Herbie Emergency Drain Noise

[SloppyJ]

So I got my tank set up and I did a leak test last night. Everything went fine but the emergency made some noise. It had a slow trickle going down it. I chamfered the interiror edges with a small jewelers file. Maybe I didn't do it enough. Here's my setup. Any help is appreciated. The cut isn't exactly 90 degrees but it's pretty close.

 

[SloppyJ]

 

[Bad Company]

Tune the gate valve so less water goes down the emergency. No?

 

[jservedio]

Tune the gate valve so less water goes down the emergency. No?

Yep - the emergency should have almost no water, if any, going down it - it should make absolutely no noise. I have mine set so the water level is about 1/8" below the emergency (my emergency is dry) and it takes about a week of my filter sock clogging up to create enough back pressure to move the water level in the overflow high enough to reach the emergency.

The emergency is just that- an emergency and should have no meaningful amount of water in it and you can run it with no water in it if you want.

 

[TrishW]

Yep, you need to open the valve for the main drain pipe a little more. Like the poster above, my goal is to have the water in the overflow column be about 1/8" inch below the emergency pipe.

Before I got an ATO and I was topping of manually sometimes I would have a trickle right after I added water. After a little water evaporated the trickle would stop.

Don't give up on the Herbie. You will love it after you get it fine tuned. Remember that any adjustment you make will take at least a couple of hours to really equalize, so make tiny adjustments and wait a while for the true results before adjusting again.

 

[SloppyJ]

I got it fine tuned last night and let it run all night.Seems to have settled in. The article I read that got me interested in the herbie said to run a trickle down the emergency but I think I'm going to leave it dry.

 

[TrishW]

If you run a trickle you will probably find that algae will grow down into the pipe. That was the case with my tank anyway. I believe it is called filamentous algae.

 

[SloppyJ]

I have a top for my overflow so I doubt it would get any light, but yes, I can see where it could be a problem.