transitioning from glass holes open drain to herbie

[jacksonpt]

This weekend I'm hoping to bite the bullet and finally swap out my old open channel drains with glass holes overflow boxes to a herbie style setup using an eshopps box with 2 drain lines.

But I want to make sure I know everything I should know, and plan my drain line plumbing correctly... something I didn't do in the past with my current drains.

With a herbie drain system, one drain line runs at full siphon, taking as much flow as possible. If properly tuned/balanced, the second drain line should see just the slightest of trickles of water, correct? So the pipe for the siphon line should be low enough in the overflow box to prevent it from sucking in air. The pipe for the open channel will determine water level in the overflow box, so it should be high enough to prevent needless cascading/waterfall effect as water flows into the box, correct?

What about on the exit/sump side of the drain lines? Any guidelines for how the siphon drain should terminate (water depth, plumbing fittings, pipe angles, whatever else)? Any guidelines for what to do or not to do with the open channel pipe?

TIA.

 

[the_real_brian]

T
With a herbie drain system, one drain line runs at full siphon, taking as much flow as possible. If properly tuned/balanced, the second drain line should see just the slightest of trickles of water, correct?

Correct.

So the pipe for the siphon line should be low enough in the overflow box to prevent it from sucking in air. The pipe for the open channel will determine water level in the overflow box, so it should be high enough to prevent needless cascading/waterfall effect as water flows into the box, correct?

That's all there is to it. My siphon drain is about half the height of my overflow.

What about on the exit/sump side of the drain lines? Any guidelines for how the siphon drain should terminate (water depth, plumbing fittings, pipe angles, whatever else)? Any guidelines for what to do or not to do with the open channel pipe?
TIA.

Mine feeds a basement sump with the exit side of the siphon about an inch underwater; dead silent. I used mostly 45s instead of 90s and tried to make sure it had a slight downward angle for the entire length of the run.

I used 1.5" pvc for the open drain versus 1" for the siphon to make sure it could take the entire load if the siphon were to ever become blocked.

 

[mcgyvr]

As far as sump exit depths are concerned..
Full siphon should really be no more than 1" below the sumps water level.. Any further and it may not purge air properly on startup and not go full siphon..

 

[jacksonpt]

Does it matter where on the siphon drain the valve goes? Can it be lower on the line, under the stand, for easier access? Because of the location of my tank, putting it closer to the overflow box will make it really hard to get to for adjustments/tuning.

 

[lapin]

Does it matter where on the siphon drain the valve goes? Can it be lower on the line, under the stand, for easier access? Because of the location of my tank, putting it closer to the overflow box will make it really hard to get to for adjustments/tuning.

Not really. Most people keep it up high to make adjustment easier. In your case lower should be ok.

 

[jacksonpt]

So... any concerns with this setup? The overflow box pictured is not the same one I'll be using, but it's close enough for sketch-up work...

 

[bluerrpilot]

I would try and change those 90deg turns into 45's so gravity is always helping. But I don't think its 100% necessary

 

[jacksonpt]

I would try and change those 90deg turns into 45's so gravity is always helping. But I don't think its 100% necessary

lol... That's my plan, I just didn't have the patience to deal with trying to get 45s rotated and lined up correctly at the various angles when I was mocking things up.

 

[jacksonpt]

OK... made a Lowe's run last night and have all the parts I need. Hopefully it only takes 2 more Lowe's runs to ACTUALLY have all the parts I need *sigh*

Anyways...

Here is a fairly recent FTS -
If you look closely, you can see that I've got 2 glass holes boxes placed side-by-side. My goal is to keep both internal boxes, and mate one of them to an external eshopps box that is setup for a 2-drain herbie system. That will give me 1 full siphon drain and 2 open drains.

My "in a perfect world" scenario, I'll be able to use 1 open channel drain as the trickle drain to balance the siphon, and the other as a dry emergency drain... but I won't know for sure if that's possible until I get everything installed and see how the water flows through the boxes.

My updated mock-up plan is attached. Yes, I'm planning to merge the 2 open channels. Yes, I know that's not ideal. I'm OK with that. There's always ways to be more safe, more redundant. IMO, the degree of risk this adds isn't significant. With my setup, the space saved under the stand/in the drain section of my sump more than makes up for that small bit of extra risk.

Depending on how things pan out, I do have the option/consideration of running the emergency drain to a different part of my sump. I haven't ruled that out, but will need to see how water flows through the boxes before I can make that final decision.

 

[jacksonpt]

So far, things couldn't be going much better.

Scary part #1... The glass holes box is off and the associated drain line is removed. It actually came off REALLY easily. *phew*

I cleaned up the glass around the hole to make sure there wasn't any debris or residue that might cause issues with the seal once things are put back together. Now for the big test - will the eshopps box line up with the existing hole. Yep. *phew* Well, mostly yep. Like, 99% yep.

And now for the 1% of not fitting/lining up...

By the smallest of measures, it doesn't quiet clear the tank trim. It's so close that I actually can't see it overlapping... but it does. Just enough to matter. But, I think I can deal with it. I hope.

So now onto dry fitting the plumbing...

Not too shabby... high and tight, just like I had planned. Some fine tuning of the alignment, but that's easy enough to do. And I'll probably have to relocate the power strip, which means more cord management nightmares. *sigh*


Lastly (for now), I pulled everything out from behind/under the tank, marked the pipes/fittings, and started glueing. Now, the waiting begins while everything dries. And by waiting, I mean procrastinating... I'm not looking forward to shaving the edge of the eshopps box down with my table saw... *please don't crack... please don't crack... please don't crack...*

 

[jacksonpt]

*phew*... cutting was a success. A sharper blade would have made for a cleaner cut, but good enough considering...

*** Fast Forward ***


Well, water is flowing. I've got a fairly worrisome leak between the external eshopps box and the tank... but I think water is actually leaking from between the internal glass holes box and the tank through the drilled hole, and down the outside of the back of the tank. For now, I've got a wash cloth pressed in place to absorb the more-than-a-drip-but-less-than-a-trickle leak so I can see how the setup works.

The siphon drain is great. It immediately quieted the system and significantly reduced splashing/bubbles in the sump. There is still a bit more water flowing through the remaining glass holes box/drain than I would have liked, but I can't do anything about that. Unless I leave the internal glass holes box for appearance, then plug the bulkhead/drain. That would force all the drain water through the eshopps hebie. I'm going to sleep on that one...

So far, so mostly good. I'm going to keep an eye on things for the next hour or so, then turn off teh return pump and try to figure out what to do about the leak. When using an internal box and an external box, joined by a bulkhead, where should the seal(s) go? Right now I've got one on the inside of the eshopps box at the bulkhead. Perhaps I should put it (or another one?) between the box and the tank?

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Seals should be against the water side of both boxes.

 

[jacksonpt]

So between the bulkhead flange and the box... and between the bulkhead nut and the box? Not against the tank/glass?

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Inside the tank - inside the overflow box, that's where the water is.
Because the box is not flush another between the box & tank can't hurt.
Remember a nut can distort the seal when tightened.

 

[jacksonpt]

I ended up putting the gasket between the external eshopps box and the tank, as that is the one place I can't have any water. Anywhere else, if there isn't a perfect seal, no biggie. But I can't have water there.

Moving the gasket (and being aware of how tight the bulkhead is) fixed the leak. The system ran over night with nary a drip.


So, with the leak stopped, I'm basically done with the conversion. I'm still fine tuning the siphon drain rate a bit, trying to balance noise/flow across the boxes and drain lines... but that is to be expected. All in all, the process went really well. A big thanks to [MENTION=120725]Fishbulb2[/MENTION] for the wrenches to help with the bulkhead nut inside the glass holes box. Not sure I could have done this without them.

Early impressions are good. Because I'm using 2 separate overflow boxes set at essentially the same hight in the tank, I can't force as much water through the siphon as I had hoped... so my trickle drain is running at slightly more than a trickle. But I do still have a significant percentage of my drain water running through the siphon, which has dramatically helped with splashing/bubbles in my sump... AND I do still have an emergency/dry drain line, which should maintain/increase overall reliability. I may redo some of the plumbing to reduce/eliminate 90-degree fittings/elbow and/or horizonal pluming runs, but that's more because I'm a tinkerer than because I think there are inherent problems coming down the road... but at this point, I'm happy with how things have turned out.

If anyone is thinking about doing something like this... the glass holes to eshopps box is a pretty easy conversion, as long as you can loosen/remove the bulkhead nut inside the glass holes box. Everything else is a pretty easy/direct swap.

 

[Fishbulb2]

Glad it worked out! Looks good.

 

[tufkab]

I run my emergency drain completely dry and about 2-3" above the water line. My snails go everywhere; my thinking is that if there is a trickle of water flowing into the open drain, a snail will eventually go in there looking for algae.

The height of the open channel has nothing to do with the water level in the overflow, you set the height it the overflow with the valve. I have just a crappy ball valve regulating flow and I can set the water level to within an inch of where I want it, with your gate valve, you should be able to dial it in within a 16th of an inch.

 

[reefteaser]

Respectfully disagree, the height of he open channel sets the water level EXACTLY where it will be. Adjusting the valve so that a small trickle goes down the open channel allows the system to self regulate and the water height will remain constant. This allows salinity to remain stable. Occasionally I have to adjust the valve for variations in return pump pressure which may be a sign of partial blockage or just time clean the return lines.
Also, it's a good idea to use a screen of some sort to prevent small critters from getting sucked down, especially small snails. Since the adjusted valve essentially blocks the drain somewhat, it can easily back up if anything goes down the intake.
If the overflow is just slightly lower than the tank level, and the main drain is a few inches below that, it should run silent, minimize the amount of water that enters the sump when the return pump is off, and restart easily.
I've used this system for a while, it's great!

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

Respectfully disagree, the height of he open channel sets the water level EXACTLY where it will be. Adjusting the valve so that a small trickle goes down the open channel allows the system to self regulate and the water height will remain constant. This allows salinity to remain stable. Occasionally I have to adjust the valve for variations in return pump pressure which may be a sign of partial blockage or just time clean the return lines.
Also, it's a good idea to use a screen of some sort to prevent small critters from getting sucked down, especially small snails. Since the adjusted valve essentially blocks the drain somewhat, it can easily back up if anything goes down the intake.

The herbie system was never designed to be a self regulating system... never... people simply over the years have tried to make it more like the bean system...the Herbie system was designed to make "reef ready" tanks more safe, and quite. As the op stated, there is a chance of having a snail crawl down it if there is water in it. It is supposed to be a dry emergency drain. If you wanted a self regulating system you should go with a bean system.

So no, the open channel has nothing to do with the water height, as it should literally never be used...

 

[reefteaser]

I will absolutely agree that he bean setup has a higher measure of safety, as it is triple redundant against an overflow from clogging. However, for those of us with only two drains available, by using a properly designed overflow or weir box, screening the siphon channel, and running both drain lines straight down to the sump, the chances of a catastrophic clog and subsequent flood are extremely low, and the benefits of a constant water volume are, too me, worth it. Sizing the open channel slightly larger than the siphon will add an additional level of protection. Additionally, with the valve properly set, the amount of water going down the open channel should literally be just “a trickle”.
I have tested my setup by closing off the siphon completely and the open channel has more than enough capacity to handle the flow. If a snail should happen to get into the open channel, it’s most likely going to end up in the sump. It’s conceivable that both lines could clog at the same time, but remote enough that I’m comfortable with it.
Whether this was the original intent or not, I believe it works quite well.