Surge Devices

I tried building a simplified Carlson Surge Device and was frustrated because it would not start siphoning reliably or would continue to suck air and water even though the container was drained. I then read about another design in Eric Borneman's Aquarium Corals. This is a simple design like the Carlson device, but makes use of a flush device and float and even after a small amount of experimenting it proved to be more reliable and more flexible in terms of the size of the piping. - [Details]

The back is 14 7/8" wide by 22 1/2" long., There is a 3 3/4" hole for access to the valve for maintenance. The center of the hole is 16 1/2" down from the top and 5 7/8"" in from the right side. The back is made of 1/4" PVC sheet. There is a 6" by 6" cover for the 3 3/4" maintenance hole. It is made out of 1/4" PVC sheet. The back is 1" longer than the front and sides so that it has a lip for you to mount it. There are four pieces of 1/4" PVC sheet 2" by 1 1/2" mounted 1" in from the edge on the top and bottom edges for mounting the unit to the wall. They each have a 3/16" hole in the center of them. - [Details]

This and the following photos show the parts to my surge project in progress. I'll say more about this later, but here's the basic idea. When the motor is turned on, it turns at 72 RPM. The motor will be mounted above the aquarium. The spool on the motor shaft is connected by a nylon rope to a box filled with sand. The box of sand will be in the aquarium, within a sleeve of acrylic that is open at the top and bottom, on the side facing the main body of the aquarium. A timing circuit will cause the motor to lift the box up to the top of the water, and then it will shut off the motor, allowing the box to fall freely (the shaft resistance is low in this motor). This should excite true waves in the aquarium, as well as move a significant amount of water, pumping it from the top of the tank to the bottom, as the box falls, and then the reverse when the motor lifts the box. - [Details]

This surge bucket was designed to provide a periodic surge of water motion in holding systems or aquariums which contain small polyp stony corals. It operates through the use of two floats which open a toilet bowl flapper. The larger float is used to power the opening of the flapper and the smaller float is used to trigger the rising of the larger float. The larger float falls to a position perpendicular to the waters surface when the bucket is emptied. It stays in this position until the water level rises high enough to raise the smaller float which is higher in the bucket. As the smaller float rises it kicks the larger float out of the perpendicular position which causes it to rise rapidly in the water column powering the rapid opening of the flapper which creates a surge of water at the output. - [Details]

For a number of years now I have been working off and on, on a pump based around a motor driven hand bilge pump, for tank circulation or as the main pump. - [Details]