Drain to waste solutions for 7 tables

[Mandelbr0t]

Hey everyone, so I'm trying to figure out the optimal drainage solution for 7 tables, without the benefit of a floor drain. I do have a PVC drain that goes to the main drainage pipe. The drain pipe in the room does not go into the ground, but rather up, across the room, and into the adjacent room where the main drain is. I'm doing drip irrigation (OpenSprinkler and Dosatron controlled) and crop steering (Aroya water content sensor) with minimal runoff, so my idea was to use a small 20 gallon reservoir to have the tables drain in to, with a sump pump whose output would be directly plumbed to the PVC drain in the room. The idea behind the small 20 gallon is that the small size would make it easier when we have to work around/step over when the tables are moved side-to-side for bottom trimming etc. plus the runoff should be relatively minimal.

However, I'm hitting a brick wall on how to actually implement this. My original idea was to use tubing, attached to the framing underneath the tables, to drain directly into the 20 gallon reservoir. Since the bottom frame of the tables is only 18" above the floor and the tubing would need to gravity drain, it would be difficult to get some of the outermost tables to travel that distance with the minimum slope required. In addition, all that tubing would be more things to have to step over/work around when moving the tables.

My next idea was to have the 3 outermost tables on one side drain into a condensate pump, which I could then have the output connect to a 1/2" PVC pipe that would be plumbed directly into the sump pump reservoir, running along the ground underneath the tables. The outermost 3 tables on the other side of the room would do the same thing, with the 4th/middle table having the 20 gallon sump pump reservoir underneath it. However, with condensate pumps I worry about them clogging from the runoff eventually, since they are only designed for condensate from AC's, dehu's etc. Since they only hold half a gallon, it could become a big problem if they ever clogged and overflowed.

Option #3 would be doing the same thing as above, except instead of condensate pumps, utilize sump pumps that would be more able to tolerate the runoff. Have outermost 3 tables on either end drain into a reservoir with a sump pump inside, and then have both plumbed into the main reservoir (PVC pipe running along the ground), which would then push everything out to the main drain.
I greatly appreciate any help/advice/feedback!

 

[PahPahCee]

Could we get a pic drain and maybe of the room? Might help us understand your obstacles.

 

[Mandelbr0t]

That's where the drain begins (roughly between the 3rd and 4th table) and where it routes out of the room, which was the only real route it could take to reach the existing main drain, while also staying out of the way. There's about a 3' space between the end of the tables and beginning of the wall

 

[gristle]

And why don't you want to hard pipe and reroute?
Less water over my head/equipment, less pumps, less real estate loss.
Beautiful build so far!

 

[Aqua Man]

Drain to a single reservoir… use a sump or other pump capable to push it where you need from there

 

[Mandelbr0t]

@gristle Do you mean hard pipe the drains from each table? The main problem I see from that is when I need to push the tables apart to get in between them, I don't know how to make the PVC pipe movable like that. That's why I was thinking of the tubing, which I could create some sort of slack with, although it's unclear to me how that would best work too, since it would still need to gravity drain.
If you meant PVC plumb the drain itself, I have done that as you can see in the 2nd picture of my first reply (it runs horizontal along the wall, then up and over across the room; you can see the unconnected entry point facing downwards.)

And thank you, I worked hard on this. I had never done much more than hammer in a nail to hang a picture before starting this project, and it's my first grow (worked with growers for a long time though.) Did everything except the initial framing and drywall by myself. It's been a long journey but getting close to the finish line

 

[Mandelbr0t]

@Aqua Man My main concern with running tubing to a single reservoir is having to step over all the tubing when I need to pull the tables apart. Since it would need to gravity drain, it would need to be suspended unless I'm missing something (which is possible.) I could easily foresee sometime down the road me or someone else forgetting they are there, moving something around and not focusing, etc. and it pulls the tubing down, they trip, etc.

The advantage I see with the multiple reservoirs pumping to a single main reservoir, which then pumps into the drain itself, is that I could run PVC underneath the tables length-wise to connect to the main reservoir (along the ground) minimizing the tripping hazard in the future. Below is a picture of how they would need to run to illustrate my concern.

Edit: After trying to diagram out the configuration utilizing 2 "feeder" reservoir drains, PVC plumbed and pumped via sump pumps on the ground back to the main reservoir, I realized I would still have at least one end of the tables where (gravity drain) tubing would have to cross the space between the adjacent tables, so I would still have to either step over that side, or just only access the tables from the other side and try to avoid the tubing. Hmm.