Mr. Saltwater Tank Friday AM Quick Tip: Soft Plumbing’s Shadow
Going soft with your plumbing? Make sure you have plenty of these in your tool kit.
Browse the Store! Questions?
Going soft with your plumbing? Make sure you have plenty of these in your tool kit.
Browse the Store! Questions?
I used cement pvc to glue the soft tube to the Plumbeeze (Poly Insert Elbow). Works perfect. Hose clamp is not perfect, will deform the hose and you will still have leaks. It you tight to much, you might damage the elbow.
Fast and secure, Cement PVC.
Claudiu, what do you do if you ever have to disassemble the connection?
You don’t have to disassemble it. Since it is made out of flexible tube, can be easily folded in case you are moving the tank. Return line is made out of 3/4 PVC Fabric Hose, flexible and very resistant.
So just make sure your plumbing doesn’t go through anything permanent, like a wall. Or even a hole in the stand.
Great video mark. My lines have been clamped for years. Do you clean or replace your lines in time?
Dave…I usually don’t as first I rarely use soft plumbing and even when I do, the little bit of biofilm that builds up in it isn’t a big deal.
Another tip – you can get the tubes on the fittings much more easily if you place the tube (vinyl or braided nylon) in a pot of boiling-hot water until softish. Get it on quick, because once it cools it shrinks down again. Be careful, too; it’s easy to burn your hands. My hubby used bbq tongs to take the stuff out of the water XD
Flexible PVC is expensive – but otherwise is about the perfect aquarium plumbing product. Flexible, twistable, clampable, gluable, shapable, uses standard pvc sizes and connectors (vs hose sizing and barbs like vinyl), available in multiple thicknesses, available in multiple colors. Other than expense, there’s no comparison between tubing and flex pvc.
Since it’s not stiff, it’s not breakable. Since it’s not flimsy, it’s not squishable and doesn’t crack. If you need to move things around or even adjust positioning things by an a couple of inches you can often do so (if you leave a touch of slack) without having to do ANY replumbing. Use a heat gun to stretch the openings to make connections easier and then when it cools you rarely need a clamp or even glue. Also using the heat gun you can completely customize the shape of it and eliminate numerous elbows and connectors. I have areas where I have molded it in to ‘S’s, ‘U’s and otherwise unidentifiable shapes – it retains the shape perfectly.
I have had zero, none, nada leaks with it.
No, I don’t sell the stuff, I’m just in love with it…
This is obvious, like super obvious. Looks like it was a slow week for Mr. Saltwatertank.
Steve…you’d be surprised how many “obvious” things people don’t know or overlook.
Flex or hard system I use unions at all fittings where if I need to take it apart as the pump to clean it no cutting the hose or pipe. I look out as the plastic clamp as I had some if they where bad lot or not worked okay on the hose then weeks later I looked the plastic clamp broke in half. So no mater what system you have check your plumping every day when you feed your fish or clean skimmer cup for any problems and do not wait for a leak and say what now as it happens most when you are not home. I have in sump area water heater leak alarm to help or if you have controller system put leak sensor on it.