bean animal Plumbing Question

OCJoeR

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I've been reading several of the treads on Bean Animal filtration plumbing and looked at numerous pictures but I'm still not sure of exactly where to drill the holes in my tank. The guidance seems to be that the "Main Drain" should be much than the backup drain and even lower than the emergency drain. So my question is why do all the photos seem to show all the holes in the tanks drilled at the same height?

If I want the water height to be 1" lower than the top of my tank and I use 1" PVC (my tank is only 55 gal.) how far down from the top of the tank should I drill the holes for the bulkhead fittings? From what I've seen when the bulkheads are on the side of the tank the PVC inside the tank consist of 90 degree elbows that are attached to the bulkhead fittings (either slip or threaded fittings). One elbow appears to be pointed up, I'm thinking this is the "main drain". Another elbow is pointed down, so I'm guessing this is the back up or Durso drain. The last elbow also seems to be pointed up which I guess is the emergency drain.

I've gone through several threads and photos but none of them are making sense to me. I've completed the construction part of the project and I'm at a point where I need to drill the holes for the filtration system so until I can figure out how to plumb this I can't really go forward. I don't what to have to remove the tank to drill the holes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Joe
 

zalick

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Two drains are pointed down and one pointed up.
The down drains are your main and backup. The up drain is emergency.

The main drain is pointed down and forms a full siphon. The backup drain "inlet" is slightly higher than the "inlet" of the main. You tune it so that the main handles slightly less than full flow. The water then elevates to trickle down the backup silently. You have a john guest fitting on the top elbow of the backup with airline tubing going from that hole to just below the inlet of the emergency drain and attached so it doesn't move. If @#$^% hits the fan and the emergency drain fills up, it plugs the airline tube cause a full siphon on the backup and should flush the whole overflow.

All three holes are drilled at the same level. The level of the water is controlled by the height of the opening of the elbows for the main and the backup. Does that make sense?

Are you having the whole overflow box inside the main tank or are you using a lowprofile overflow?

This is not my photo but shows exactly how positioning works. drain on right is main, drain on left is backup and middle is emergency. This person has the main line too restricted and the water level too high. You can see that half of the horizontal portion of the backup is full of water. This will be noisy. Ideally you want the water level to be just a trickle down the backup.

** Note this is a lowprofile setup so all these drains are on the outside of the tank. This drains could be on the inside of the tank and would still look the same.

maxresdefault.jpg
 
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DCR

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It sounds like you are not planning on using an internal overflow box, with the elbows on the inside of the tank. My only caution would be to make sure that your sump can handle all the water that will drain down through the main drain when you shutdown your return pump. This can easily be about 3".
 

schuby

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I'm sure that the Bean Animal style only pertains to an overflow box. The tank's drain-holes/bulkheads go into the overflow box, then the Bean Animal style overflow drains go to the sump.
 

1guydude

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Most overflows now days are more of a wier or comb tooth small internal box to an external.

Basically with the bean animal. You have.
A full siphon
A partial siphon
An emergency.

You can add pvc to the bulkheads to make then taller. Shorter. Elbow down... ect.
Depends if your holes are bottom of tank or out the back? You can drill the holes diffrent height. Wont matter imo.

Hths
D
 

theMeat

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I'm sure that the Bean Animal style only pertains to an overflow box. The tank's drain-holes/bulkheads go into the overflow box, then the Bean Animal style overflow drains go to the sump.
Bean animal is named after the guy who created it. Has become more a generic name for 3 drain system. One full siphon, one partial /secondary drain, and one emergency
 
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OCJoeR

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Ok, so in looking at Zalick's picture the pipe on the far right is the main drain? The far left piping is the backup drain and the center pipe, without an elbow, would be the emergency drain. It looks like the top of this pipe is just above the maximum height I want my water level to be, an inch or so below the top of the tank. It looks like it doesn't really matter where the holes are drilled in the side of the tank as long as there is enough room above them to plumb the elbows and emergency pipe to an inch below the top of the tank.

Is there a reason there is no air hole in the main drain?
 
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OCJoeR

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TheMeat,

I'm not sure about using an overflow box off the tank. I'm thinking the fewer holes I have to make the less chances of a leak. I was going to go through the tank on one side for the drain lines, using bulkhead fittings, run PVC elbows off those and get some 1/4" acrylic to make a weir inside the tank where the plumbing is. The return line would be on the other side of the tank. I'm trying to figure out how to draw it up and attach it but my interweb skills are not up to snuff I guess.

Joe
 

zalick

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Ok, so in looking at Zalick's picture the pipe on the far right is the main drain? The far left piping is the backup drain and the center pipe, without an elbow, would be the emergency drain. It looks like the top of this pipe is just above the maximum height I want my water level to be, an inch or so below the top of the tank. It looks like it doesn't really matter where the holes are drilled in the side of the tank as long as there is enough room above them to plumb the elbows and emergency pipe to an inch below the top of the tank.

Is there a reason there is no air hole in the main drain?
The air hole on the backup is to keep it silent. But as a result it cannot operate as a full siphon until the airline tube is plugged.

The main has no air hole so it operates as a full siphon.

As for the heights in the picture I posted the only thing that matters to make it work is that the main drain opening is lowest, the back up next and then the emergency the highest and higher than the top of the backup elbow.

You can control the level of water in the overflow box by adjusting the height of the elbow portion of the backup.


Where the "overflow box" is located doesn't matter: inside the tank or outside as I mentioned above. I've run them both ways and they work exactly the same.
 

zalick

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TheMeat,

I'm not sure about using an overflow box off the tank. I'm thinking the fewer holes I have to make the less chances of a leak. I was going to go through the tank on one side for the drain lines, using bulkhead fittings, run PVC elbows off those and get some 1/4" acrylic to make a weir inside the tank where the plumbing is. The return line would be on the other side of the tank. I'm trying to figure out how to draw it up and attach it but my interweb skills are not up to snuff I guess.

Joe
All drain lines must be independent of each other from start to finish. They cannot be tied together at any point.

If you have the overflow box inside the tank you would need 3 holes in the tank for each drain line.
 

zalick

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It looks like it doesn't really matter where the holes are drilled in the side of the tank as long as there is enough room above them to plumb the elbows and emergency pipe to an inch below.

You must be at least a certain distance from th edge and from a corner when you drill glass. I can't remember the distance but you can look it up.
 
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OCJoeR

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You must be at least a certain distance from th edge and from a corner when you drill glass. I can't remember the distance but you can look it up.
My tank is acrylic so I don't think there will be a problem drilling into it. If I were to build an outside overflow box would I just drill holes into the side of the tank and attach it with silicone? Would I still need to build something too keep small objects, and fish, from flowing into the outside overflow tank?
 

zalick

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My tank is acrylic so I don't think there will be a problem drilling into it. If I were to build an outside overflow box would I just drill holes into the side of the tank and attach it with silicone? Would I still need to build something too keep small objects, and fish, from flowing into the outside overflow tank?
I'll answer more shortly. And update this post with pics of my acrylic Bea animal overflow. Did you by chance read Beans original post on RC?

You cannot silicone acrylic. It must be "welded".

So to make it easy for you you'll want to do an overflow on the inside IMO. Unless you want to learn about welding acrylic.

My acrylic tank was custom made and has removable "teeth" parts and the box is outside.

PXL_20210122_030122155.MP.jpg PXL_20210122_030228978.MP.jpg
 

theMeat

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TheMeat,

I'm not sure about using an overflow box off the tank. I'm thinking the fewer holes I have to make the less chances of a leak. I was going to go through the tank on one side for the drain lines, using bulkhead fittings, run PVC elbows off those and get some 1/4" acrylic to make a weir inside the tank where the plumbing is. The return line would be on the other side of the tank. I'm trying to figure out how to draw it up and attach it but my interweb skills are not up to snuff I guess.

Joe
Sounds like you have the way it works understood, and yea the secondary is gravity fed, hole on top allows air in to keep it quiet, while the primary cannot have a hole because it moves the majority of the water because it is full siphon, ie no air
Let’s back up. A ghost overflow (through side) box has 2 holes in tank. Three pipes/drains come diwn from the outside box. ie less holes in tank. If your overflow box goes through bottom of tank it will need 3 holes in tank, not to mention take up a lot more room in tank.
For return coming back into tank imo is better if drilled into tank with bulkhead too.
 

theMeat

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All drain lines must be independent of each other from start to finish. They cannot be tied together at any point.

If you have the overflow box inside the tank you would need 3 holes in the tank for each drain line.
You can tie the secondary and emergency together without issue, and tee full siphon in as well as long as valve is above tee, and valve is low enough to create siphon effect, but don’t want to derail thread or make it more complicated than it needs to be
 

zalick

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You can tie the secondary and emergency together without issue, and tee full siphon in as well as long as valve is above tee, and valve is low enough to create siphon effect, but don’t want to derail thread or make it more complicated than it needs to be
If you tie the main in with the others won't that pull air down the main?
 

theMeat

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My tank is acrylic so I don't think there will be a problem drilling into it. If I were to build an outside overflow box would I just drill holes into the side of the tank and attach it with silicone? Would I still need to build something too keep small objects, and fish, from flowing into the outside overflow tank?
the way ghost overflows generally work is two bigger bulkheads drilled through tank that connects and passes water from a box inside, to a box out side. The box inside has weir, The box outside has 3 smaller pipes that go down to sump.
I’m all about building yourself, but would buy a tested proven box that’s designed well and removable weir with little magnets fashioned in there is nice.
 
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