So I believe my tank has cycled, had an ammonia spike and now my nitrates and ammonia are at 0. Nitrites are around 5 ppm.
When waiting I tried installing a reverse durso for my sump to quiet down the drain and reduce the bubbles. I just have a feeling it's not the 1" reducer causing the problem.
It definitely worked, where I can now have the drain ball valve full open and the pump all the way open. I do have a trickling sound that I can live with but I think the problem is actually my return pump. It's a mag 12 and at the 10' head and few 45s I think it's doing around 500gph. My overflow is 700gph so I believe the noise is because of the box not filling up fast enough. Should I try swapping my mag 12 for an 18? Are they that much bigger than the 12s? The 12 barley fits in my sump.
Anywho here's a pic of the reverse durso. I also had to add some filter sponges to the box to slow down the flow through it to reduce noise. Is that bad? Could those clog it up?
I hope you can see the rough drawing I just did well enough. The T should be at the waterline so the flow can go straight down and allow the Air to escape to the right instead of being driven below the water line. Then the Air line turns back up with a 90, and a length of pipe is attached before the end cap with the hole and airline tube (I did not draw the cap and airline as I wanted to insure you had the T and 90 positions and orientations correct. The length of pipe should probably be a good 8+inches this will let any splashing of water and air stay within the pipe and not make it to the cap. You can then adjust how much of the airline tube is in the hole in the cap until you have a smooth drain w/o a lot of splashing and noise.
No matter what there should be some trickling up at the tank. What you do not what are flushing and sucking noises. I suspect the noise is coming from the air vent line on the drain on the tank. If that is the case you can try and quiet it with a silencer like the ones they use on skimmers. I do not see any point in replacing your return pump.
Last edited: