I'd like a dead silent tank. The only noise I have at the moment is water travelling through the drain lines. Can I not elimiate this by simply putting a ball value on the drain line and turning it back? I understand there is the risk of a flood if the line gets clogged but how better to get rid of the water noise?
little help understanding what you currently have running?
Size of lines and quantity?
Materials used? PVC/ABS/spa flex/tiger flex/clear crap line from hd/etc?
Hard 90* make noise... etc...
photos?
if you have the standard overflows or even drilled on back/side DIY drains then valving back is just waiting for a flood. really you have only 2 choices for silence.
#1. smaller return pump so there is less flow and less air being drawn in to your drain lines.
submerge your drain a bit in the sump.
#2. do a HERBIE or BEAN drain style. This consists of using a full siphon on one drain [using a gate valve to adjust] and having a second emergency drain were the drtain is just a tad higher than the waterlevel in the overflow box. With the BEAN style, you have a third drain with just a trickle of water. I have a 125g in the FOR SALE forum that utilizes the siphon method and its DEAD SILENT !!
I have a slant overflow with 1.5" drains made of the flex PVC I got from Hookup (when was over drooling at his tank). The layout is as below. 90 degree elbows at the bulkheads and 45s the rest of the way down.
I suppose I'd be aiming for a Herbie style overflow with a ball value right before drain 2 goes into the basement line. Will this work or do the drains need to be more separated than they are now?
drains need to be seperate! one drain emergency flood protecion.
a full siphon drain can handle more water than a regular drain with air.
do not use a ball valve, use a gate valve. trust me. gate valves are more ''precise''
Geesh Vafa, i forgot our entire conversation when you were over...
The question I have is what does the intake look like? Is it a durso style or open 1.5" pipe?
It should be durso...
If you are going to add a valve, do so on the one that has most of you flow. The two inputs need to be off-set, one slightly higher than the other... the lower-one gets the valve and the higher one catches the excess...
I'm also guessing that where your two lines "meet" you are getting most of the noise from the two flows "crashing" into each other... if there is a way to re-do it so both go into the sump independently it should help....
Thanks for the feeback guys!
Both drains are open 1.5" pipe. I can't stick a durso in there because there is not enough clearance from the slant overflow.
The drains are offset with drain 2 lower than drain 1. I could run one completely submerged while running the other partly open, I'll just have to dremel a piece out of a 1.5" cap.
I can attach a gate valve to the end of the drain 2 line, as mentioned before, but i expect that with drain 1 open I may still get water noise coming out from drain 1. Any noise is undesireable.
Running a separate drain 2 line would be a huge undertaking including drilling another hole in the floor and running 20-300 feet of pipe. I'd hope to avoid that. :(
If you cannot run 2 seperate lines then you cannot valve back/create siphon on one line.
you cannot have a siphon with air coming in the other line. as I see it you have 2 lines Y'd together. Your kinda screwed. you can downsize pumps to reduce noise. you can add durso to both but as you said it won't fit.
to bad you weren't looking for a tank lol. I have a new 125g with herbie drains and all sitting empty 8)
Quote from: veron on January 04, 2011, 01:31:27 PM
to bad you weren't looking for a tank lol. I have a new 225g with herbie drains and all sitting empty 8)
I wish. My floor won't hold a larger tank and its placed where I can't add supports.
sorry typo, modified last post. its a 125g
can you snap a photo of the in-tank side of you overflows. what I understand is they are open pipes... if this is the case, no wonder you're looking for help on making it silent...
If we could see it, we might have options... but you'll need a durso style... which can be made quite compact if you make it 360* with some reducers...
Quote from: Severum on January 04, 2011, 12:36:03 PM
Thanks for the feeback guys!
Both drains are open 1.5" pipe. I can't stick a durso in there because there is not enough clearance from the slant overflow.
The drains are offset with drain 2 lower than drain 1. I could run one completely submerged while running the other partly open, I'll just have to dremel a piece out of a 1.5" cap.
I can attach a gate valve to the end of the drain 2 line, as mentioned before, but i expect that with drain 1 open I may still get water noise coming out from drain 1. Any noise is undesireable.
Running a separate drain 2 line would be a huge undertaking including drilling another hole in the floor and running 20-300 feet of pipe. I'd hope to avoid that. :(
My bulkheads are open and dead silent.
It could be that they are at different levels and so one is creating all the noise or you could just be getting an echo coming up the pipe as they merge into one.
Are you running abs under the floor boards or pvc?
ABS is WAY lowder and the echo can travel up the pipe.
I had been considering building a durson style piece for my slanted overflow but never did as they are so quiet.
I run spa flex under the floor boards and for about another 3 feet and then transition into PVC.
Do you heard water splashing, gurgling or slurping?
My overflows are the same as Pat's, wide open. I have PVC under the floorboards but spa flex ends at about a foot under the stand.
How does one go about creating a 360* durso with reducers? My clearance at best is about 1.5-2" in the slant.
Quote from: Severum on January 04, 2011, 10:19:19 AM
I'd like a dead silent tank. The only noise I have at the moment is water travelling through the drain lines. Can I not elimiate this by simply putting a ball value on the drain line and turning it back? I understand there is the risk of a flood if the line gets clogged but how better to get rid of the water noise?
a few questions
is it a Posiedon PS4,?
how much lower is the sump?
What size is the pump return line?
does the return line come through the floor as well?
Return is a PS4
Sump is in the basement. About 14 feet down, 25 feet across.
return line is 1.5" (use to run a Barracuda) and becomes 1" loc line at the tank.
Return is through the floor too.
I figure you might be getting about 660 to the tank, that isn't enough to start a siphon in your existing system so the noise has to be from it running through the pipes, if you plan carefully and have access you might be able to fish a couple of flexible smaller pipes through the existing 1 1/2 drain and use that to pull a siphon, you could likely get most of the 660 through there at that head height, this would leave enough room for the open channel to be pretty quiet.
Another option would be to re-run the pump return in one inch pipe, and with a little trickery get another pipe through the same hole in the floor.
http://www.marinedepot.com/IMD/pump_poseidon_ps4_chart.jpg
I did some measurements and I do have the room to run another drain line to the basement. I'll go that route if I can be sure the tank will be dead silent and flood proof.
One 1.5" drain is getting me about 1200+ GPH. Instead of smaller flex pipes down the drain (which will be tough) will valving back on one drain be sufficient to create a siphon? If so then I'll set up as follows:
- Main drain (MD) on its own line in 1.5" PVC
- MD wide open or restricted to a smaller opening diameter
- Gate valve right before the MD line enters the sump
- MD line end in the sump water
- Emergency drain (ED) on its own line in 1.5" PVC
- ED with only a trickle of water going down
- ED line above sump water
Am I missing anything that could cause issue?
Sorry, but I am still unclear on this one.
Why did you have the holes drilled at different levels?
If its plumbed in properly the slanted style of overflow is silent.
You will never get a 1.5" pipe to go full syphon.
Throttling it back will flood the pipe, the idea being that when the pipe is flooded the water does not drop and so doesnt make any noise. I have set several drains up like this before in tanks where they were in bedrooms, and had the 2nd drain pipe fully open and unrestricted for when the first one should get a snail or something in it (and they always do). All of these though were for smaller tank where the water only had to fall 4 feet. With 4 feet of flooded pipe you MUST properly support the pipe or the weight of the water can crack the tank.
Typically this overflow style works best when there is a reasonable difference in height between the flooded drain and the open drain, aka a min of 6 inches. And for these reasons they tend to work best in the box style overflow that goes from the bottom of the tank to the top as opposed to a slanted overflow. With this syle of box, adjusting the gate valve raises and lowers the water level in your overflow box and so you can make it so that the water overflowing into the box drops 4 inches for more turbulence and 1" and is dead silent. Not sure how you can do this in a slanted overflow style, but just flooding the main drain may make it silent anyways.
IMO I would neven consider flooding a pipe all the way down to the basement. You can try putting the ball valve just above the floor level and flooding the pipe behind the tank. You can have the one line flooded and you dont need to have any water going down the other pipe for it to work properly. The other pipe can just be open and act as a backup.
I am interested to see how this works though, I have never put a flooded overflow and an open backup so close together and in a slanted overflow.
Sorry I didnt directly answer each question..
•MD wide open or restricted to a smaller opening diameter
I have always had them wide open but you can use a strainer if you want to try and reduce snails going down it.
A the strainer get dirty though the water level will rise and you will hear it going down the ED line. This can act as a singnal though that its time to clean the strainer.
Otherwise snails will go down the line, die, sit on the gate valve and cause restriction and thus water goes down the ED line, at which point you open the gate valve to flush them out to the sump.
•Gate valve right before the MD line enters the sump
Possible, but risky as mentioned above.
•ED with only a trickle of water going down
A trickle is not required. You actually dont NEED to have any water going down this line, although it may be required.
•ED line above sump water
MD and ED should be above sump water level
It wouldn't surprise me that you can siphon way more than your pumps capacity with a 3/4 siphon, at 4 feet up the water would flow like crazy, if weight is an issue then support the pipe before it goes through the floor, you could use flex all the way to the sump,
If I could run 1" or 3/4" from the main drain all the way to the sump I should be able to create a siphon given the gph of the return pump.
I don't have 40' of flex but the pipe would be sitting beams while horizontal and I could rig something to support the vertical part.
Would electical PVC conduit be good enough for this application? Its not like there would be massive pressure going through the pipe since its a drain.
But yes I do see how this is designed for an overflow box. My way of doing it might not work.
Here is a really simple test for you, actual results to the basement will be higher still, take a length of flexible pipe of known diameter, fill it with water then shove one end into the tank and the other end into a 5 gallon pail and see if you can see the surface of the tank fall with the pump running, do this after the pump has been off for a while so you will be able to see it functioning on it's own rather than some going over the weir. try both 1" and 3/4 you will see how it will perform before you go through all these major changes
Thanks for the explanation Pat!
The holes in the tank are at slightly different levels because I was a rookie at drilling tanks... I should have borrowed the drill press from work.
Great suggestion Moose! I tried 1", 3/4" and 1/2".
The 1" tube's siphon has way more flow than my return pump. The 3/4" tube's siphon matched my return pump pretty good. I let it siphon for several minutes with no change in water level. The 1/2" tube reduced my overflow to small trickles
Assuming more flow once connected to the system I'm either looking at a 3/4" main drain with the drain line valved back or a 1/2" main drain with the return pump throttled back.
I still have to somehow get a 90 elbow going up from the emergency drain with the little clearance that I have. I don't think even a street 90 will fit unless I cut it back a little.
Quote from: Severum on January 06, 2011, 12:03:06 AM
Thanks for the explanation Pat!
Great suggestion Moose! I tried 1", 3/4" and 1/2".
The 1" tube's siphon has way more flow than my return pump. The 3/4" tube's siphon matched my return pump pretty good. I let it siphon for several minutes with no change in water level. The 1/2" tube reduced my overflow to small trickles
Assuming more flow once connected to the system I'm either looking at a 3/4" main drain with the drain line valved back or a 1/2" main drain with the return pump throttled back.
I still have to somehow get a 90 elbow going up from the emergency drain with the little clearance that I have. I don't think even a street 90 will fit unless I cut it back a little.
got pics... everything is possible.
I'll snap up some pictures tonight.
Pat, how big are your drains? Are they separate? What's your return pump and how much flow are you getting into your tank from it?
Both of my drains are 1.5" and I run spa flex 2-3 feet below the floor boards. I have zero restriction on either.
Flow rate over my ctc is above 750 gph.
I am not 100% positive on my exact flow rate, its an estimate.
The pump is 1750gph at the head pressure that I have, but I have a ball valve right as you go into the tank restricting the flow so I use this to adjust the water height level in the overflow. Just dont bury your bulkheads with water or they will try to such air and make a terrible noise. At the same time if its too little water it will allow the sound to come up and make a terrible racket anyways.
A durso style in a slanted overflow is still a possible solution if you want to do that. Its just a fun one to make :)
Thanks Pat. I've reduced the flow to almost nothing and it still makes a terrible noise.
The back of the tank has a 1.5" bulkhead with a 1.5" 90* elbow going down towards the sump. If I'm able to stick a 3/4" elbow pointing down into the overflow and then change the plumbing to 3/4" pipe right after the 1.5" 90* elbow willl the larger elbow being still there cause any issues for the siphon? (did that make sense)
Photos of the overflow...
I don't have much experience with overflows... but your water level seems high in relation to the bulkhead which makes me think you have too much water running down it to be uber quiet.
Quote from: Severum on January 06, 2011, 11:33:46 AM
Thanks Pat. I've reduced the flow to almost nothing and it still makes a terrible noise.
The back of the tank has a 1.5" bulkhead with a 1.5" 90* elbow going down towards the sump. If I'm able to stick a 3/4" elbow pointing down into the overflow and then change the plumbing to 3/4" pipe right after the 1.5" 90* elbow willl the larger elbow being still there cause any issues for the siphon? (did that make sense)
It shouldn't , how much higher is the next outlet?
The next outlet is about a centimeter higher.
Quote from: RossW on January 06, 2011, 08:08:21 PM
I don't have much experience with overflows... but your water level seems high in relation to the bulkhead which makes me think you have too much water running down it to be uber quiet.
Agreed, the water level is too high on this bulkhead.
Reduce your flow rate and it will be quieter.
For Shauns coast to coast on his 220g he built a square coast to coast overflow box so that he could have durso standpipe in the overflow box and when it was nex it made a HUGE diff on noise.
He has now removed the durso pipe and will be adding a couple of strainers instread.
Now that there is a bio film in the pipes they are very quiet. Every now and then when the hood doors are open you hear a faint sound of water moving, with the doors closed though you really cant hear anything. And thats a 6' coast to coast overflow feeding into 2 x 1.5" lines.
Quote from: Severum on January 07, 2011, 12:03:41 AM
The next outlet is about a centimeter higher.
So if you installed a 3/4 elbow pointing down on one of them and installed elbow pointing up on the other one what distance can you achieve between the ends of the two elbows?
I'll try that this weekend. I should be able to get a few inches separation.