Hidden plumbing design

Looking for ideas, lessons learned, and guidance (pics also help!) on installing PVC or hosing from water source (probably bathroom) through walls, to aging barrels, and then to tank.

Situation: moving to new house within 2 months and this time around I want improve my WC methodology. Rather than getting the hoses and pumps out each time, I'd like to install a ball valve (3 way) to a cold water line behind/below bathroom sink for in-going water (into 2 water aging barrels). Has to be clean in appearance which to my wife says "unseen" since it's a display tank.
I plan to build a new cabinet at the next house and on either side of the tank will be matching wooden furniture that look kind of like pillars where are the two water aging barrels will be located. That way it will look like nice Cabinetry within our house. Pretty much just disguises the Aging barrels and of course holds the 150 gallon tank. From the barrels I will probably just simply but submersible pumps and each one of them and on and off switches with tubes that I can easily lift the top of each wooden cabinet and stick it into a sump hidden within the cabinet unless someone has some good ideas. But as for the portion of going from the sink into the Aging barrels, that's the part where I do not have the greatest experience but sure as hell not afraid. I just need to figure out how to weave either PVC pipe or hoses through the wall. Unsure if there will be bends but I'm thinking Murphy's Law there will be since we have not located the next house quite yet. I don't know how to weave PVC pipe through walls that are already built unless doing it as the house is built so unless somebody has experience and kerr the chair then I'm thinking my only option is to leave rubber hoses the real the walls.

As for draining the water, I don't really have any ideas yet. Depending on placement of the tank then if it is up against and exterior wall then I could probably just simply put a PVC pipe cleanly through the interior wall in and out the exterior so that the water drains and to the yard or maybe some Garden. Of course I'll be sure to make sure the water flow reaches away from the base of the house. But if it does not go up against an exterior wall then I'm unsure what I will do. Fallout fails, at least for draining the tank I can simply do what I do now which is put the submersible pump and a tank and run the hose out of window until I Garden but I'd rather try to do the whole thing better than what I do now. I know the more effort I put into making a good water change mythology for myself then Better discus keeper I will be.

You should sketch out something on paper.. take a photo of it.. and then post it here .


Originally, I had a plan to put storage barrels like pillars on each side of my combination hydroponics/aquaponics setup.... Then I just started thinking about accidents.

Do you have access to the space under the floor? That will permit you to locate those barrels in a completely different part of the home and pump it over when needed.

Pipe length is cheap... Cable length is cheap... Thankfully water molecules and electrons don't need allot of room for travel...There are lots of spaces you can steal (crawl spaces, attic spaces, duct work).

Having completely rewired and re-plumbed my entire existing home in the past.. I have confidence in my ability to run a few remote wires and a supply line, drain, etc.. neatly and well.. Just something to consider...

Pete, thanks! Love the feedback. Here in Charleston there are no basements. Closest thing is raised house. From the houses we are looking at, there won't even be a crawl space. Most likely slab. I'll try to come up with drawings. I'm no engineer nor builder but can still provide drawings. Would love devil advocates! Thanks!

I"m in the same position in southern Arizona. Our homes are right on a slab, no basement, no crawl space... I do not have an attic either as I have a pueblo style home.
That said, I have the good luck of a home that is laid out such that I can run everything between separate water prep and aquarium areas completely hidden. Maybe I'll do a drawing too to illustrate...

Pete, I'd love to see a drawing. Any/all input, drawings, and pics help. Equally so if they are things in the past that did not work out so well... of which I could certainly provide multiple of those!

Good luck with this project, it sounds like you have a great plan. Now just to figure out how to execute. As for running PVC or a hose through walls that already constructed I don't know how one would accomplish that d/t the studs. With attic space that would make it a lot easier. Looking forward to seeing what you figure out...

Yeah, crap... good point Aaron. I thought I was thinking about studs but I actually wasn't. In regards to if I have to run it inside a wall then I wasn't thinking of the fact that I would have to do small holes to thread through... which I'm sure would be fine as long as they were small and would not affect much of the pounds per square inch of the wood in regards to messing with the foundation the house, but now I realize I would have to you potentially tear out the drywall in order to do that. Which any of us at that point could have a sleek solution. Of course that's what I'm trying to avoid so now I know I need to be on the lookout for I knew how, with a location that might be on the other side of the wall from a toilet or sink. That way I could drill through the wall, after identifying what a stud finder where the studs are, and drilling between them, hopefully avoiding any electrical wire, and do a direct connection if I have the drain source and the incoming water source. Knowing my luck, I will not find that option! So I might just have to do some crazy disguising or something so that it all looks clean... dang it

If I understand what you are proposing, I believe I have a similar set up in my sunroom. I ran 50’ of 1/4” poly tubing, like used for ice makers, from a bathroom cold water pipe into a 100 gallon container (with float) that sits next to my tank. A pump connected to a fill hose can be kept in the aging barrel and the tank can be drained via pvc through the wall, or by using a portable hose to the yard/drain.

I had originally thought of using larger pvc for filling the aging barrel, but the 1/4” tubing works well and it will be easier to fill the smaller wall holes when the aging barrel is moved.

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Originally Posted by pastry

Pete, thanks! Love the feedback. Here in Charleston there are no basements.

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I am in Charleston as well and have my tanks in a room above the garage, so I set up aging tanks in the garage with pvc runs up through the floors. One tank I have to drain out the window with a Python, the other I can drain through a floor drain. Unfortnately I lost all my discus about 6 months ago as well as a tank full of beautiful African cichlids. I'm still not sure what happened although I suspect it was bad city water. They started adding ammonia to the water around that time. I think some other local people had some issues as well, but not as bad as I did. I'm just now getting the tanks going again and am not going to risk it with discus. Just FYI - hopefully you won't have any issues.

Time to reactivate this thread! Man, I can't believe it's been nearly 11 months since starting this thread.

Well... NEW HOUSE! And new custom cabinet (without doors on yet... for ease of setting up sump & plumbing.
Attachment 130396

Attachment 130397

So, to the left is part of the kitchen counter that juts out like a peninsula. I'm going to run a line from cold water (beneath sink) towards back wall (wall behind aquarium) that comes out from the wall and will go into 2 aging barrels (which will be concealed in pillars matching aquarium cabinet... one inside and other on opposite side... will put 3 T-connector with ball valve so when one fills up, then tap water directed to other barrel).
I'll have a pump in each barrel plus heater & maybe air pump running.

Question: how do I pump aged water into sump so that it doesn't overfill? If I use a more powerful pump in the sump to pump water into aquarium, then it might outdo the barrel pumps (please help this idiot... me... understand!)

Old water will be a 4th pump (2700 gph) that can can be "non-submersible" so I can leave hooked up to a tube that stays in the tank... sucks out water on my command... pushes it out tubing or/and pvc pipe that goes out the wall to the backyard & into storage barrels away from house for my wife's raised vegetable gardens and for watering lawn. PLEASE let me know if better ideas! Right now I'm figuring I need 4 pumps (2 for aging barrels, 1 for sump, 1 for expelling old water... I'm just striving for not having to move pumps around... just flipping power on & off and turning a t-valve or 2).

Elliot, I started a thread about my Fish Rack.... I describe all of the work to bring utilities to my 'Fish Nook'.

It's been up and running now for over 3 months.

I have a long way to go to neaten it up and hide stuff because I keep adding things (things that have cords, airlines, hoses, etc...)... One strategy was to do everything black. Then all of the equipment blends together and you only notice the glass, water, plants, gravel and fish. Well, that's the theory...

Here's the thread:
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...mini-fishroom)

Hey Pete! I've actually read your thread... but going back to it right now for refresher. Just did 3 stage manual change moving hoses around & pumps... I'm ready to be done with that and get fuxed plumbing project going (at least phase 1 which includes sump and adding ball valve to kitchen sink cold water line beneath sink, run it through 2 adjacent cabinets, out the back wall, into barrels).

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Originally Posted by pastry

(at least phase 1 which includes sump and adding ball valve to kitchen sink cold water line beneath sink, run it through 2 adjacent cabinets, out the back wall, into barrels).

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those were familiar gymnastics for me also.... was so fortunate that 3 closets and 2 bodegas lined up perfectly. :)

Elliot- how did the setup go?