragm pump, like a water transfer pump for an rv or an RO booster pump.

[Ed R]

I would likely need a float switch on that kind of pump to prevent it running when dry, right?

One possibility is to move the water supply from the bottom of the manifold to the top, and I could also raise the drum up about three feet off the ground, and that would reduce my total head to about 4 feet.

I also wonder if putting a pressure reducer AFTER the valve would do anything for me. I tried putting one before the valve but noticed no difference whatsoever.

 

[Woowala]

The pressure reducer after the valve might work.  Worth a try if you already have one/some but I'm kinda out of my depth here.

Raising the drum up would reduce the total head but I think it'll produce variable flows as the water level in the drum drops, or it might just stop working once the water level drops past a certain point.  If you had a float valve in the drum so that the water level stayed constant it would solve that problem, but I think it's probably not ideal.

I'm not sure if RO booster pumps have a pressure cutoff switch, but I know most diaphragm pumps for rvs do, so that when the tap is closed the pressure increases and the pump shuts off.  Many of them can run dry, same with RO booster pumps, but you'd have to check.  Or you can turn it off/on electronically with the controller.  The way I did my water change system is just by wiring a small water cooler diaphragm pump to a 12V power supply and plugging that into a smart plug and turning it off/on with my phone.

 

[Ed R]

Scoping out diaphragm pumps I don't see any that haven't had at least 10 percent failures. I imagine this pump would sit between the cistern and the manifold so that when a valve opened, the pump would detect it and switch on? I could just wire it to the pump relay start , too.

I'm about to try switching the source from bottom to top.We'll see what happens....

 

[Woowala]

Oof, 10% that's a lot.  Glad I didn't see that when I was looking for one haha. If the pump is powered then yes it'll detect the pressure drop when the valve opens and start pumping. Sorry I can't be more helpful, I learned just enough to set up my own thing. In the end it took me about a month of looking at various options and trying different stuff to get it to work. 

This might be helpful

 

Edited September 9 by Woowala

[Ed R]

I can set the delay time between pump start and valve opening,  to give the pump some time to get booted up.

@85 bucks for a big Mag 3600 vs 50 bucks for a 45psi 3gpm diaphragm pump. I dunno....

180 gph is fine for me, 3 gm means a 40 gallon tank fills in less than 15 minutes, and even if it only goes to 1.5gpm that's still less than 30 minutes. IF I can get it to work, that is...

 

One pressure reducer per valve would run me about $250. I'm not built for this;)

[tolstoy21]

I run a drip system on, I think, 15 or 20 PSI. Water flow is 2 GPM.  This is not hooked up to a pump, but is plumbed into my home's water system. The pressure of that is 40 - 60 PSI, but, like I said, I do have to reduce the flow and pressure so as to not  blow off my drip heads.

What kind/size of hose/pipe leads into the tanks to feed them water? Do you use drip emitters at all?

Edited September 9 by tolstoy21

[Woowala]

Yeah that's brutal. 

Can you bypass the manifold to see if it's the problem, and/or shut off 8 of 9 valves on the manifold to see if it's just that the pump can't handle that many valves?  I think the pump just can't handle the pressure, and when it's too much the water just flows back through the intake of the pump, but it'd be nice to know that before buying a different pump.

You could always just go to a big box store and get a diaphragm/transfer pump, try it out, and return it if that's not the problem.  Which is what I'd probably do, but it's a hassle.

[tolstoy21]

On 9/1/2024 at 8:29 PM, Ed R said:

Whe only thing I can think of is that the pump just isn't strong enough to push the water, butthis can't be true because every single tank was filled using the same pump, pipes, and controller.

What do you mean by the above? What were the conditions when you filled the tank, and how do they differ from the existing setup?

On 9/9/2024 at 5:41 PM, Woowala said:

I think the pump just can't handle the pressure, and when it's too much the water just flows back through the intake of the pump, but it'd be nice to know that before buying a different pump.

I was thinking the same. 

Edited September 9 by tolstoy21

[Ed R]

No drip emitters here, I use 3/4 inch pvc from the valve to the tank, and then for convenience I have a short length of 1/2 inch vinyl tubing with a siphon-break on it to go into the tank.

I can't say  what pressure the pump puts out because the pressure gauge always reads zero.

 

If only my tapwater were consistent, but it varies in ph from under 6 to almost 8, and the tds go from 150 to 400 over the course of a season, depends a lot on if it's raained a lot...

I'd love to be able to just connect a sediment filter, a couple carbon blocks, and a water meter to tell me when I've pumped 75K gallons of water. That would be the ultimate setup. But the TDS would be too high for the South American river fish ( angels and hypancistrus )  That I want to raise.

On 9/9/2024 at 4:41 PM, Woowala said:

Can you bypass the manifold to see if it's the problem, and/or shut off 8 of 9 valves on the manifold to see if it's just that the pump can't handle that many valves?

I have done that, if you look at the attached pic, you will see the blue-handled ball valves the the left of the sprinkler valves.  I've since changed out the sprinkler valves from Orbit to RainBird and moved the input from top to bottom. This setup with the RainBird valves has worked well for a few months. I just dunno any more....

I'm running outta money;)

 

 

[tolstoy21]

On 9/9/2024 at 5:49 PM, Ed R said:

I'd love to be able to just connect a sediment filter, a couple carbon blocks, and a water meter to tell me when I've pumped 75K gallons of water. That would be the ultimate setup. But the TDS would be too high for the South American river fish ( angels and hypancistrus )  That I want to raise.

I raise a lot of South American fish on my water with a TDS of 300+. My Ph is consistently 6.6 and has no seasonal variability. However, for certain fish, I do need to move them into a 'breeding tank' and drop the mineral content of the water by mixing in RODI water. But once they have spawned, everyone lives find in my TDS. My Gh is about a 9.

I would worry more about your variable PH than the variable TDS.

[Ed R]

On 9/9/2024 at 4:48 PM, tolstoy21 said:

On 9/1/2024 at 7:29 PM, Ed R said:

Whe only thing I can think of is that the pump just isn't strong enough to push the water, butthis can't be true because every single tank was filled using the same pump, pipes, and controller.

What do you mean by the above? What were the conditions when you filled the tank, and how do they differ from the existing setup.

I started filling tanks as soon as I ran the pvc pipe from the end of the valve to the tank. The first one I did was #1, which is to the left of the tank in the photo by about 7 feet.

Full barrel, same pump, all other valve outputs turned off. bleed valves closed, solenoids hand-tight  on all valves.

 

On 9/9/2024 at 4:56 PM, tolstoy21 said:

I raise a lot of South American fish on my water with a TDS of 300+. My Ph is consistently 6.6 and has no seasonal variability. However, for certain fish, I do need to move them into a 'breeding tank' and drop the mineral content of the water by mixing in RODI water. But once they have spawned, everyone lives find in my TDS. My Gh is about a 9.

I would worry more about your variable PH than the variable TDS.

Good advice. I'll get that carbon block then, and use the R/O output for breeding.

What part of the country are you in? I'm in north central Texas.

On 9/9/2024 at 4:00 PM, Woowala said:

Oof, 10% that's a lot.  Glad I didn't see that when I was looking for one haha. If the pump is powered then yes it'll detect the pressure drop when the valve opens and start pumping. Sorry I can't be more helpful, I learned just enough to set up my own thing. In the end it took me about a month of looking at various options and trying different stuff to get it to work. 

This might be helpful

 

I watched that before it all began. He uses a drip system, and has constant turnover. I want to be able to change out one tank at a time . His system works for him but I couldn't do things that way.

 

[tolstoy21]

On 9/9/2024 at 5:57 PM, Ed R said:

I watched that before it all began. He uses a drip system, and has constant turnover. I want to be able to change out one tank at a time . His system works for him but I couldn't do things that way.

I have a setup for changing one tank at a time from a 55 gallon brute can with a pump just like you do. It's a super simplified setup and not on a timer. I can take a pic of it later and post it here with an explanation.

I use that for larger, ad-hoc water changes and filling tanks. The drip system is what I run on a timer (the pump setup I have to flip a switch to trigger). For the drip system, I use a Kasa timer that opens and closes a solenoid value at multiple intervals during the day, every day. That is super simplified as well, compared to a Rainbird setup.

[Woowala]

Yeah everyone's needs are a bit different.  I just remembered that he used a rain bird controller and manifold, so there was a chance it might be helpful. 

Looking at that pic I kinda think your initial instinct might be right, and that you might just need a much higher powered pump. If you decide to do that instead of using the pressure from your home water supply, I'd just get a much bigger impeller pump from a major online site and return it if it didn't work.  #unethicallifeprotip, but it's rough out there lol.

[Ed R]

On 9/9/2024 at 5:19 PM, tolstoy21 said:

I have a setup for changing one tank at a time from a 55 gallon brute can with a pump just like you do. It's a super simplified setup and not on a timer.

This is exactly how I've been changing my wter in both big display tanks - a 120 and a 240 - for the last ten years or so.  Wanting to set up a fish room so I can raise angels and hypancistrus means 9 to 18 tanks and I do not want to manually change water for 9 or 18 more tanks.

On 9/9/2024 at 5:20 PM, Woowala said:

Looking at that pic I kinda think your initial instinct might be right, and that you might just need a much higher powered pump. If you decide to do that instead of using the pressure from your home water supply, I'd just get a much bigger impeller pump from a major online site and return it if it didn't work

So the math tells me I would need a pump with 23 feet of lift to be able to use this system . The Mag 3600? 22.6 feet of lift. Juuuust a bit outside....

It's a game of inches, right?