.OptimusPrime. January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 So over the new year weekend, I drilled and plumbed a 40B with an external overflow that I've been sitting on. 3x3/4" drains(open channel, emergency, full siphon w/gate valve) with an unrestricted eheim 1262 with two 3/4" over the top returns. I can't seem to get overflow to be quiet and not constantly be sucking air from one of the drains. Depending on what I've changed I can't even begin to close the full siphon valve because the water level in side the overflow is already too high so that the open and emergency channels handle all the water. I've tried everything from adjusting the pipe heights in the box and at the sump discharge to switching the drains in different positions. I even went as far as to try and cap one drain and run it as a herbie style still and the water in the outer-box started to flow out. The only thing I can think of is the return pump is too strong for the overflow and needs to be dialed back in order for the overflow to play nice. Is this the case? I'm open to any other ideas/suggestions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOSKN5 January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Even with the gate valve wide open on the main drain? It's too high? I have a feeling you nailed it.. the return pump is too strong.. I only run about 500 gph if that on mine... the single drain can't keep up is my guess... You can add a ball or gate valve on the return line from the pump to slow it down? Or T it off and allow some of the return to go back in the sump... Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Is the full siphon gate valve wide open? If so it's possible that the pump is too strong for the 3/4" full siphon pipe. Also, is it possible that you're not purging all of the air from the full siphon? Does it go basically straight down or is there a horizontal section? How far under the water surface in the sump does it end at? It should end just barely under the sump's water surface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 3, 2017 Author Share January 3, 2017 (edited) Even with the gate valve wide open on the main drain? It's too high? I have a feeling you nailed it.. the return pump is too strong.. I only run about 500 gph if that on mine... the single drain can't keep up is my guess... You can add a ball or gate valve on the return line from the pump to slow it down? Or T it off and allow some of the return to go back in the sump... Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk yup. I have two elbows on both the full siphon and open channel. you know to get that upside down U shape and the water height in the overflow box is almost to the brim of the emergency overflow with the full siphon channel completely open. I can. I figured I would ask to see if I was doing something wrong outside of the pump itself. Is the full siphon gate valve wide open? If so it's possible that the pump is too strong for the 3/4" full siphon pipe. Also, is it possible that you're not purging all of the air from the full siphon? Does it go basically straight down or is there a horizontal section? How far under the water surface in the sump does it end at? It should end just barely under the sump's water surface. yep. full siphon is open completely. Its pretty much straight down into the sump. I have it to probably 3/4" or less below the water level. It was originally 1"+ as you can see in the link below: http://imgur.com/a/WNUC5 Full siphon -> emergency -> open channel - no pipe on the emergency cause I want to hear it lol Edited January 3, 2017 by .OptimusPrime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOSKN5 January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Have you tried it without the elbows up top in the overflow box? Just straight pipes? Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 3, 2017 Author Share January 3, 2017 I know I have. I don't recall what the specific outcome was but I'm pretty sure it wasn't good. I've tried everything I can think of minus the valve for the pump. I'll retry the straight pipe again and report back when i get the chance. The pipe height for the full siphon and open drains don't matter right? I have pipe sticking out of the bulkhead in the full siphon at 1", open channel 3" and the emergency at like 4.75". the box is only 5" high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 I just set mine up in Oct with 3 one inch lines. They way it works best for me is to throttle the pump until the full siphon line is handling the draining by itself. It's hard to get it exact so some also goes through the open channel, but if you aim for matching what the siphon can handle (and a height you are happy with in the tank) you should have it pretty close to perfect. Mine is ultra quiet. Even if you have to throttle the flow to the tank, with a 40gal tank the amount of flow you will get with a 3/4 siphon should be more than the general recommended 5x turnover per hour. There are charts floating around online so you can double check to see what the rates are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 I did have to play with the pipe heights a bit because with my setup it affects the level in the tank. Once I had the siphon figured out I made the open channel about 1/2 inch higher and then the emergency about 1 inch higher. Oh, also I recently took my siphon line completely out to help make sure that stuff that is skimmed goes down the drain and doesn't just accumulate on the surface of the overflow box. Someone on here recommended that and it seems to be working okay. BUT if you do it, depending on your setup the tank might drain down more than you want it to during a power outage...So just double check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 3, 2017 Author Share January 3, 2017 I just set mine up in Oct with 3 one inch lines. They way it works best for me is to throttle the pump until the full siphon line is handling the draining by itself. It's hard to get it exact so some also goes through the open channel, but if you aim for matching what the siphon can handle (and a height you are happy with in the tank) you should have it pretty close to perfect. Mine is ultra quiet. Even if you have to throttle the flow to the tank, with a 40gal tank the amount of flow you will get with a 3/4 siphon should be more than the general recommended 5x turnover per hour. There are charts floating around online so you can double check to see what the rates are. Do/Did you have water running into your open channel? Do you have the elbows on or just straight pipe? If you have elbows did you drill the little air hole in the open channel? I did have to play with the pipe heights a bit because with my setup it affects the level in the tank. Once I had the siphon figured out I made the open channel about 1/2 inch higher and then the emergency about 1 inch higher. Oh, also I recently took my siphon line completely out to help make sure that stuff that is skimmed goes down the drain and doesn't just accumulate on the surface of the overflow box. Someone on here recommended that and it seems to be working okay. BUT if you do it, depending on your setup the tank might drain down more than you want it to during a power outage...So just double check. I've noticed the height thing in the DT as well. It's a little higher than I would like it to be. Can you explain the second part of your comment where you take out the siphon line? I'm not following lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Your location says Rockville/Martinsburg. Is this tank in Rockville or Martinsburg? If in Rockville I could come and look at it. An unrestricted Eheim 1262 with 5 feet of head can do 600 gph, apparently. Interior dimension of 3/4" PVC is 0.82 inches, so using the BeanAnimal calculator at http://www.beananimal.com/articles/hydraulics-for-the-aquarist.aspx you should be able to get 1500+ gph through that pipe before frictional losses assuming it has purged out all of the air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 3, 2017 Author Share January 3, 2017 tank is in martinsburg but I appreciate the offer to help. I'm going to try dial down the pump some and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 (edited) Do/Did you have water running into your open channel? Do you have the elbows on or just straight pipe? If you have elbows did you drill the little air hole in the open channel? I've noticed the height thing in the DT as well. It's a little higher than I would like it to be. Can you explain the second part of your comment where you take out the siphon line? I'm not following lol Here are before and after pics of the removed siphon... Yes, I have the elbows on both the siphon and open channel and I did drill a hole in the open channel pipe and there is flow occasionally. I tweak the flow into the tank because sometimes the water is too high and stuff on the surface doesn't get through the strainer because the water level is higher than the strainer opening sometimes. In this picture I have shut the pump off so that the water would drop so you could see the strainer. If the water gets higher than the strainer then yes it will run through the open channel. I haven't perfected the level but it's okay so I've left it alone for now. Just yesterday I added the little tube to the open channel so that it would actually going to siphon mode when the water got too high so then what started happening was about once every 10 minutes it would actually go into siphon mode, then the level would drop a bit and then the open channel would gurgle until it settled down and the water rose up a little bit so it almost worked better with just a hole in the elbow. I have played with a little tube of it and I can change how often it goes into siphon mode but again it might be better to just remove the little hose. I have my pump throttled back and it feeds some other stuff so the flow tends to change as opposed to a system with a pump that has no throttling. Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk Edited January 3, 2017 by Rob A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Rob A, water should just barely trickle down the open channel, so I'd try to tune it so that the water level in the back box is just above the bottom of the horizontal part of the two elbows for the open channel. You can tune that water level in the outside box by adjusting the gate valve on the full siphon. You can tune the height of the water in the front box by turning the return pump up or dow. You definitely want it to fall through the slots into the box so that the surface gets renewed. Maybe you'd need to lower your open channel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Rob A, water should just barely trickle down the open channel, so I'd try to tune it so that the water level in the back box is just above the bottom of the horizontal part of the two elbows for the open channel. You can tune that water level in the outside box by adjusting the gate valve on the full siphon. You can tune the height of the water in the front box by turning the return pump up or dow. You definitely want it to fall through the slots into the box so that the surface gets renewed. Maybe you'd need to lower your open channel? Normally it is okay, but the tweaking of the supply can mess it up a little. I'm doing some weird stuff with my overflow too, the main siphon splits in half and one half goes to the sump and another half goes through a rollermat filter (the rollermat can't handle all of the flow). I'm still playing around with it. I have a ball valve in the supply line that throttles the pump and I think I'm going to cut it out and put in one of those nice gate valves for more precise control. Siphon control valve is just wide open all the time now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Sent from my SM-N900P using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 Ok. Any number of things could be happening to RobA's full siphon line with that horizontal section plus the rolling mat section. No idea what might be making it unstable. Typical setups are fairly set and forget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronl January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 How deep into the sump water is your siphon line going. Based on the pic of your sump it appears to be about 3-5" below where your water line would be. It should be less than 1" into the water to allow the siphons line to fully purge. If it's too deep, it creates to much back pressure and can make it so it can't purge all of the air to create a full siphon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM January 3, 2017 Share January 3, 2017 How deep into the sump water is your siphon line going. Based on the pic of your sump it appears to be about 3-5" below where your water line would be. It should be less than 1" into the water to allow the siphons line to fully purge. If it's too deep, it creates to much back pressure and can make it so it can't purge all of the air to create a full siphon. This is true. It needs to go under the sump water less than the water surface in the overflow box goes above the intake of the full siphon pipe. Otherwise it won't purge correctly because it can't push the air out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 4, 2017 Author Share January 4, 2017 (edited) What determines the water level in the DT? Right now the stand pipe heights are as follows: full siphon - lowest possible in box. the elbow is almost touching the bottom of the box open channel - 3" from the bottom of the box with elbow emergency - 5" from bottom of the box. no elbow. The picture I linked is what drain lines looked like originally when they were first plumbed. They have since been shortened to about maybe 3/4" or less inside the water for both the full siphon and open channel. Should I use a gate or ball valve on the return? Whats the best way add it in? Can I just split the vinyl tubing in half and use pvc cement? Edited January 4, 2017 by .OptimusPrime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 4, 2017 Share January 4, 2017 Ok. Any number of things could be happening to RobA's full siphon line with that horizontal section plus the rolling mat section. No idea what might be making it unstable. Typical setups are fairly set and forget. If I don't use the little tube on the overflow it is pretty stable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 4, 2017 Share January 4, 2017 How deep into the sump water is your siphon line going. Based on the pic of your sump it appears to be about 3-5" below where your water line would be. It should be less than 1" into the water to allow the siphons line to fully purge. If it's too deep, it creates to much back pressure and can make it so it can't purge all of the air to create a full siphon. Sorry, it's not a good pic. None of the lines are more than an inch under water, and frequently i move the overflow line to the side (it has a threaded joint) which raises it out of the water, that way i can see and hear if any thing is running through it.. I stop the pump every day for feeding and it all restarts with no issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob A January 4, 2017 Share January 4, 2017 What determines the water level in the DT? Right now the stand pipe heights are as follows: full siphon - lowest possible in box. the elbow is almost touching the bottom of the box open channel - 3" from the bottom of the box with elbow emergency - 5" from bottom of the box. no elbow. The picture I linked is what drain lines looked like originally when they were first plumbed. They have since been shortened to about maybe 3/4" or less inside the water for both the full siphon and open channel. Should I use a gate or ball valve on the return? Whats the best way add it in? Can I just split the vinyl tubing in half and use pvc cement? If you match your flow into the tank with what your main siphon can remove by itself then the height of the water can be adjusted by either slightly closing the Valve that you have under your siphon or by raising the height of the siphon. Then just make sure that the other two lines are capable of draining the tank without it overflowing in the event that your main siphon gets blocked. I'm not seeing a link to your layout but if I had to choose between the ball valve and the gate valve to throttle the supply I like the gate valve because you can fine-tune it easier than the ball valve. I'm going to change mine to the gate valve. Also I guess you could just remove the siphon pipe like I showed in that one picture and just turn up the flow from your pump until the water height is where you want it and then just put your second and third pipes at the right height that they need to be to prevent the tank from overflowing if the siphon line gets blocked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 4, 2017 Author Share January 4, 2017 (edited) Nobody seems to have a threaded 3/4" gate valve in stock so might have to wait a few days before trying the reduced flow. Grainger seems to be the cheapest and soonest to have it without charging a shipping fee. Edited January 4, 2017 by .OptimusPrime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOSKN5 January 4, 2017 Share January 4, 2017 You can use a ball valve on the return.. as it doesn't really require the fine tuning that the drain does.. IMO... Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.OptimusPrime. January 4, 2017 Author Share January 4, 2017 (edited) hmmm... guess I'll be doing that. I know stores usually have them in stock. Edited January 4, 2017 by .OptimusPrime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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