Unexpected plumbing result

[drhyne]

I was having heat issues after upgrading my fuge lights. The tank just wan't cooling off overnight and the main lights kept boosting the temps during the day.

I came up with an idea... I will use my lift pump to run water down to my basement freezer and back. It was about 25 feet of line to the freezer. Maybe 3-4 feet of coils in the freezer and 25 feet back. FYI, I just ran the lines up through the drain hole. I wasn't willing to drill a hole in the freezer! There was about 7 feet worth of verticle drop to the freezer. I figured this was close to the limit of the pump but it would probably work.

I hooked everything up and had the pump running from the refugium down to the freezer and back to the display tank. After plugging it in. The flow was barely a drip! I figured I would move the pump down to the freezer and just have it pump back up. When I pulled the pump I waited for the water to stop flowing so that I could place the line in the tank. THE WATER NEVER STOPPED FLOWING! It continued to flow nice cool water at a rate of about a gallon a minute from the display tank back to the refugium! What the ....

My fiance said "Is this from Newton's house of mystery?" I replied "I don't know!"

I am guessing that it is a basic siphon. I just never expected it to flow 25 feet into the basement and BACK with no assistance!

 

[Anonymous]

Me, either. Wow.

<waits for the folks who understand physics or something to come in and explain>

 

[Brian5000]

As long as the end point is lower than the start point, the water can do anything you want in between. A line doing that over fifty feet is pretty incredible though.

 

[Anonymous]

But, that's the thing, it sounds like the end point may not quite have been lower than the start point.

 

[Brian5000]

Then this really is a mistery...

 

[drhyne]

Not that much different... Maybe 3 feet. Also, I forgot to mention, it still has the prefilter in line. I actually moved it to the opposite end so it would stop blockages coming from the display tank.

 

[drhyne]

Oh... I see the confusion. My original intent was to have the pump move the water from the fuge to the display tank. After removing the pump it flowed by its self from the display down to the fuge .... via 50+ feet of tubing!

 

[Sea Turtle]

Maybe, since you put the pump all the way downstairs the weight of the water from the tank to teh fridge is adding a little extra pressure to the pump and just giving it that little extra umff that it needs to push it back up to the tank.

 

[Anonymous]

...

. THE WATER NEVER STOPPED FLOWING! It continued to flow nice cool water at a rate of about a gallon a minute from the display tank back to the refugium! What the ....

..

Just a standard siphon. It will continue to flow as long as the display tube is underwater and the tube is full of water with no air pockets. The size, shape, length of the tube will increase (or decrease) the friction (head) and therefore will change the rate of flow. As will the height difference between the display water level and refugium level (or tube outlet). But it will still flow from the higher level to lower level.