Ghost overflow plumbing pictures

nova65ss · Nov 9, 2016

Hello everyone hope it is ok to post this here. I purchased one of the new overflows and was wondering if I could get some of those that have this setup already to post some pics of the plumbing and how the returns look in the tank. Tank and overflow won't be here until next month but I am planning the stand and need a little visual. Anything you can share even behind the tank if possible. Thank you

tdhnry · Nov 10, 2016

Here's some pics when I initially set up my tank a few years back.

mniemann · Nov 10, 2016

I am interested to watch this thread. My RS w/ ghost overflow will be ready soon.

nova65ss · Nov 11, 2016

Thank you very much for the pictures!

ChristopherKriens · Nov 11, 2016

revhtree · Nov 11, 2016

ChristopherKriens said:

Can you explain the three drains and what each of them do? I want to feature this on FB.

ChristopherKriens · Nov 11, 2016

revhtree said:
Can you explain the three drains and what each of them do? I want to feature this on FB.

Sure. There are pretty solid explanations of Bean Animal and this is my first, but this is my interpretation of it for my application.

The drain on the far right has the lowest inlet inside the overflow box. The job of this drain is to draw only water to the sump with a full siphon. This is great because it's the most efficient use of the drain, and because there is no air, it's also silent. The goal in theory is to balance the rate of flow through the full siphon drain to exactly match the flow of the return lines. For that reason, this drain is oversized and has a gate valve which can be tuned to reduce the flow rate to exactly match. In practice though, these flow rates won't ever match. The full siphon drain will always be a little too fast or a little too slow which would, left to its own devices, eventually drain or overfill the overflow box. The full siphon drain needs some help.

For this reason, the full siphon is backed off slightly such that it handles almost all of the return flow. This causes the water level in the overflow box to rise slowly. In the overflow box, the open channel drain inlet is placed above the full siphon to pick up the slack. It has an open inlet, which allows both air and water to enter the drain line freely. When tuned correctly, this drain line only has to handle a slight trickle of water, which is the the flow rate of the returns minus the flow rate of the full siphon; that tiny difference that was created by backing off the flow capacity on the full siphon gate valve. Because this is a small amount of water, it doesn't surge or interact with air as it flows and generally hugs the edges of the drain due to surface tension. This results in a nearly silent open channel drain. But what happens if this drain gets clogged? The open channel needs some help.

The third is an emergency drain, the purpose of which is to move water to the sump in the event that the lower drains become clogged, or there is a temporary increase in water level. For this reason, it has the highest inlet in the overflow box just above the open channel. Oftentimes, this drain's outlet is placed high in a main sump chamber so that when it's in use, it causes a ruckus so the reefer knows that the drains are not operating normally. Under normal circumstances, this drain is not in use and doesn't have any effect on noise. This leaves us with a system that handles the precise amount of flow without variation, no noise, and enough redundancy to satisfy a NASA engineer.

revhtree · Nov 11, 2016

ChristopherKriens said:
Sure. There are pretty solid explanations of Bean Animal and this is my first, but this is my interpretation of it for my application.

The drain on the far right has the lowest inlet inside the overflow box. The job of this drain is to draw only water to the sump with a full siphon. This is great because it's the most efficient use of the drain, and because there is no air, it's also silent. The goal in theory is to balance the rate of flow through the full siphon drain to exactly match the flow of the return lines. For that reason, this drain is oversized and has a gate valve which can be tuned to reduce the flow rate to exactly match. In practice though, these flow rates won't ever match. The full siphon drain will always be a little too fast or a little too slow which would, left to its own devices, eventually drain or overfill the overflow box. The full siphon drain needs some help.

For this reason, the full siphon is backed off slightly such that it handles almost all of the return flow. This causes the water level in the overflow box to rise slowly. In the overflow box, the open channel drain inlet is placed above the full siphon to pick up the slack. It has an open inlet, which allows both air and water to enter the drain line freely. When tuned correctly, this drain line only has to handle a slight trickle of water, which is the the flow rate of the returns minus the flow rate of the full siphon; that tiny difference that was created by backing off the flow capacity on the full siphon gate valve. Because this is a small amount of water, it doesn't surge or interact with air as it flows and generally hugs the edges of the drain due to surface tension. This results in a nearly silent open channel drain. But what happens if this drain gets clogged? The open channel needs some help.

The third is an emergency drain, the purpose of which is to move water to the sump in the event that the lower drains become clogged, or there is a temporary increase in water level. For this reason, it has the highest inlet in the overflow box just above the open channel. Oftentimes, this drain's outlet is placed high in a main sump chamber so that when it's in use, it causes a ruckus so the reefer knows that the drains are not operating normally. Under normal circumstances, this drain is not in use and doesn't have any effect on noise. This leaves us with a system that handles the precise amount of flow without variation, no noise, and enough redundancy to satisfy a NASA engineer.