Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
That's fine to have the bottom of the screen underwater, I get that. What I'm saying is that with the primary drain where you have it now, with enough flow, half of your screen will likely be underwater because of the dynamics of a side outlet under high flow
Once you start to get good growth, that's going to start trapping water (3D growth, you want that) which could raise that even further, and the part of the screen that is always underwater is not going to get as much growth as the part that is above the water (with the exception of when it starts trapping water due to 3D growth)
If you put high secondary drain all the way to the bottom of that side panel, you'll still have the bottom of the screen submerged but you'll have a larger "active" waterfall area.
It may not end up working like I describe, I'm guessing at this point that you've tested it, and with the right flow rate, it might be OK.
I look at yours and think that there is an opportunity to made the primary drain really low and then put a valve on it to make it like a siphon, run very quiet, and have the left side drain act as a secondary (there would be a trickle in that all the time)
Then if you do have a clog in the primary side (very unlikely but it can happen) then you have a low secondary which is more effective and failsafe, because even though a side drain isn't as effective as a bottom drain, if you have it low enough, then with a sufficient "head" level above it, it's likely to close off, flush out the air, and purge the box. That would tend to repeat, which would be an audible indication that something is wrong.
The high secondary simply isn't going to work that way, at least, I don't think it will...it's more likely that it will only partially flow but never close off and flush, and while that would help in a partial clog of the primary drain, if you ever have a worst case scenario 100% blockage event of the primary, I think your box is going to overflow. Even if the high secondary does kick over, it has a limited range of operation before the siphon breaks, and then flow has to build up, and that is related to the water level across it.
What can happen is that as the water level increases quickly after a flush, air will get trapped in the elbow and result in a partial airlock, and the drain will never actually flush out and purge.
^^ this is actually what I feel happens with all side drains...I had a 1" side drain on a uniseal, at a low level, as a secondary to a tuned bottom drain and the box would fill up all the way to a constant level at least 4" above the top of the uniseal and it would never flush. In fact, it would hardly even flow....partial airlock is much more flow prohibitive than you would imagine.
Once you start to get good growth, that's going to start trapping water (3D growth, you want that) which could raise that even further, and the part of the screen that is always underwater is not going to get as much growth as the part that is above the water (with the exception of when it starts trapping water due to 3D growth)
If you put high secondary drain all the way to the bottom of that side panel, you'll still have the bottom of the screen submerged but you'll have a larger "active" waterfall area.
It may not end up working like I describe, I'm guessing at this point that you've tested it, and with the right flow rate, it might be OK.
I look at yours and think that there is an opportunity to made the primary drain really low and then put a valve on it to make it like a siphon, run very quiet, and have the left side drain act as a secondary (there would be a trickle in that all the time)
Then if you do have a clog in the primary side (very unlikely but it can happen) then you have a low secondary which is more effective and failsafe, because even though a side drain isn't as effective as a bottom drain, if you have it low enough, then with a sufficient "head" level above it, it's likely to close off, flush out the air, and purge the box. That would tend to repeat, which would be an audible indication that something is wrong.
The high secondary simply isn't going to work that way, at least, I don't think it will...it's more likely that it will only partially flow but never close off and flush, and while that would help in a partial clog of the primary drain, if you ever have a worst case scenario 100% blockage event of the primary, I think your box is going to overflow. Even if the high secondary does kick over, it has a limited range of operation before the siphon breaks, and then flow has to build up, and that is related to the water level across it.
What can happen is that as the water level increases quickly after a flush, air will get trapped in the elbow and result in a partial airlock, and the drain will never actually flush out and purge.
^^ this is actually what I feel happens with all side drains...I had a 1" side drain on a uniseal, at a low level, as a secondary to a tuned bottom drain and the box would fill up all the way to a constant level at least 4" above the top of the uniseal and it would never flush. In fact, it would hardly even flow....partial airlock is much more flow prohibitive than you would imagine.
