# Help with Water circulation/Spray Bar (pic inside)



## bsmith (Jan 8, 2007)

Just drill the holes out a bit. It will cut down the outflow pressure and not decrease flow amount.


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## Crispino L Ramos (Mar 29, 2008)

Try A to C and see which works best.


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## bklyndrvr (May 24, 2008)

Hey waters10: I just got my CFS500 in also, so I'm interested in how you setup your spray bar. Any pics of it, or pics of it in the tank? I haven't opened the box yet, so I don't know what it looks like inside.


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

bsmith said:


> Just drill the holes out a bit. It will cut down the outflow pressure and not decrease flow amount.


But what about that rule regarding area of the tube vs area of the holes? If I drill 2 more holes (16 total) both areas would be the same. More than that, and the area of the holes will be bigger than the area of the tube, which would mean the first few holes would have more flow than the last ones.

Not a huge problem, but I still think it's too much flow to have along the back wall.



Crispino Ramos said:


> Try A to C and see which works best.


I know ... But which one option is more likely to have a good flow without disturbing plants and fish too much?



bklyndrvr said:


> Hey waters10: I just got my CFS500 in also, so I'm interested in how you setup your spray bar. Any pics of it, or pics of it in the tank? I haven't opened the box yet, so I don't know what it looks like inside.


My spray bar is very simple. It's basically a "U" using 1" PVC tube. So 2 elbows to go around the tank edge. To hook up a hose, I added a coupler that slips outside the 1" PVC in one end and 1" threaded female on the other end. Then I threaded a regular 1" NPT to 1" barb.

I decided to keep 1" across everything, since I didn't want to reduce flow ... But since I'm having way too much flow, 3/4" wouldn't be that bad and it would be much easier to hide the spray bar. Something to think about.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Increasing the hole size will most likely result in reduced flow towards the end of the spray bar. Water always looks for the path of least resistance, something like that.

Have you tried to direct the spray bar towards the back glass? That efficiently reduces water movement in the tank. Just be careful that you don't blow the substrate around.

I think you could reduce the spray bar to 3/4" for a slight reduction in flow.

If you want some really good way to adjust flow without reducing circulation through the filter, you can add two "T's", on in the inflow and one in the outflow, and combine the two legs with a ball valve, so the two T form an H, if that makes sense. If the ball valve is closed, you have full flow, as you open it, more water circulates through the T legs instead of going through the tank.
This works only if the tubing you use can be cut and connected to a T. The thin ribbed hoses are definitely not suited for that.


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

Wasserpest said:


> Increasing the hole size will most likely result in reduced flow towards the end of the spray bar. Water always looks for the path of least resistance, something like that.
> 
> Have you tried to direct the spray bar towards the back glass? That efficiently reduces water movement in the tank. Just be careful that you don't blow the substrate around.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I tried pointing it to the back glass. Still too much flow.

I'm actually considering splitting the output in my DIY reactor, using a WYE fitting, then hooking it up to 2 vertical spray bars. I'd put one in the right back corner, pointing to the back glass. And the other on the left back corner, pointing to the side glass. They would work together, to create the counter clock water flow I first envisioned.

What do you guys think?


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## farmhand (Jun 25, 2009)

waters10 said:


> But what about that rule regarding area of the tube vs area of the holes?


Would you give a summary of this rule please?


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

farmhand said:


> Would you give a summary of this rule please?


Area of the hose cross section leading to the spray bar (pi x R^2) vs area of the holes in the spray bar (n x pi R^2, n is the number of holes). What Hoppy posted somewhere is that the area of the holes should be between 80 and 100% of the hose area.

Hope this helps.


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

farmhand said:


> Would you give a summary of this rule please?


Well, turns out I can give you a summary of the rule, but I can't use it ...

I used 1/8" as the radius of my holes, when in fact that was the diameter. So I had my holes accounting for 21.8% of the 1" hose ... I just enlarged those holes to 1/4" holes (pretty big actually) and things are better, but still a ton of flow!

I'm tending to split the output and going with the 2 vertical spraybars ...


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## farmhand (Jun 25, 2009)

waters10 said:


> Area of the hose cross section leading to the spray bar (pi x R^2) vs area of the holes in the spray bar (n x pi R^2, n is the number of holes). What Hoppy posted somewhere is that the area of the holes should be between 80 and 100% of the hose area.
> 
> Hope this helps.


Would the hose cross section be the largest cross section of the hose or at the joining connection which would be a smaller ID?


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

farmhand said:


> Would the hose cross section be the largest cross section of the hose or at the joining connection which would be a smaller ID?


I believe it's the spray bar pipe diameter.

Hoppy is the guy that came up with the formula. Here's his explanation.


Back to my topic, instead of using a WYE PVC pipe, I'll use a Barb WYE from here to split the flow. I'll use the 1" by 3/4" Y, so my 2 new spray bars will be made of 3/4" PVC. 2 3/4" pipes have 12.5% more area than a single 1" pipe. I think flow reduction shouldn't be too bad and hopefully the spray bar holes will still have decent pressure.


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

Just closing the loop on this.

I ended up finding all the fittings I needed at Lowes (and cheaper), so I ended up using a 1" barbed "T" to split the flow.

After seeing some CO2 bubbles leaving my old spray bar, I decided to split the flow before the reactor, so now only half of it goes though the reactor. So one side gets reduced to 3/4" and goes to the spraybar on the right back corner. The other goes through the reactor, reduced to 3/4" and to the spray bar on the left back corner.

All I can say is that the water circulation is much much better! It actually does what I wanted in the first place, creating a swirl, counter rotating flow. Nothing super fast, just continuous. No more plants being blown away and almost getting uprooted like before! And that's with all valves on my Odyssea fully open.

The only other modification I might do, is to add a ball valve to the line that feeds the left spray bar, so I can close or control the flow during feed time. My discus are used to eat right around that area and at least my discus are lazy as hell to go find food elsewhere ...

I also need to paint the new spray bars black!


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Awesome! Remember though, a picture is worth 500 words... :wink:


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## bklyndrvr (May 24, 2008)

Wasserpest said:


> Awesome! Remember though, a picture is worth 500 words... :wink:


I was thinking the same thing. I'm going to see how much flow I get it stock on my 75G when I hook it up tonight, but I'm seriously thinking of putting together a spray bar.

Here's a n00bish question. When you split out the hoses, do you have to go from a 1" to two 3/4" connections? I know it probally has to do with water flow and stuff, but just asking anyway.

Lastly, I have a in-line reactor from the Milwaukee co2 set I got from the SnS, but the fittings if smaller. If I split the 1" and one side gets reduced to fit the reactor, would that mean the flow would go more to the path of least resistance, and bypass the reactor mostly?


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## NJAquaBarren (Sep 16, 2009)

Water will definitely follow path of least resistance.

Try getting back to basics...single spraybar mounted on SIDE of tank firing straight across, from same side of intake. 

This Will establish a u-shaped pattern of flow across the tank, with greatest turbulence high and less turbulence low in the tank. Throw in some slowly sinking pellets and watch how uniform and thorough the flow is. 

Also agree with the idea of drilling holes a little larger to possibly reduce velocity. That is part of the lily pipe's principal design....high volume at reduced velocity.


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

bklyndrvr said:


> I was thinking the same thing. I'm going to see how much flow I get it stock on my 75G when I hook it up tonight, but I'm seriously thinking of putting together a spray bar.
> 
> Here's a n00bish question. When you split out the hoses, do you have to go from a 1" to two 3/4" connections? I know it probally has to do with water flow and stuff, but just asking anyway.
> 
> Lastly, I have a in-line reactor from the Milwaukee co2 set I got from the SnS, but the fittings if smaller. If I split the 1" and one side gets reduced to fit the reactor, would that mean the flow would go more to the path of least resistance, and bypass the reactor mostly?


2 3/4" have more area than a single 1", so I prefer to expand, rather than compress there. If you go 2x5/8", you'd be compressing a bit. I still lose pressure on the "T" though.

I'split mine to 2 3/4", with one feeding the reactor. I'm sure I'm not getting even flow, since one line has a reactor and the other just goes straight to the 
spray bar.


NJAquaBarren said:


> Water will definitely follow path of least resistance.
> 
> Try getting back to basics...single spraybar mounted on SIDE of tank firing straight across, from same side of intake.
> 
> ...


Yeah, but see, I was not happy with a single spray bar. My original idea is exactly what you mention. But I found out way too much flow in the first leg of that U, and not much on the second leg. Splitting the flow with 2 spray bars improved things a lot!

I'll post some pics tonight. I need to organize all the extra hoses and equipment under my stand though. It's still very much a mess ... I'll do that when I paint the spray bars black.


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## waters10 (Oct 22, 2008)

Ok, here are some pics.

The reactor/inline heater I built, based on this concept from another thread. On the right end, you can see the heyco cord grip that I used. The jager heater I use is not mounted there in this pic.









Here's how I split my output. The line to the left gets resized to 3/4" right away. The line to the right remains 1" and loops to the reactor. On the end of the reactor, I put a 3/4" barb fitting. Then 3/4" hose to the spray bar.









Spray bar on the left back corner. Holes are pointing forward, along the side of the tank. I drilled 14 holes, 3/16" in size. That accounts for 87.5% of the area of the 3/4" spray bar.









I drilled a single 1/8" hole at an angle pointing up and to the glass, about 1" from the surface. That's to create some surface movement, since I'll be removing my HOB, I need something to keep things moving at the surface. I think this is not enough and I'll run an air stone at night.









Spray bar on the back left back corner, with holes pointing along the back glass. You can see the filter intake right next to it.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

Great pics, nice fish too! Thanks! If you spray paint the pipes black (or even better, a muddy dark green/black => camouflage) they will stand out much less.

PVC pipes, Sched 40 fittings, and plastic barbs = lots of fun. :biggrin:


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