Bean Animal Tuning

spd3001

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I've read as many posts as I can find (including Bean's original thread) but I can't seem to get some of the subtleties. I've implemented it pretty much as Bean did in his original thread and I've got it tuned and it seems to be stable. It's on a 90 gallon display tank that's two feet by two feet by three feet deep. The inlets are 1 inch street elbows to 1 1/2 inch pipes and valves and 1 inch outlets that exit about three quarters of an inch below the water level in the sump.

Bean Animal Overflow Top.jpg


However, I'm trying to figure out how to get the water a little bit deeper in the coast to coast over flow box because the water coming over the weir is too loud. I've made it deeper by tuning the valves but it doesn't seem to come back to that higher level after I stop the pump, let everything settle and then restart the pump.

Bean Animal Overflow Side.jpg


Can anyone explain what adjustments might help me raise the level in the overflow? I'm running the Iwaki MD30XLRT wide open with the valves set as you see them here.

Bean Animal Silent Overflow Back.jpg
 

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I think this is what you need:

You only really need to control the flow on your primary drain. The secondary and emergency should be wide open. You restrict the primary to where it fills the overflow up to the secondary to start trickling.

It looks like your secondary is the same height as your primary, it should be a little higher to fully submerge the primary.
 

WVNed

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He is using the terminology in this picture from Marine depot
bean-animal-2.jpg

How it's supposed to work is as you slowly close the valve on the primary drain the water rises to the height of the secondary drain. The primary drain runs as a full siphon with no air in it and the secondary drain is vented to allow air in and out.

Those grey caps behind your tank at the tops of the drains. Do they have vent holes in them?
 

CMMorgan

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I'm trying to figure out what the yellow tube is for....???
It looks like it goes out of the top of your secondary drain but then into the overflow and zip tied to the emergency drain? why?
Also... you have two drains both elbowed down. The primary - as @WVNed said - is a full siphon, so it would not elbow down. It would be open to the top - lower than the secondary. The secondary would have an air siphon break.
 

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The primary drain should be open in an upward direction to let air out so it will start. If you make it U shaped with both ends down in water it will simply air lock. You could drill a hole in the top of the 90 to accomplish this. A 90 is placed on a full siphon to keep it from sucking air in a vortex down from the surface but you have to vent it. Exactly what I think you are doing with the yellow tube. A hole simply gets covered with water once the overflow fills.

The yellow tube is a way to convert an open drain into a full siphon drain. If the yellow tube goes under water air cant get into the drain and it goes full siphon.
 
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spd3001

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He is using the terminology in this picture from Marine depot
bean-animal-2.jpg

How it's supposed to work is as you slowly close the valve on the primary drain the water rises to the height of the secondary drain. The primary drain runs as a full siphon with no air in it and the secondary drain is vented to allow air in and out.

Those grey caps behind your tank at the tops of the drains. Do they have vent holes in them?
 
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spd3001

spd3001

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This image from Marine Depot is for an overflow that has the drains coming out of the bottom of the overflow. Mine, like the original diagrams of the Bean Animal are for a coast to coast internal overflow where the drains come out perpendicular to the side of the aquarium. Like this...
Bean Animal Overflow front-wide.jpg


In this image the siphon is the middle intake, the closest is the secondary and the remaining one the emergency overflow.
 
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spd3001

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In my implementation, the siphon is on the left of this image, the secondary is the center one and the emergency drain is on the left. The yellow tube is coming out of the top of the secondary tube and zip ties to the emergency inlet so that it will be covered and go full siphon just before the level gets to the emergency inlet level. As suggested by the first responder, I opened the valve on the secondary all the way and tweaked the valve on the siphon and got the water level to rise in the overflow. Just what I wanted. It comes up from a dead start and stabilizes pretty quickly. If you refer back to Bean's original thread, this is how he did it. It's working for me.

Bean Animal Silent Overflow Back.jpg
 
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spd3001

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The primary drain should be open in an upward direction to let air out so it will start. If you make it U shaped with both ends down in water it will simply air lock. You could drill a hole in the top of the 90 to accomplish this. A 90 is placed on a full siphon to keep it from sucking air in a vortex down from the surface but you have to vent it.
It's working fine with the down turned street elbows for the primary and secondary, just like the original Bean design. The siphon blows air for a bit and then settles down to a strong flow with no bubbles. The secondary has a few bubbles with a much slower flow than the siphon, just as it should be.
 
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spd3001

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Those grey caps behind your tank at the tops of the drains. Do they have vent holes in them?
Only the secondary is vented with a John Guest fitting a 1/4 inch line that's zip tied so that the end is just below the emergency outlet by about 3/8 of an inch. Everything seems to be stable now after opening the secondary all the way and tuning the primary just a bit.
 

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