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Tragedy hit again

I came home to find my 275 gal tote was almost empty .

The sump pump in my return tank stopped working causing the water to overflow .

Overview of my system .

I have a flood and drain system .

275 gal tote for the fish with a 600 gph pump pumping water to two 6ft x 4ft grow beds

both beds drain by bell syphon into a 40 gal container with a 1000 gph sump pump that returns the water back into my fish tank .

Problem the sump pump was purchased at a garden warehouse and is not a quality pump

and can't keep up with the demand .

Does anyone know of a quality pump and where to buy ?

Any advice I can get will be of great help .

This last time my tank overflowed my water was just about cycled all that work gone

I really would like to find good sump pump safe for fish that will last.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Cameron on February 5, 2012 at 6:17pm

I know it sounds a little crazy, but I plumbed a return line for the water that is not used for the grow beds. Granted, my pump is sized a bit bigger than required, so I can always have water flowing into my sump/fish tank. Which by the way saves on the power used. I have a watt meter wired into the distribution panel for the setup, and noticed the difference immediately when the delivery pipe supply was restricted to just the 2 grow beds, then opened up via ball valve to let unused water back to the fish tank. 96watts vs 58watts. Plus extra aeration.

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 5, 2012 at 6:38pm

Yea the more pressure you make the pump push against the more power (at least for water pumps, air pumps the draw is affected by travel so the more restricted the less draw but if you restrict an air pump that way you will burn it up faster.)

The T or Bypass back to the tank where the pump resides is something every system should have IMO and if the pump is not strong enough to have a bypass opened up at all, then the pump might not be strong enough overall.

It's cool to hear the difference in wattage from the restricted pump to the one where the excess flow is allow to flow through.