Help a rookie with Herbie plumbing

[xaacuetara]

Hi guys!

In the past few days, I've been working on plumbing a new reef tank I bought, I chose the Herbie overflow method, so I placed my main drain pipe about 5 inches below the emergency one, so the problem is that my new tank comes with an internal overflow box that has water lintels above and at the bottom of the box, my concern is that in case of a power failure, the water level drops that 5 inches below to where that PVC pipe is placed, so I don't know what to do should I replace that PVC pipe and put it higher or leave it like that.

This is my first time plumbing and I don't want any problems!
thanks for the help! I always found good helping people here in reef2reef

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

If I understood you correctly, your overflow has inlet weirs at the waterline and below, closer to the bottom of the tank. Does the lower one have a channel that brings that water up to the top weir or does the lower weir pass directly to the into the overflow area? If the latter is the case, you will need to raise both your emergency drain and your main drain to a level that will not flood your sump when the pumps are shut off.

 

[xaacuetara]

If I understood you correctly, your overflow has inlet weirs at the waterline and below, closer to the bottom of the tank. Does the lower one have a channel that brings that water up to the top weir or does the lower weir pass directly to the into the overflow area? If the latter is the case, you will need to raise both your emergency drain and your main drain to a level that will not flood your sump when the pumps are shut off.

Yes, that's the case, the bottom one goes directly to the overflow box, no channel, so what you recommend is to rise both of them?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Yes, that's the case, the bottom one goes directly to the overflow box, no channel, so what you recommend is to rise both of them?

Yes, I mean without seeing a photo or a drawing, it would seem if you stopped your pumps, the tank would drain until it would the display and the lowest drain would find a equilibrium. Since you are building this now. Could you silicone a channel that goes from the bottom of the overflow and stops just short of the bottom of the upper weir? That way you can be more versatile with your drains and if you stop your pumps it will only drain to the bottom of the top weir. Fijicube uses this design in their tanks.

 

[xaacuetara]

Sorry for the bad drawing haha, i can't take a picture rn but it looks like this, and yes I could also block the bottom ones, but I don't know if that's the best option

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I didn't mean to block off the bottoms just add a inner channel that stands off the inside of the overflow a cm or so. The water will enter the bottom weir and rise up to the top weir

 

[xaacuetara]

Oh ok, got you, and in your opinion what would be more convenient, building the channel and weir or just adding more height to the drain
By the way thanks for the help!

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Oh ok, got you, and in your opinion what would be more convenient, building the channel and weir or just adding more height to the drain
By the way thanks for the help!

YW...
It would be more convenient to add more height to the drains... But your adjustment for your gate valve would be very limited (silence/flow)
It would be best if you created a channel because if you had issues with the the drain height, it would be a lot of work to drain the tank and fix it.
I would just measure it out and have a glass shop cut a piece of glass for you and silicone it in.

 

[xaacuetara]

YW...
It would be more convenient to add more height to the drains... But your adjustment for your gate valve would be very limited (silence/flow)
It would be best if you created a channel because if you had issues with the the drain height, it would be a lot of work to drain the tank and fix it.
I would just measure it out and have a glass shop cut a piece of glass for you and silicone it in.

so I buy the pice of glass and silicon it but to what height? I get the idea just don’t get to what height or how to position it to really make a difference.

Also what I’m thinking is that those bottom intels might get blocked when I add sand to the tank

 

[xaacuetara]

so I buy the pice of glass and silicon it but to what height? I get the idea just don’t get to what height or how to position it to really make a difference.

Also what I’m thinking is that those bottom intels might get blocked when I add sand to the tank

This is how it looks like at the bottom