400 gallon project

[untamed]

Originally Posted by Tracey2

I must have missed this but can you explain how your water gets from sump 1 to sump 2. I know sump one is elevated but the pumbing to sump 2 goes in at the top, how is the water traveling up?

Sump 1 (my Water change Sump), is just slightly higher than Sump 2 (Main sump)..but only 1" or 2" higher. The water level in sump 1 however, is significantly higher than Sump 2.

This is achieved because the sumps are connected by a Herbie "overflow" system. Sump 1 is bulkheaded at the bottom and connected directly to sump 2. There is a gate valve on this connection. If the gate valve is wide open, then the two sumps settle out at the same operating water level. But since the gate valve is partly closed, it takes more pressure to push the water through and the water level in Sump 1 is higher.

As it is not advisable to run a standard Herbie system with a single pipe, there is a second overflow connection that would kick in only if the water level in Sump 1 ever got too high.

This is the most unusual of the 4 Herbie overflows in my system.