How to fix loud overflow pipes?

[ReefsandGeeks]

Yesterday I decided to upgrade my overflow plumbing from my display to the sump. I made 2 distinct changes to the plumbing. The first change, was I switched from using 2 bulkhead overflow strainers attached to some 90's that were angled inside the aquarium to set my desired water level to a "Flyguy" overflow. The Flyguy overflow is basically a poor man version of a coast to coast overflow made with only pvc pipe with a slit cut lengthwise to allow good surface skimming. I first made this change, and tested it and it worked fantastically. It skimmed the surface way better than just using the overflow strainers, and when the return pump is shut off, much less water drains into the sump.

The next change was outside of the aquarium. Originally, I had a corrugated drain hose connected to my display's bulkheads which ran down to my sump. I wanted to switch to rigid PVC because I was afraid there was a chance the hoses would pull out of my filter sock and cause a flood. I also wanted to use unions to be able to easily remove a portion of the drain line for easy sock removal and change out.

After I changed the overflow lines to PVC, I am now getting a loud gurgling sound coming from the overflow. It can be heard mainly from the Flyguy overflow. What can I do to help eliminate this noise? I know it's not the Flyguy part of the set up because that worked very quietly when I was still using the corrugated hose. But when I switched from the corrugated hose, it became much louder. I suspect it's coming from right after the bulkhead where the overflow turns 90 and starts to drop toward the sump.

This is my first time with a PVC drain setup on my tank, so any advice would be appreciated. I did glue in all of the joints, but could make modifications as needed if I did something wrong.

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

Pics

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[bluerrpilot]

You have both air and water going down the same drain, this will create the gurgling noise

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

The thing that has me confused is there was no noise when I had the corrugated hose. I had the same drain rate and same overflow design. Only started making noise when I added PVC drain lines to the outside portion on the tank.

Any idea where the noise would be coming from exactly? Would it be from the T right after the bulkhead, or would it be from the 3' vertical drop of PVC? By the way, the PVC is not a perfect straight drop down. it is maybe a 10 degree angle to the side so the ends of the pipe would go straight into the sump area.

I'm wondering if it would be worth while to cut the vertical pVC section, replace with the corrugated hose for the vertical drop, and just go to the sump from the hose and leave the T in place.

 

[travis32]

I use a bean animal style overflow. one with a elbow that starts a siphon and an emergency pipe without an elbow. If I close the elbow pipe so all water flow is down the emergency drown, it makes extremely loud gurgling sounds. (I do this so I know if something is wrong with the primary.)

If I want to cancel the gurgling, I have to make it so water just trickles down, or use a full siphon so the entire pipe is submerged and no air is sucked down with the pipe.

In your case, you probably don't have enough water flow to fill the pipes completely in a siphon. So, if the pipe is half full of air and half full of water, it'll gurgle as the air tries to escape while the water is falling. Removing the 90 and straightening the pipe some so it's a gradual fall, could emulate a gentle stream of water falling down the pipe. No guarantees, really depends on the flow rate and how full the pipes are of water.

 

[bluerrpilot]

Taken from Bean animal website

A standpipe can only run silently under two conditions. 1) The volume of flow is low enough to allow the water to cascade down the walls of the standpipe, leaving an undisturbed column of air in the middle. When water falls vertically down a pipe, the water will adhere to the pipe's walls until the pipe's cross sectional area is about 1/4 full. At any higher volume the flow starts to become turbulent and traps air. The trapped air creates slurping and gurgling noises. 2) The volume of the flow is high enough to keep the pipe entrance submerged, creating a full siphon.

So to revisit, the Durso and Stockman mods are simply ways of trying to control the amount of air introduced into the standpipe, creating a balance somewhere between turbulent flow and a full siphon. This makes the setup very unstable and requires constant adjustment, not to mention that the setup is never truly silent or safe!

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

I didn't realize there was a website for the bean animal drain. I'll have to check it out.

That makes sense. With the corrugated hose, it must simply be sticking to the sides better than with the PVC tube. I think I'm going to try cutting out the vertical section of PVC and replace it with the original hose and see if that solves the problem. If not, I'll look more seriously into a gate valve for one drain and the other drain as an emergency drain.

 

[mcgyvr]

The thing that has me confused is there was no noise when I had the corrugated hose. I had the same drain rate and same overflow design. Only started making noise when I added PVC drain lines to the outside portion on the tank.

Any idea where the noise would be coming from exactly? Would it be from the T right after the bulkhead, or would it be from the 3' vertical drop of PVC? By the way, the PVC is not a perfect straight drop down. it is maybe a 10 degree angle to the side so the ends of the pipe would go straight into the sump area.

I'm wondering if it would be worth while to cut the vertical pVC section, replace with the corrugated hose for the vertical drop, and just go to the sump from the hose and leave the T in place.

The gurgling as stated is typically where water sucks air down.. That could certainly be happening now at that "tee".. a sanitary tee is a better choice at that section..

 

[bluerrpilot]

I didn't realize there was a website for the bean animal drain. I'll have to check it out.

That makes sense. With the corrugated hose, it must simply be sticking to the sides better than with the PVC tube. I think I'm going to try cutting out the vertical section of PVC and replace it with the original hose and see if that solves the problem. If not, I'll look more seriously into a gate valve for one drain and the other drain as an emergency drain.

http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

Thanks for the link. I agree, a sanitary Tee would be a better option but didn't think about it as they didn't have it at the hardware store I grabbed my fittings from.

I haven't had a chance yet to try any adjustments, but plan on trying some stuff out this weekend. After reading up on the bean animal, I think because my drain pipes aren't vertical, I may be getting more sound. This doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with the corrugated hose as I had the hose at an angle before and no noise.

I think I'll first try cutting the PVC after the tee and replace with hose. If that doesn't work, I'll go back to my original design of having the hose come straight out of the bulkheads. I didn't leave enough PVC from the bulkhead to cut it, so if that's the case, I'll have to order some more replacement bulkheads since I glued in the PVC.

When building up PVC, do you all build your whole drain and test first, or fit test and glue each piece individually as you go? I'm wishing I would have not glued anything until I ran the drain for a while so I could take things back apart and adjust. Lesson learned

 

[mcgyvr]

When building up PVC, do you all build your whole drain and test first, or fit test and glue each piece individually as you go? I'm wishing I would have not glued anything until I ran the drain for a while so I could take things back apart and adjust. Lesson learned

Unless my entire tank is outside I personally will never run water in unglued PVC..
I will only glue PVC thats not submerged in water..
PVC connections inside (like in the overflow box,etc...) do not need to be glued as a leak will only return water to where it came from and not cause a flood

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

Thanks mcgyvr, makes me feel a little better about not testing unglued.

As a follow up, the PVC on the inside of my tank is not glued. Would this cause issues if there is a power loss for an extended period of time and cause the display to drain much lower than during a normal shut down? When I was working on my outside PVC, the bulkeads were slowly leaking water as I worked. A few drips here and there, but after an hour maybe dripped out a liter of water.

I don't have an overflow box in my tank, just the PVC pipe as seen in the pictures

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

The unglued pipes would not cause a leak.
A loose bulkhead, distorted gasket or one even on the wrong side is what you are looking for.

 

[laverda]

There is no reason you can not test run your drain lines before gluing them. Just make sure the are inserted far enough to not come out easily. There is very little pressure on the drain lines. I set up the large SCMAS fisplay tank at RAP and do not glue the drain lines at all and have not had an issue. I fint glue them as we need to remove the Bulk heads to put the tank back in the crate between shows.

 

[laverda]

You may want to try adjusting your return flow rate to quite down the drain lines. I typically us 45s instead of 90s and find that is all I need to do to make them quite. I dont mess with the beananimal design as I very the return flow rate in my tank and dont want to have to adjust it every time I change it. Also it will get quiter as film builds up in the pipes.

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

I ended up cutting the pipe close to the outlet of the 90 and clamping my corrugated hose back on. It is now much quieter. Not quite as quiet as when I didn't have the tee attached to the bulkhead, but close enough that I'm done messing with it for now. Seems the majority of the gurgling was coming from the water splashing around in the vertical pipe section, but also a portion of the sound coming from the tee section. Nothing I can't live with though.

One thing I want to try to remember for future plumbing with pvc is to always leave enough extra pvc between fittings that I could cut the pipe in half and still have enough pipe on either sude to glue another fitting. Had I done that, I could have removed the tee if I wanted and not have to buy new bulkheads. I could always put a pvc coupler where I cut if I wanted to put pipe back together.

 

[Reefkeepa1]

I didn't realize there was a website for the bean animal drain. I'll have to check it out.

That makes sense. With the corrugated hose, it must simply be sticking to the sides better than with the PVC tube. I think I'm going to try cutting out the vertical section of PVC and replace it with the original hose and see if that solves the problem. If not, I'll look more seriously into a gate valve for one drain and the other drain as an emergency drain.

Check it out. I used a herbie but my tank is drilled on the bottom.