Silent and Failsafe Overflow System

[tuber]

Bump

how 'bout running the full-siphon to one sock and the open-channel to the other? I'm using this set-up , works great. the open-channel sock lasts a long time before changing .
I'm wondering if all the air would clear out of your split siphon idea?

 

[Volkman]

Hmm, if I remember, I asked bean a while back and he had said it wouldn't be a issue, just use the third, 1" for the last of the three drains and I'd be good. No? Beananimal?

Morning bump, think I got passed over!

 

[ChloroPhil]

Hello folks,

I hope this post finds everyone well. I've got what I hope to be some quick questions. Forgive me for asking what I'm sure has been discussed somewhere in the tome-length thread. 250 pages is a lot to sift through, my apologies.

I've just inherited two very large (for me) tanks; 6x3x2, 300gal, both with two 2" holes drilled dead center. My questions pertain to what will be a freshwater planted system with approx 1200gph flow. Due to the nature of the system a pre-fab toothed overflow works well for my needs.

Q1- The 1.5" elbows just BARELY fit into the overflow. The siphon elbow has been cut to give plenty of space for flow but it's right up against the wall of the overflow. My questions are: would a pair of 1", and in general 1" pipe, be suitable for 1200gph? Other than noise, is there a potential future issue with the elbows being so close to the overflow wall? I've used a 1.5" and 1" set of Durso downdrafts with this much flow before, but never a system like this.

Q2- Are there inherent issues with having the ball valve at the terminal end of the pipe rather than next to the T? The reason I ask is if I need to be using 1.5" pipe or 1" intake elbows (Q1) I can see a possible need to restrict flow at the terminus in order to keep the main drain line full of water. Then again, I've never had a sump where the drain is submerged. Is that enough back pressure to fill a pipe as big as 1.5" with that little flow?




Thank you for your help,
Phil

 

[kory1006]

I have an Aqueon 120 4x2x2 that I plan on doing an internal coast to coast with an external box. I am looking to achieve a minimum 10x turnover rate with the return pump.

As for the internal weir, would a 2" depth (front to back) be sufficient? Height will be determined once I drill the holes to go from the internal to the external which brings me to my next question.

Drilling holes in the back of the tank; would drilling 2x 1 3/4" holes be sufficient to go from the internal to the external box? Or would I be better off drilling 3 holes?

As far as placing the external box, is there any advantage to the placement of it? Far left, center, right, etc... I would like to keep it on an end, this way I can keep plumbing to a straight drop.

The depth of the external overflow box; I see general rule of thumb is to keep the bulkheads at least 1 hole length from the edge of the glass. I see some external boxes that are only 5" deep (front to back). How deep should an external overflow be to accommodate a 1" bulkhead?


-Kory

 

[Healingwaters]

I have a question on this. I setting up a 180 gallon that will incorporate this overflow. I am getting ready to have the tank built. I have read where the 1'' bulkheads connected to 1.5" standpipes can handle 1500 gph +. If I am wanting the overflow to handle say 2000 gph will the 1" bulkheads handle that flow? If not do I need to bump my bulkheads up to 1.5"?

 

[Crazy35111]

Posted in another post, but figured this would be the place for best advice.

I am planning out my fish room and am going to be using a Bean Animal drain system on my tank, but had a few questions. First I have 6 holes for drains (2 sets of Beananimals) and would like to plumb them into a central drain line to the sump. Drains being 1 1/2-2" going into maybe a 4" main line, will this work or will the siphon break? Second question is I need a platform behind and on both sides of the tank 96*48*30, so I was going to have the pipes go straight down below the platform, then over and up to drop into the sump (wont go as high as the overflow box but up a foot or so and then dumping into the sump...I'm thinking it will work because the outlet is lower than the inlet but wanted to make sure. If a drawing will help I can put something together.

Edit: Just for reference, the horizontal distance that the drain will travel will be about 12-15ft

 

[Eud]

Posted in another post, but figured this would be the place for best advice.

I am planning out my fish room and am going to be using a Bean Animal drain system on my tank, but had a few questions. First I have 6 holes for drains (2 sets of Beananimals) and would like to plumb them into a central drain line to the sump. Drains being 1 1/2-2" going into maybe a 4" main line, will this work or will the siphon break? Second question is I need a platform behind and on both sides of the tank 96*48*30, so I was going to have the pipes go straight down below the platform, then over and up to drop into the sump (wont go as high as the overflow box but up a foot or so and then dumping into the sump...I'm thinking it will work because the outlet is lower than the inlet but wanted to make sure. If a drawing will help I can put something together.

Edit: Just for reference, the horizontal distance that the drain will travel will be about 12-15ft

You can't have lines open to the air (emergency and open channel) connected to the siphon lines or else it's not a siphon line anymore.

Also, I have a nearly horizontal 10' run in mine and it works, but it's difficult for the air to get pushed out of the drain. If I doubled the return pump power (or downsized my full siphon PVC) it would start easier because of the faster flow in the siphon line, but other than that it just takes a long time to get quiet. No danger of overflow (because the emergency and open channel can handle the flow easily) just noise and sump bubbles and spray for a while.

Don't tie even the siphon lines together, though. For that matter, two boxes seems like it will be tough enough to get working right, but have at it. Speaking as someone who just set one up, you'll definitely need two valves at the sump for each full siphon pipe on each overflow box which precludes tying them together.

Hello folks,

I hope this post finds everyone well. I've got what I hope to be some quick questions. Forgive me for asking what I'm sure has been discussed somewhere in the tome-length thread. 250 pages is a lot to sift through, my apologies.

I've just inherited two very large (for me) tanks; 6x3x2, 300gal, both with two 2" holes drilled dead center. My questions pertain to what will be a freshwater planted system with approx 1200gph flow. Due to the nature of the system a pre-fab toothed overflow works well for my needs.

Q1- The 1.5" elbows just BARELY fit into the overflow. The siphon elbow has been cut to give plenty of space for flow but it's right up against the wall of the overflow. My questions are: would a pair of 1", and in general 1" pipe, be suitable for 1200gph? Other than noise, is there a potential future issue with the elbows being so close to the overflow wall? I've used a 1.5" and 1" set of Durso downdrafts with this much flow before, but never a system like this.

Q2- Are there inherent issues with having the ball valve at the terminal end of the pipe rather than next to the T? The reason I ask is if I need to be using 1.5" pipe or 1" intake elbows (Q1) I can see a possible need to restrict flow at the terminus in order to keep the main drain line full of water. Then again, I've never had a sump where the drain is submerged. Is that enough back pressure to fill a pipe as big as 1.5" with that little flow?




Thank you for your help,
Phil

A1 - I think there's no issue other than the fact that you'll never get them out. Also, by minimizing the volume of water in the box you have less margin for error for getting the valve on the open siphon set right. You'll go from flushing the box (because it has so little water) to saturating the open channel and making it noisy with a smaller touch on the valve.

A2 - You can have the valve right above the sump, indeed this is the way BeanAnimal proposes it be done particularly when you have very long drops from drain to sump because it may cavitate and get noisy otherwise.

The barely-submerged drain serves to not let air get back up the siphon line from the bottom as it's trying to purge out all of the air from the pipe and get quiet. Emphasis on the "barely" part because you don't want lots of back-pressure preventing the flow from pushing air out of the pipe that got in from the top, you just want to prevent air from getting into the bottom. Plus it's nice that once it's started you hear no splashing and get no spray. Nothing, not a drop.

 

[Eud]

Is there any particular advantage to threading a cap for the open channel and using a John Guest fitting for the hose versus just using a PVC to hose barb adapter like this:

This one is a 1" spigot to 3/8" hose adapter. It seems like it would be much simpler to just put one of these into the top of the PVC tee on the open channel. Am I missing something?

Seems fine to me except that this one isn't threaded, it's solvent-welded, and the point of the threaded cap is that you can remove the caps and have some possibility of cleaning them out with a long brush or something.

 

[Crazy35111]

Eud, its actually a C2C overflow, so 1 box, 6 drains. I see your point of 2 separate siphon lines, what about tying the other 4 together in a 4" line? Any input on the dipping down and coming back up to dump? One though i had was to put a small valve or two along the line to allow the air to escape then shut them once the drain was full.

 

[Crazy35111]

Another thought, I have 3 separate sumps, 2 -100g rubbermaid stock tanks(one for live rock, one for filters/skimmer/reactors) and a 200g sump. My plan was to dump the lines into the liverock, that will dump into the reactor tank, then that will flow into the sump which returns from there to the DT. The other thought is to have maybe the siphon lines flow straight into the sump, and the other 4 lines flow into the liverock/reactors. This would increase contact time in both the rubbermaid tanks.

 

[Eud]

It does seem like you could tie the other 4 together if you wanted, but I'd bet 4" PVC over that length is more expensive than 4 pieces of 1.5" PVC.

One major point of this drain system is that when the power comes back on you're not wandering around fiddling with things like valves along the line letting air escape. You don't even have to be home, and it will just start and go.

Lots of different sumps doesn't make any difference, as long as the full siphons terminate just barely underwater into a chamber with an unchanging water level I imagine weird sump arrangements would work fine.

It kind of seems, though, like you're trying really hard not to do a BeanAnimal drain system coming up with lots of idea for how not to do it like he said, which is fine, if it works for you. It's just hard to predict if it will.

 

[jerpa]

Morning bump, think I got passed over!

Uncle's answer is the same as mine would be. Using the 1" line for anything other than the main siphon will defeat the failsafe nature of the overflow.

The only way you can utilize the 1" bulkhead in this system is if the 1" bulkhead is used for the main siphon. Otherwise, would be to short circuit the safety features of this drain system. The siphon bulkhead needs to be the "flow limited" point in the system.

Don't think that would be a good idea, as it would limit the flow rate to ~ 1500 gph (depending on the length of the drop) and this tank should be around 1800 gph on the low end.

 

[jerpa]

Eud, its actually a C2C overflow, so 1 box, 6 drains. I see your point of 2 separate siphon lines, what about tying the other 4 together in a 4" line? Any input on the dipping down and coming back up to dump? One though i had was to put a small valve or two along the line to allow the air to escape then shut them once the drain was full.

This will not work with the BeanAnimal system. Plumbing the open and emergency lines together destroys the dry emergency aspect and it will be difficult to get a siphon to start in either channel should the primary drain clog.

It does seem like you could tie the other 4 together if you wanted, but I'd bet 4" PVC over that length is more expensive than 4 pieces of 1.5" PVC.

One major point of this drain system is that when the power comes back on you're not wandering around fiddling with things like valves along the line letting air escape. You don't even have to be home, and it will just start and go.

Lots of different sumps doesn't make any difference, as long as the full siphons terminate just barely underwater into a chamber with an unchanging water level I imagine weird sump arrangements would work fine.

It kind of seems, though, like you're trying really hard not to do a BeanAnimal drain system coming up with lots of idea for how not to do it like he said, which is fine, if it works for you. It's just hard to predict if it will.

This is important for all the drain lines so an air lock doesn't prevent the open or emergency channels from becoming siphons.

 

[Eud]

This will not work with the BeanAnimal system. Plumbing the open and emergency lines together destroys the dry emergency aspect and it will be difficult to get a siphon to start in either channel should the primary drain clog.



This is important for all the drain lines so an air lock doesn't prevent the open or emergency channels from becoming siphons.

He's right. I hadn't thought through all of the failure modes.

 

[Humongous]

So I have a question for the experts. I have used a SOS Bean overflow before and loved it. I bought a tank that was used and its overflow is an external coast to coast that is 60" long. It was drilled with five 2" bulkhead fittings. So I have enough holes for the SOS and will probably cap off the extra holes. I have read that others have had noise issues with larger lines. If I am planning on 3000 gph so should I try to downsize the line or keep it at 2" for the main siphon? I would like to gravity feed the skimmer in this system as well. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Healingwaters]

Ok guys sending this drawing over to the tank builder. It looks rough but its the best I can do. Please look at my hole placement and the specs at the bottom of the sheet and give me advice.

 

[Humongous]

Bump for BeanAnimal or Uncle of 6.

So I have a question for the experts. I have used a SOS Bean overflow before and loved it. I bought a tank that was used and its overflow is an external coast to coast that is 60" long. It was drilled with five 2" bulkhead fittings. So I have enough holes for the SOS and will probably cap off the extra holes. I have read that others have had noise issues with larger lines. If I am planning on 3000 gph so should I try to downsize the line or keep it at 2" for the main siphon? I would like to gravity feed the skimmer in this system as well. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Volkman]

Bye

 

[Da Maui life]

How to calculate flow

How to calculate flow

Need some help understanding how to calculate how far the water will be above the weir and if the overflow box can handle the return flow from pump with out any cavitation or issues.

The box is 16" L x 4" D x 5" T flat top (no teeth) 24" liner inch, pump is a Iwaki WMD 30LXT 19GPM max. after I calculate head loss puts it at around 914 GPH.

B.A. overflow sys top of weir will be 1" below Euro brace (acrylic tank) holes drilled 3"down, center of the hole, with 1" bulkheads.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Volkman,

Use the 1" pipe as the siphon. You don't need to increase the size to 1.5", but it will not hurt. If you plan on a larger return pump, then plan on upsizing the pipe.