Is Mag9 too much?

[BigBert96]

I made several posts last week with problems I was having with my overflow. I took everybody's advice into consideration and resolved the problem. (Thanks to everybody who helped!) Now that my water level in my overflow is staying level, I now have another problem. It is a minor problem, but still annoying. It seems to me that all I hear from my tank is water crashing. The noise is being generated from the water flowing through the teeth into the overflow. The water drops about 3-4 inches before hitting the water level. Im currently running a mag9 for my return and I have a 1 inch drain (durso style.) Is the noise problem a result of the mag9 being too strong? Its running to about 4ft. of head and no 90 degree elbows. Should I scale it down to a mag7? There is no noise under the tank. My wet/dry is handling the load perfectly. Im thinking that the mag9 is just too much for a one inch drain. Any other opinions???

Thanks in advance!

 

[npaden]

Raise your Durso up so that the water isn't falling so far into your overflow. The water level inside my overflow is only about and inch or two lower than the water level in my tank so no big waterfall noise.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[quiksilver]

You may need to adjust your durso. Do you have a air hole in the top of it? If so insert airline tubing in that hole and try moving it up and down to lessen and increase the flow until it doesn't make too much noise.

Also you can put a T off the return line controlled by a ball valve just above the T and make part of the return water go back to the sump if the durso adjustments don't work. That would keep you from having to buy another expensive pump.

 

[integlikewhoa]

Agreed with npaden. Need to raise your durso up higher to reduce the fall of the water. You can still here that on my tank. I also have a cover that goes over the top of the overflow box since my tank is acrylic. That helps too.

 

[BigBert96]

Ill try that. You dont think the Mag9 is too much??

 

[BigBert96]

Ps.. I do have an airhole on the top of the durso. Its about 1/8 of an inch. How does the airline tubing help?

 

[integlikewhoa]

not unless the tanks overflowing. LOL
What size tank is this? Not the 120 right? Because if its the 120 mag 9 for a return is small if anything for that tank. I run a MAG 12 on my 120 and it does ok. BUt i run a big closed loop that makes up for it. The Mag after head pressure is probley like 6-700 actual GPH. Thats almost min for your size tank. What skimmer do you have?

 

[BigBert96]

It is a 120. (4by2) I wont be running a closed loop, but for circulation, im running a wave2k, and will add 2-3 seios. Im currently running a proclear aquatics skimmer. this will be going away in the next couple of weeks because im ordering an aqua c skimmer hopefully today. As far as the return, several people told me since im running a 1 inch drain that anything above a mag9 would probably be too much.

 

[integlikewhoa]

Yea i think i was one of them. 1 inch is max for that size pipe. BUt thats a small pipe in a tank that big. I figure its got to be bigger then 1 inch. Dont go less them mag 9.5 for that size tank. how big is the sump. Theres a rule of thumb (which i forgot it) but you want so much of the tank water to flow into the skimmer per hour. Anyways 9.5 will work but its a min for that size tank. And double check that bulkhead size. 1 inch seems small for 120 gallon tank.

 

[BigBert96]

Its definately a 1inch bulkhead. The hole thats drilled in the glass is larger than 1 inch, but from the LFS told me, Its drilled for a 1inch bulkhead. Maybe I could try a larger bulkhead without drilling anymore of the glass out.

Ps.. Sump is about 29 gallons total. But will be utilizing a rubbermaid next week which should quadruple that amount.