AngelFishFan,
It's definitely do-able -- we do it ourselves. I find a few benefits to having our sump/plumbing in the basement - not only noise prevention, but no more messy water changes in the livingroom, and also, it helps cool the water in the summer.
For starters, take a peek at
>>our sump page<<
In a nutshell, our sump sits about 10' directly below the display tank in our basement. We use a Sequence 3500 SEQ21-
SW pump (it is considered a "pond" pump, but the "
SW" designation is for saltwater fittings - you're going to want those). This pump pumps about 2200gph at our head height.
What happens if I lose power?
Our simple solution is this. We don't use overflows - the tank is drilled - 3 bulkheads/strainers a couple inches down from the surface of the water. So, if the power goes out, it can only drain down to the level of the bulkheads. Simply make sure to leave enough *space* in your sump for the room for this extra water.
Would a wet/dry filter be able to take that pressure, from 7 feet above?
No clue about wet/dry's, sorry.
As was described the head pressure is the big thing when sizing your pump. be cautious about the pumps from the water garden store in that they need to be rated for saltwater use.
Excellent points. Also make sure the pumps are rated for the head height you want to use them for.
But then you will have to deal with the water thats in the plumbing. Installing one or more one way flap valves should help you there in that they will thru normal operation allow water to flow only one way. When the power goes out the water will try to flow down to the basement and the one way valve will stop it.
Hehe - it does sound good, but we don't do any of that.
Also you might be better off with two pumps than one megga pump.
If I had to do it all over again .... I would use a smaller pump for the return pump, and put a closed loop on the display tank.
In my view the concern is not from having some huge jet of water in the tank. Most large pumps use 1" plumbing and even 1500GPH comming out the end of a 1" pipe while its alot of water it had alot less force than the the same amount of water comming out of lets say a 1/2" pipe.
We do get good water circulation, but we definitely don't have any issues with the force of the returned water.
What you can do is split the return into two or three outlets and have them dump water into the tank from opposite sides of the tank.
This is what we do. One return line up goes to a three-way "wye" beneath the tank, which splits into three different returns - this pic is from underneath the display cabinet upstairs:
If you have any questions at all, just yell.
I would just balance the return with the drains by making sure the pump was not more powerful than the drain lines at that given head height.
Puting a restriction on the return can cause undue stress on the pump and some pumps are not rated very well with pressure.
Definitely true. We did a lot of research when we first set things up this way, and found that you don't want to restrict pump output. It can lead to overheating and pump failure.
HTH,