DIY Siphon Surger

Jackalope

Jackalope

Member
ok so im considering building a siphon surger for my 180 DT. im not sure on exactly or even Approx. how much water i need to surge volume-wise any ideas? im breaking away from sps to more lagoonal so i know this will actually be less than i origionally planned with sps dominated. so with that i though a simple lowes 5 gallon bucket in size and perhaps a mag 300-ish. although the 5 gallon bucket to be drilled and bulkheaded will have to be from the bottom since its round, i also considered the traditional square 5-8 gallon tote tubs from lowes as well.

issues at hand:

-1: dump drain size?
-2: pump size or better yet: Flow rating?
-3: volume needed for 180gal. tank?

TY All,
James
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
James have you seen one of these in person? They are wicked cool in theory and in practice but they do have "Cons". Our LFS has ran them off and on for a few years now and I think he's finally done with it. It causes a lot of "micro bubbles" in the DT, can be very noisy, causes massive amounts of Salt Creep and requires a lot of work to get everything working just right.
 
Jackalope

Jackalope

Member
BigAl, yep i have in fact. i was messing with a lowes bucket with a 1" hole in the side and thought " i could do this". so after 30min of my neighbors wandering what the heck i was building, i made one. i just have no idea if perhaps i should go with a larger set-up like 10gal. with 1.5" instead. yeah so far i got one to work and i think it will be one of those things that dont have a calc. or refference to go by for tank volume.

Rob, i was JUST looking at that site lol. there's moreless 2 ways to do it and the toilet flusher method just has too many moving parts imo. less moving parts = less to go wrong, so i think i'll con the wife into going to lowes a 3rd time today rofl. i'll def. post some pics and whatnot when i dig further into this.
 
Jackalope

Jackalope

Member
been trying to quit smoking for 2 days. it's been hell. woke up today to see my blue linkia melting. was fine for 2 years. only thing i'd guess is alkalinity shock. put too much in and did a water change but not enough of a water change i guess. other than that going to try for this next weekend to try this surge system!
 
Jackalope

Jackalope

Member
...ok so tested out and took down notes of this system just messing around using bathtub heheh. i like the A/C. so 1- 5 gallon lowes bucket, misc. 1" fittings and a bulkhead, and a stopwatch (phone hehe).

The water travel is 8 inches worth from drain stop to drainage beggining = 3 gallons exact. total flush
The time it took = 15 seconds
Total GPH = 789.6

OK, this wont work using 1 inch pipe. i dont have anything larger atm to mess with but i do know that in order for it to begin a cycle it must have a certain amount of flow inc. to create a full vacuum to begin its drain process. With that in mind i would need a decent sized pump to make this opperate at all. I'm really wanting something on the line of a true surge effect other than 800 gallons per hour flow cut into 15 second intervals. i could just use a loop system with a mag 9.5 in order to re-create this effect with less bulk and water in other than the tank area (leak issues), and place on a timer to kick in for 15 seconds every what ever time between. So now im thinking closed loop on a timer or just break down, wait till tax season and buy 2 mp60's lol. any questions, comments, input feel free to add!
 
Willie McDaries

Willie McDaries

Well-Known Member
Jackalope said:
...ok so tested out and took down notes of this system just messing around using bathtub heheh. i like the A/C. so 1- 5 gallon lowes bucket, misc. 1" fittings and a bulkhead, and a stopwatch (phone hehe).

The water travel is 8 inches worth from drain stop to drainage beggining = 3 gallons exact. total flush
The time it took = 15 seconds
Total GPH = 789.6

OK, this wont work using 1 inch pipe. i dont have anything larger atm to mess with but i do know that in order for it to begin a cycle it must have a certain amount of flow inc. to create a full vacuum to begin its drain process. With that in mind i would need a decent sized pump to make this opperate at all. I'm really wanting something on the line of a true surge effect other than 800 gallons per hour flow cut into 15 second intervals. i could just use a loop system with a mag 9.5 in order to re-create this effect with less bulk and water in other than the tank area (leak issues), and place on a timer to kick in for 15 seconds every what ever time between. So now im thinking closed loop on a timer or just break down, wait till tax season and buy 2 mp60's lol. any questions, comments, input feel free to add!
Click to expand...

I think you'll need 1.5" or larger diameter PVC for an effective surge and enough volume of water to start the full siphon in the plumbing...I have always been interested in the surge bucket idea and usually follow every thread pertaining to them but have yet to try 1 myself......but,if you want a surge like no other,2 MP60s will do it....you'll have water washing over both ends of the tank :lol:

here's a few links and videos of the Carlson surge and a couple of videos of the borneman style

[video=youtube;XRf4F76_pBQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRf4F76_pBQ[/video]

How to build a Carlson Surge Device

[video=youtube;JNOyIA7SueU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNOyIA7SueU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/video]

A Simple Surge Device

Aquarium Design, Marine Aquariums and Coral Reef Aquarium Tank, Stand, Canopy, and Aquarium Filter System

and this is my favorite design,the borneman surge,it uses a flapper system like in the holding tank of a toilet

[video=youtube;t5M_sP8IktY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5M_sP8IktY&NR=1[/video]

[video=youtube;X8kKYJZglvA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8kKYJZglvA&NR=1[/video]
 
Willie McDaries

Willie McDaries

Well-Known Member
not to my knowledge Juan,if you've ever watched videos of a natural reef when a wave comes crashing in,it is usually full of bubbles too,but they make a mess of everything above the water line :D
 
jpsika08

jpsika08

Well-Known Member
Thanks Willie,
That's true, would the siphon surge be a nice option to replace it instead of the regular return line?

For example, water coming from the return line, going instead into the DT but to the Siphon Surge and this duplicate the force of water that goes into the tank?
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
The only Surge Device I've seen in action was much more "forceful" than the ones posted above. Maybe it was because it was on a larger system but it acted more like.... well a DUMPING action. I didn't see the final mechanicals on it (never saw inside the canopy once it was finished) but when it surged it looked like a 5g bucket of water fell over all at once as opposed to "running" into the tank.

I really like the concept and LOVE the look of it. I'd try it on a larger tank if it would be more of a DUMP rather than flow.

Re: Bubbles - Most coral can take micro bubbles and as noted in the wild the waves & surf do create them. The problem is when something collects air (say under a monti plate) the coral can die from the constant air exposure in the general area.
 
jpsika08

jpsika08

Well-Known Member
Thank you for clearing that Al :)

I got a little problem with my return pump which isn't really pushing lots of water into the tank, so I was thinking that if it's able to fill in the Siphon Surge and release everything at once it could benefit the tank more, even pointing the release where the SPS. Ideas ideas and just for the fun on keep doing more on the tank :D
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
Juan keep in mind you have to have a good amount of "flexibility" in your tank for water level fluctuations. While the surge tank is filling you have to have enough water left in the tank to support anything in the upper part of the tank and once "Surge Happens" you have to have enough room to hold the wave until the Surge Pump again refills the Surge Tank. I'm sure it could be done especially with your set-up you just need to plan ahead for the variances in water level from Pre-Surge to Post-Surge. I'd love to see you make it happen though :)
 
jpsika08

jpsika08

Well-Known Member
Great tip Al! That, I didn't had in mind, I do have the space but I really need to be sure how much as I don't want to overflow when everything goes off during a power outage, thanks :D

If I decide to do it I will post pics and review of it, at the moment other projects are pending (As the Brine Shrimp hatchery LOL)
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
jpsika08 said:
If I decide to do it I will post pics and review of it, at the moment other projects are pending (As the Brine Shrimp hatchery LOL)
Click to expand...

If? Jack has provided you with an AWESOME idea and you are just the person to run with it and you can do it WHILE working with your Shrimp Hatchery :)
 
jpsika08

jpsika08

Well-Known Member
You are correct on that, I will begin planning positioning over the tank, I have a 20 gallon high tank, will it be enough?
 
Jackalope

Jackalope

Member
how many gallom tank is your DT Juan? mines a 180 and 5 gallons didnt make a single difference lol. it was like turning on a mag9.5 for 15 seconds. wasnt much happening. i need somewhere along the lines of 5000 gallons per hour of dump, w/in a 15 second time. so... math: 5000gal / 60min. = 83gal per min. / 60sec. = 1.39 gallons per second.

an mp40 moves up to 3200gal/hour so it actually moves .88gallons per second
an mp60 moves up to 7500g/hour which ends up to 2.08

simple math on this and a little thinking tells me im going to need something much much bigger to be effective.
for Juan's case i think he has what a 2K liter? thats about 530gallon tank. that much volume of water to be disturbed by the surge would be more than double what i have/need. im going to do more math on it and some guestimations on pipe-size and what not.
 
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