Hey Rakie,
I stumbled upon this from your early part of thread.
Good info, since I have a similar overflow setup on the way with the new tank.
All my tanks have outside HOSE (flexible) on the bulkheads (just a single on each tank)
I not sure how I'm going to hook up my overflow bulkheads (two of them at bottom of External Overflow box).
I do want to go flexible hose (at the Sump Entry point) since that allow be to do easier maintenance (like cleaning ATS by swinging hose over to 2nd compartment of SUMP).
I assume your setup is designed to control flow, and limit sound, or possibly run one overflow, and 2nd is on standby. Or you split the flow between two.
Maybe you can post your thoughts, adjustments/improvement you made (on this thread) (OR on my thread....which might be better to not side track things here).
Thanks.
Well Wally I'm of the mindset that all information is useful, so I'll post here and then at your thread. Maybe it'll help someone someday -- that's my typical rationale for build threads at least.
YES -- It is designed to control flow, limit sound, AND run an emergency overflow while flow is split between the two non-red tubes.
SO -- That picture you linked was my initial idea, and NOT what I ended up with at all. I'm using flex hose myself. It helps with sound, and honestly my first attempt at gluing PVC resulted in a bunch of crooked ugly looking PVC.. Flex hose helped take me out of the equation!
Here is the finished plumbing
So I have 3 pipes here. The U-Tube overflow, and white straight overflow are engaged actively at all times.
1) On the left tube (Right most side on the picture) you see I have the U shaped overflow. This guy is my full siphon overflow tube. I drilled a 3/16th hole on the very top to break the siphon if necessary. The idea here is the water level will ALWAYS be above this overflow tube keeping it a full siphon. Drilling the hole keeps it from being noisy, getting air stuck in the pipe, etc etc.
Gate valves are essential on the main overflow tube -- NOT ball valves. You need the precision of a gate valve to dial it in for sound and functionality.
2) The middle tube (white) is the 2nd tube. In my understanding, the goal of a bean animal is to have 1 full siphon, and a second tube taking a LITTLE water, and the 3rd as an emergency.
IF the gate valve is too open (low water level in overflow box) you'll get gurgling and 'chugging' sounds from the full siphon as the siphon breaks due to the hole at the top of it, as well as lots of bubbles. Too closed (water level high in overflow box) and the middle overflow tube becomes a noisy full siphon which chugs and gurgles. It also serves as a 'backup' drain, although it's actively in use already.
Having this overflow take a trickle of water also helps keep the slight ebb and flow of the overflow be 100% consistent, leaving the full siphon working 100% at all times, because the water level is static above the full siphon's hole.
3) Emergency overflow. Never engaged unless full siphon and middle tube are both clogged. Due to height, and it being a straight pipe, it will be very noisy, alerting me to the issue.
So basically, if the full siphon gets plugged the middle tube can handle all the flow on it's own, and the middle tube is a straight pipe so it will be noisy and produce some gurgling/chugging sounds. If the second pipe gets plugged as well, the emergency pipe will be engaged, and it will be VERY noisy.
