Bodai
New member
Hello all,
I have spent a fair bit of time reading through the threads about herbie and bean animal overflows.
Like many others, I have a 135 gallon tank with dual megaflows. The solution explained in this youtube video seems very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYhAp6GFNz8
I am using a basement sump with an Iwaki 55RLT, I estimate my flow will be just over 800GPH total. This is faster than what the original durso is rated for (600GPH), but probably well within herbie full-siphon capability, although I don't see too many posts on how much that can actually handle. But basically, if I lost one overflow on one side, the surviving one might not handle it... I don't know, looks as though the durso would handle it but maybe "flush"... Going with TWO herbies as in the video seems like it might be enough... should I just do that and declare victory?
Alternatively of course I have seen the talk of using 3 of the 4 holes across the two weirs to do bean animal, and the 4th as a return, with some question as to if it still works split across two weirs. I am thinking if you did that, maybe you would put the full siphon and the dry emergency in one weir, then the 2nd stage and return in the 2nd one, so they both had some flow. But I have not seen many examples of people doing this exactly.
I have also not seen say, putting four durso's in, using all four holes. Probably that would be loud I guess.
One other option I was considering was this:
- Add two external overflows, and hang them behind the existing weirs, and put their U-shaped siphons into the existing weirs so that they are not seen in the display tank. These would be the type capable of roughly 600GPH each or perhaps I could get a bit more, the overflows themselves could use either herbie or bean animal.
- The two overflows become the "primary" path back to the sump
- Then, in the existing weir, one pipe becomes the "dry emergency" and the other is the return... or hell, go over the side and have two dry emergencies (for a total of four of them). Or maybe redundant return pump.
- The U-shaped siphon tubes could go deeply into the tank weirs so they are unlikely to ever break siphon, you could also have a weir in the overflow box between those siphon tubes and the one's in the box.
Hoping to get some advice on this
For the piping to the basement, I would have four drain pipes:
- one each for the full siphons
- one that combines the "stage twos"
- one that combines the "dry emergencies"
- And I could use all flex PVC so that you could run a brush through them from time to time.
-JCL
I have spent a fair bit of time reading through the threads about herbie and bean animal overflows.
Like many others, I have a 135 gallon tank with dual megaflows. The solution explained in this youtube video seems very good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYhAp6GFNz8
I am using a basement sump with an Iwaki 55RLT, I estimate my flow will be just over 800GPH total. This is faster than what the original durso is rated for (600GPH), but probably well within herbie full-siphon capability, although I don't see too many posts on how much that can actually handle. But basically, if I lost one overflow on one side, the surviving one might not handle it... I don't know, looks as though the durso would handle it but maybe "flush"... Going with TWO herbies as in the video seems like it might be enough... should I just do that and declare victory?
Alternatively of course I have seen the talk of using 3 of the 4 holes across the two weirs to do bean animal, and the 4th as a return, with some question as to if it still works split across two weirs. I am thinking if you did that, maybe you would put the full siphon and the dry emergency in one weir, then the 2nd stage and return in the 2nd one, so they both had some flow. But I have not seen many examples of people doing this exactly.
I have also not seen say, putting four durso's in, using all four holes. Probably that would be loud I guess.
One other option I was considering was this:
- Add two external overflows, and hang them behind the existing weirs, and put their U-shaped siphons into the existing weirs so that they are not seen in the display tank. These would be the type capable of roughly 600GPH each or perhaps I could get a bit more, the overflows themselves could use either herbie or bean animal.
- The two overflows become the "primary" path back to the sump
- Then, in the existing weir, one pipe becomes the "dry emergency" and the other is the return... or hell, go over the side and have two dry emergencies (for a total of four of them). Or maybe redundant return pump.
- The U-shaped siphon tubes could go deeply into the tank weirs so they are unlikely to ever break siphon, you could also have a weir in the overflow box between those siphon tubes and the one's in the box.
Hoping to get some advice on this
For the piping to the basement, I would have four drain pipes:
- one each for the full siphons
- one that combines the "stage twos"
- one that combines the "dry emergencies"
- And I could use all flex PVC so that you could run a brush through them from time to time.
-JCL
