Beananimal Critique

[mr11]

Hey, so I've roughly put together my beananimal plumbing (nothing is glued yet) and I'm looking for some critiques. I still need to figure out the john guest fitting, I'm not sure how to make that work or what alternatives I may use. Anything I did obviously wrong here? Appreciate it. 

[AlanM]

Looks great to me.  You don't need the ball valve on the open channel, but it's not hurting anything.  

 

You'll be aiming for a water level in the box right at the bottom of the horizontal part of the center open channel drain in your overflow box as you tune the gate valve on the full siphon. I wouldn't stress about the John Guest fitting.  It would likely work out fine if you just drill a small hole in the top of the open channel center overflow.  When the water level rises up above the open channel fittings it will plug that hole by putting it underwater and will cause the box to flush from the open channel.

 

By the way, you don't have to glue anything inside the box.  Just press-fit it.  It will be fine.  And easy to clean later.  Glue the stuff outside the box, though. 8)

[AlanM]

BTW, if you did want to drill and screw in a JG fitting with a length of RO/DI tubing inside the box to do it exactly how BeanAnimal says I can probably find my 1/4" NPT drill and tap for you to use since you're local.

[mr11]

Awesome thanks Alan. So if the water level isn't where I want it I can just raise the center open channel drain? If I want to do the "hole in the pipe" vs john guest I would need the hole in the fitting to be lower than the emergency drain correct? 

 

And I bought some compression fittings, does anyone know if these are supposed to be glued in? They have rubber gaskets one each end. 

[AlanM]

Yep.  You can raise the center open channel up a little higher to set a higher water level in the box, but I doubt you need to.  Also you're right that the hole that converts from open channel to backup full siphon would need to be lower than the emergency drain.  I think the levels of your current pipes look pretty good.  The difference between your full siphon and the open channel dictates how tightly you are going to have to control your gate valve in order to keep it silent.  

 

BeanAnimal has his all the same height, which works fine, but I like a good bit of height difference between them so you can run the full siphon without any water at all going down the open channel for most of the time, then as it gets clogged up the open channel will start trickling.  By the time you hear that trickle you can open the full siphon a bit to adjust it or clear it out and close it back down.

 

I have the same gate valve you do, and about once a month I open it about 4 turns to let some extra goop out, then close it back down again until the box stops flushing.  In 3 years I've never cleaned out the pipes and probably never will.  

[AlanM]

Oh, and I'm not sure what the compression fittings are or what you'd use them for.  If they're PVC fittings I wouldn't use them.  They're probably for plumbing drainage.  I'd glue all the PVC rather than using a compression fitting and a nut.  If you want to make the plumbing removable you can get a few unions, but in my experience they are just leak points and add lots of bulk to the plumbing.  Some people like them though.

[mr11]

Thank again! These are compression fittings, used to repair broken PVC I believe. They were recommended on R2R to make the plumbing removable as you mention but also allow you to rotate the entire plumbing apparatus downstream from that junction. 

 

 

 

[mr11]

While we are at it, any opinions on this return line plumbing? 

 

 

[zygote2k]

your return line may not have equal flow from both sides due to one leg being almost twice as long as the other. Water takes and flows the easiest path. An easy correction is to place a gate or ball valve on the short return line.

FWIW, ball valves shouldn't be used on bean animals drains due to the fact that they generate a significant amount of torque on the pipe, which can cause the bulkhead to leak at the box. Gate valves have zero torque on the pipe.

[mr11]

Appreciate it. Should I just replumb the whole return, try and even things up a little bit, or will it preform well enough with the ball valve trick?

 

I have a gate valve on the main siphon. The ball is on the open channel and anytime there's water moving through it it will remain fully open. To be honest I'm not sure why I put it on at all except I heard a couple people mention they have one so I just added it.

[AlanM]

Rob is right about the returns being uneven.  You can even out the return by putting that Tee fitting that is on the bottom-left on the middle of the bottom rather than at one end.  Then run some horizontal over to it from the return pump location.  That makes the two paths symmetric.

[DaveS]

Just my 2 cents here:

 

Add the gate valves on the return, it's the only way to ensure you will get the flow you want.  Sometimes you may want more return on one side, who knows.

 

Are the elbows inside the overflow important?  I never had any in mine.  The full siphon standpipe will be dead silent and the 2nd one should only have a trickle of water going down at most so it's pretty quiet too. 

[mr11]

I'll rework the return a little bit today. So ball or gate on the return? 

 

From what I understand you only really need the elbows on the open channel so you can get a partial siphon with the air vent out the top of the elbow. It's not required for the full siphon or emergency although I think it makes it harder for critters to climb in. 

[s2nhle]

Also the emergency pipe is too tall it is almost to the top of the tank. gate valve will provide precise water flow but more expensive. ball valve is ok. I have used ball valves for years without any problem.

[mr11]

Yeah the emergency pipe is getting a trim. 

 

Is there a way to test this overflow without filling the whole tank? If I have to re-plumb I'd rather do it on an empty tank. 

[AlanM]

Yep, run your return temporarily directly into the overflow box without first going through the tank if you can.  No need to get the tank involved. 8)  Some may leak back through the slots before the full siphon gets going, though.

[s2nhle]

since you have two separate overflow, it will be hard to test without filling up the whole tank.  

[mr11]

Thanks for the feedback. Filled her up last night and aside from one easily fixed bulkhead leak everything works great. I had to shorten my main overflow as there wasn't quite enough difference between the height of my main and open channels to develop a siphon. 

[madweazl]

Thanks for the feedback. Filled her up last night and aside from one easily fixed bulkhead leak everything works great. I had to shorten my main overflow as there wasn't quite enough difference between the height of my main and open channels to develop a siphon. 

 

The purpose of the vent line on the open channel (set to a height below the emergency but above the main) is to prevent it from going full siphon until desired. This will cause the main channel to go full siphon provided the stand pipe entering the sump on the main channel isnt longer than that of the open channel. Might be a little trickier to tune with them at different levels but it will work out fine in the end I imagine. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by madweazl

[s2nhle]

So, how is everything?

[mr11]

Awesome. It's dead quiet and still no leaks  . I'm in the middle of a blackout to get rid of this algae but hopefully I'll get pics up soon

[madweazl]

It really is a brilliant system.