!!!! Emergency a piece of mind or hype !!!!

Diesel · Jan 9, 2018

We all know that sometimes being in this hobby is walking a fine line no matter how much you do your homework and the tons of info you read.
Emergencies drains are these things from the past or are we still relying on them as it's not IF but WHEN!!

Tell me about your setup/build and why you exercise one or your don't.

@Mini Coop

Flippers4pups · Jan 9, 2018

Well @Diesel, its one of those things that if you can, you should. Redundancy is always a good thing.

All it takes is that one time........ and you wished you had.

125 gallon reef ready, 6' DT on first floor.
1 1/2" drains and 1 1/2" emergencies and I sleep very well at night.

Mini Coop · Jan 9, 2018

Flippers4pups said:
Well @Diesel, its one of those things that if you can, you should. Redundancy is always a good thing.

All it takes is that one time........ and you wished you had.

125 gallon reef ready, 6' DT on first floor.
1 1/2" drains and 1 1/2" emergencies and I sleep very well at night.

I like this set up!

180 gallon DT on first floor, 2 1" drains in tank. Tested by shutting off one of the drains completely, and watching to make sure the DT water level didn't rise. Right now one is main drain and other is emergency, however, I am debating, once I can see how much turnover and flow I am getting, plumbing one of the returns as and emergency drain as well.
Safety for not if something happens, but for when.

Fin · Jan 9, 2018

There is one thing that bothers me about these Ghost style overflows - and yes, I have one. There are two emergency drains in the outer box - but no such provision on the inner box. It has the weir with teeth and a top on the inside. If something should happen to block the weir, there is no emergency exit out of the tank, except over the top. At least with the old MegaFlow overflows that I had in my old tank, if the teeth on the overflow got stopped up, the water would still run over the top of the weir and down the drain, before overflowing the tank. Was that confusing?

JoshH · Jan 9, 2018

With all my endless research and digging around it seemed to be the best set up for as what's mentioned above, redundancy. I took an AIO and plumbed in a BA setup, its silent and well tested in pretty much every scenario I could come up With. I really do have piece of mind especially given my relatively slow flow, any one of my 3 drains can handle 3 times the flow I have running so all 3 would have to clog up for there to be an issue. As mentioned above, IF you can, why not use the extra security? Also a benefit I never even thought of is what Fin just mentioned, being an AIO with an overflow half the width of the tank I'm not sweating the teeth getting clogged. Although regular maintenance should help prevent any issues with that I wouldn't want to see an anemone go for a ride and plug up 3/4s of the teeth on one. And in saying all of that, in reality it comes down to personal preference. Can you have a system run on a durso or Herbie design for lengthy periods of time, ofcourse. Thousands of systems have run for decades this way so there's nothing wrong with that approach as long as they are maintained appropriately. I think that in our hobby everything is trending towards failsafes and backups which why most overflows are setup for a BA now. And this is excellent as long as we don't perceive these as ways around regular maintenance.

Diesel · Jan 9, 2018

Fin said:
There is one thing that bothers me about these Ghost style overflows - and yes, I have one. There are two emergency drains in the outer box - but no such provision on the inner box. It has the weir with teeth and a top on the inside. If something should happen to block the weir, there is no emergency exit out of the tank, except over the top. At least with the old MegaFlow overflows that I had in my old tank, if the teeth on the overflow got stopped up, the water would still run over the top of the weir and down the drain, before overflowing the tank. Was that confusing?

Your weir should be lower than the tank height if done correct.
If you have a solid top on the weir you're out of luck but if you have a top with weirs in them you're all according game plan.

Diesel · Jan 9, 2018

JoshH said:
With all my endless research and digging around it seemed to be the best set up for as what's mentioned above, redundancy. I took an AIO and plumbed in a BA setup, its silent and well tested in pretty much every scenario I could come up With. I really do have piece of mind especially given my relatively slow flow, any one of my 3 drains can handle 3 times the flow I have running so all 3 would have to clog up for there to be an issue. As mentioned above, IF you can, why not use the extra security? Also a benefit I never even thought of is what Fin just mentioned, being an AIO with an overflow half the width of the tank I'm not sweating the teeth getting clogged. Although regular maintenance should help prevent any issues with that I wouldn't want to see an anemone go for a ride and plug up 3/4s of the teeth on one. And in saying all of that, in reality it comes down to personal preference. Can you have a system run on a durso or Herbie design for lengthy periods of time, ofcourse. Thousands of systems have run for decades this way so there's nothing wrong with that approach as long as they are maintained appropriately. I think that in our hobby everything is trending towards failsafes and backups which why most overflows are setup for a BA now. And this is excellent as long as we don't perceive these as ways around regular maintenance.

You could just raise one of the drain pipes 0.5" and use that as a E-drain.
With 3 drains it wouldn't make a difference but it looks cool as you can talk about your E-drain (just made that up the other day when I was talking to a good friend and more than a friend, but I'm not surprised in a few months that the E-Drain is just as normal as PE or Po4........ )

JoshH · Jan 9, 2018

Diesel said:
You could just raise one of the drain pipes 0.5" and use that as a E-drain.
With 3 drains it wouldn't make a difference but it looks cool as you can talk about your E-drain

Sorry Diesel I seem to be missing what you're referring to with raising one pipe? Lol do you mean one of my drains specifically? If so, already done. I'm all E-drained up

Fin · Jan 9, 2018

Diesel said:
Your weir should be lower than the tank height if done correct.
If you have a solid top on the weir you're out of luck but if you have a top with weirs in them you're all according game plan.

Yes, the weir is lower than the tank height, but it has a removable L shaped top with the slots to the front and a solid top. So, when in place the only way out for water, is through the slots. Now it is 18" wide and the slots are fairly large, so not likely that it will stop up, ever. Just one of those things that nag at you when you overthink something.

Diesel · Jan 9, 2018

JoshH said:
Sorry Diesel I seem to be missing what you're referring to with raising one pipe? Lol do you mean one of my drains specifically? If so, already done. I'm all E-drained up

All be D*****

you didn't mentioned that till now ;Jawdrop

You can call yourself for this week the E-Drain specialist

JoshH · Jan 9, 2018

Diesel said:
All be D***** you didn't mentioned that till now ;Jawdrop

You can call yourself for this week the E-Drain specialist

AHA! Only thing I'll ever claim being a specialist of is in the department of spending money. But sounds like a snazzy shirt with "Your E-Drain Specialist" might be in order

Diesel · Jan 9, 2018

Fin said:
Yes, the weir is lower than the tank height, but it has a removable L shaped top with the slots to the front and a solid top. So, when in place the only way out for water, is through the slots. Now it is 18" wide and the slots are fairly large, so not likely that it will stop up, ever. Just one of those things that nag at you when you overthink something.

Fish are smarter now days, remember the movie Nemo where they cloaked up the drain and the HOB pump stopped............ I'm telling ya.
Besides, my fish just placed a order through ALEXA for a shrimp pizza by Pappa Jones

jsker · Jan 9, 2018

Overflow and drain

JoshH · Jan 9, 2018

jsker said:
Overflow and drain

This looks like it's specifically designed for lazy reefing.

Straight drain for quick WC with a back up overflow, smart! I'll be taking notes from your build thread Jsker

jsker · Jan 9, 2018

JoshH said:
This looks like it's specifically designed for lazy reefing. Straight drain for quick WC with a back up overflow, smart! I'll be taking notes from your build thread Jsker

Had to drill a hole in the wall. Outside I put a 5 gallon bucket with hole filled with corse grave for drainage.