Any Aquarium Plumbing Tutorials?

[Kinetic]

Anyone know of any online tutorials to teach me how to do plumbing?

I'm going to drive to home depot (closest one is like 30 minutes, but there are about 4 that are 30 minutes from me!) and take a look at what they have.

I got blisters from drying to use vinyl tubing to do it, and ended up giving up on the vinyl tubing. It's all floppy, hard to use...

Do you think I can goto home depot and have them cut up PVC sched 40 given that they carry it? What tools do I need to cut PVC? Also how should I attach the pipes? I don't think they will be threaded.

Anyone have experience doing this?

Thanks

[Mr. Ugly]

Koden,

Home Depot should have some basic plumbing how-to books.

For PVC, you want a hand operated cutter. Looks like a a weird pair of snips.

The non threaded pvc you assemble with pvc primer and pvc cement.

It's all pretty easy to do. I can show you if you need.

[Kinetic]

Hi Norman,
I'll head over to home depot. I have all my measurements I need. I'm guessing I'll just pickup enough PVC, elbows, etc.

I was reading wetwebmedia and it said something about using silicon instead of primer/cement?

[sfsuphysics]

uh oh... "measurements in your head" Murphy's law states you will forget atleast one connector you needed.

On your next time to home depot I would sketch the plumbing including some rough measurements (ie 4 feet to sump, 3 feet over from where overflow is located, etc). Once you draw your pathway remembering you have two choices, 45 bends and 90 bends, then you can kind of find out how much PVC you need, and how many elbows, etc. Also you might want to decide whether you want any sort of bipass valves, disconnects, etc along the pathway.

As to the cutting bit you can cut it all at home with anything with a hacksaw like blade, hand held, sawsall, jigsaw, etc. A normal wood saw wood hand saw would work as well, no real need for any special tools to cut it. And even though you think it won't fit in your car, trust me, you can cram a 10 foot long piece of 1" in through the backdoor past the front passenger seat and only have a couple feet hanging out your back window no problem.

Oh, and use PVC cement, do NOT use silicone, silicone won't bond, pvc cement will bond. Just goop up the inside, put your piece in and give a quick turn so that it spreads all around. (I'm not a big fan of primer).

[Kinetic]

I drew it all out and have measurements.

I'll probably get my pvc and all connectors I need from HD, but if needed, there's a local hardware store nearby with connectors.

no primer?

[plankton]

I always use 'purple' primer before cement just to make sure it's a leak proof connection.

If you are thinking about spa-flex then make sure you use the 'blue' wet/dry stuff.

In general try to stay away from 90 def elboes as that puts alot of back pressure on your pump: 2 45s are better or use spa-flex.

Scott

[Kinetic]

I picked up a bunch of elbows, two unions, two ball valves, some other misc. stuff.

All I need is primer, glue, and the 10 foot PVC pipe ;)

It was raining and I didn't want a trunk open going through the rain. I'll bring my truck tomorrow and start working on it over christmas break.

Neat thing, my mother surprised me and bought me some corals I had my eye on. She knew I wanted them cuz she came with me before to look. I got a nice blasto rock and some clove polyps that are green and pink!!

[Sparkss]

next time take your cutters with you, then you have no worries about having your trunk open on the trip home. I leave a spare spare of PVC cutters in the back of our SUV, since it seems like I am always heading off to HD for more pipe (always trying new plumbing ideas :)). Just be sure to have your measurements with you so that you don't cut the pipe in an inappropriate place (on the pipe that is :D)

[Mr. Ugly]

Lucky your mom didn't buy you a replacement flame angel! :)

[Reefugee]

Sparkss - good idea. Just another note. Most store will cut the pipe into managable size (if asked). :D

Minh

[crizq0]

As for the glue and primer....HD sells one in a red container which is a 2 in 1 i think. That you just have to apply once. So you don't need to apply the primer and then apply the glue. I forgot the namer of it. But its in the same section.

[Kinetic]

sweet thanks for the suggestions! I'll get some pvc cutter for sure and I'll look for the 2 in 1.

btw I still have that Flame Angel. It's great, it only eats digitata so as long as I stay away from getting digitata I'm good.

[Psionicdragon]

wow 30 min away. where do you live?

[Kinetic]

Berkeley. I just realized there was one 15 minutes away =P

[Sparkss]

make sure to let us know how it all turns out.. and take pictures :)