Help! Water noise irritating wife.

[Wiskey]

I've been in this hobby a really long time, but right now I'm dealing with something which threatens my involvement. I have an SPS tank with a Herbie overflow, but sometimes the main drain gets a little plugged and causes water to trickle down the secondary drain and driving my wife nuts.

Having my wife adjust the valve is not an option, and I use a internal/external low profile box so I only have so much room to work with in the overflow.

Right now I use a return speed of about 500 GPH on a 75G tank.

Can anyone think of anything I can do to ensure that the drain to the sump is always dead silent without any exceptions? I mean no water sounds of any kind, ever.

I'm willing to reduce the return speed if you think that might help, but I think the water is going to trickle regardless of speed.

I'd also be willing to stop with SPS and start keeping LPS if it buys me more options and keeps me in the hobby.

Can I re-route my plumbing? Make it diagonal instead of straight down? Would a different overflow make it easier to keep the tank quiet? Or a different tank?

Not having a sump is also not an option because the skimmer needs to be inside of my sound-proofed stand to keep it's noise level acceptable.

Thank you for any advice you might have,
Whiskey

 

[outy]

reduce flow for starters and see.

if thats a no go then try plumbing differently

 

[billdogg]

^^^That^^^

Or just trade in the wife.

 

[outy]

sometimes the main drain gets a little plugged and causes water to trickle down the secondary drain and driving my wife nuts.

Small piece of foam in the tube should deaden the noise.

I have foam jammed in the top of my durso's so the air noise is quiet, they need cleaning about every two years.

 

[wrott]

Have you tried to reduce the trickle noise, maybe put a sock or stocking-hose tied to the end?

 

[Wiskey]

Have you tried to reduce the trickle noise, maybe put a sock or stocking-hose tied to the end?

I have, it's just a pipe that is sticking straight up, and the water goes down the pipe and makes splashing noises when it hits the elbow which kicks it into the stand to go into the sump. It is submerged just about 1/4" under water in the sump.

I've also tried putting airline down the pipe so the water can run down that. It helped some, but not enough.

Thank you,
Whiskey

 

[Wiskey]

Small piece of foam in the tube should deaden the noise.

I have foam jammed in the top of my durso's so the air noise is quiet, they need cleaning about every two years.

It's not an air noise, it's a water trickling noise. The water falls straight down the pipe and splashes when it hits the 90 which kicks it into the stand.

It's a Herbie, the main drain is silent, the emergency drain is never used, it's the trickle drain that water just barely leaks down which is the issue.

Thank you,
Whiskey

 

[herbklee]

Help! Water noise irritating wife.

oops my bad

 

[herbklee]

reduce flow for starters and see.



if thats a no go then try plumbing differently

+1


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[outy]

It's not an air noise, it's a water trickling noise. The water falls straight down the pipe and splashes when it hits the 90 which kicks it into the stand.

It's a Herbie, the main drain is silent, the emergency drain is never used, it's the trickle drain that water just barely leaks down which is the issue.

Thank you,
Whiskey

I understand bud. use a piece of foam up top to isolate the noise in pipe, use a small piece at bottom to soften landing

 

[Lsufan]

I’m not sure dialing the flow down will help. Then u would just have to close the valve more on the syphon & when there is flunctuation it would do the same thing.

Are u running the emergency dry or are u constantly having a trickle go through it? What size plumbing do u have on the drains?

It sounds like it has smaller plumbing which can’t have hardly any water or it gets loud & having a 90 instead of a 45 makes it worse. Anything more then barely a trickle & it will be loud. The only way to fix that would be to use larger pipe & do away with any 90’s in the plumbing.

The only way to insure that it is always silent without ever having to adjust the valve is to run a beananimal instead of a herbie & plumb it correctly with the right size plumbing. I wouldnt setup a tank over 20 gallons without a beananimal. I havnt touched my valve in a couple years.

If u don’t want to go that far then u could try a couple of the bandaids mentioned above. The foam outy mentioned will help some & u may find it to be enough. U could try keeping the emergency dry at all times unless the syphon actually gets clogged. U would have to eighther raise the emergency or lower the water level inside the overflow so it can have a small amount of flunctuation without affecting the emergency. That may not work eighther because the water level inside the overflow may still rise to where the emergency is taking water if the flunctuation is more then a small amount. If still no luck the only other option I see is to enlarge the pipe & replace the 90 with a 45, then run the pipe on a 45 degree angle until it gets to where it needs to go into the sump & install another 45 to get back square with the sump. That would allow more flow & remain quiet, so a small flunctuation won’t make it so loud.

 

[wrott]

What about cutting out the PVC and use vinyl tubing for e-overflow?

 

[DreadCapn]

A couple of ideas for you:

#1, I would try this first, as it's the easiest/cheapest...change your plumbing between tank and sump from pvc to reinforced flexible tubing - that should provide enough softening to the curves to eliminate that splash sound.

#2 tune your return pump so that you don't need a valve restricting flow on the main drain at all. Since you mention that you get some clogging in the valve, this should eliminate that part of it. You may require a dc pump with better GPH for this if you don't have one.

p.s. It sounds like you have a BA overflow (3 pipes), not that it makes any difference in this case.

p.p.s. This isn't about the noise the fish tank is making. GL to you.

 

[heathlindner25]

Ear plugs for the wife?

 

[greengeco82]

New wife.
Or cut the full siphon pvc down, so it is further away from the water surface. You don't want it sucking any air.

 

[Nick30G]

Typically you want to use 45 elbows rather then 90s so you can reduce noise and backpressure. Also you should put your lines coming out of your overflow box 1' below your sump water line.

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[IdahoCindy]

"p.p.s. This isn't about the noise the fish tank is making. GL to you."

This is so true. The comments about your wife were in jest but actually the real problem. As long as you have an unwilling partner, your reefing days are doomed. What will happen if a "real" problem arises?

 

[sde1500]

Or just trade in the wife.

Yea might be time to get a newer model :lmao:

The comments about your wife were in jest but actually the real problem. As long as you have an unwilling partner, your reefing days are doomed. What will happen if a "real" problem arises?

Being a little hyperbolic don't you think? People can find a noise irritating. Hell, how many people here require their tank to be near silent so they don't have to hear it? My tank makes more noise than I'd like for sure, sometimes it actually annoys me too. I don't think this has anything to do with the wife, beyond her being the one finding the noise annoying.

Can I offer the simple solution of keep the drain clean better? If it only makes noise and annoys when it starts to plug up, do better cleaning it.

 

[BigDave]

I put a piece of acrylic over the top of the outer box on my overflow. It killed over half the sound my overflow was making by redirecting the sound back down into the box. If your outer box is open to the air, you can try this.

I also put foam panels inside my tank's stand to deaden sounds of the water in the sump.

If the issue is the main drain getting partially clogged, then I second the idea of putting a pre-filter on the drain to keep it from clogging.

My wife is not the biggest fan of the tank either, so keeping the WAF high goes a long way to happiness.

 

[DarkSkyForever]

Can you replace the 90 degree bend with two 45 degree bends so it doesn't hit the pipe at a 90 degree angle? That might help.

You could look into flexible piping instead of hard plumbing as well, a gradual turn might remove the noise all together.