Herbie Overflow still making noise. Can anyone help?

[Eric B]

The second question was more for future knowledge. I imagine balancing two Herbies would be very tough. I have one corner overflow, from an Aqueon 2300 pump. My return plumbing is 3/4" and the drain plumbing is 1". With a straight line, the Aqueon pushes juuust enough water to allow water to flow over my top weir, while the rest flows through the bottom weir (picture attached of Marineland cornerflo in case you need visual). The aqueon's flow rate can be adjusted on the pump. When I installed a swing check valve on the pump, it no longer pushes enough water to force over the top weir, thus no surface skimming. This is another problem I have, but I guess I can tackle that one later unless you have any advice there. My aqueon is also pretty loud, so I'm thinking of replacing.

Yes if it had 2 overflows I don't think a Herbie or a Bean will work so its good that you have only 1 overflow. Is there a reason that you even run a check valve on the return? Will your sump not handle all the water if power outage occurs? The only reason I ask is that those swing valves will fail over time if not cleaned out on a regular basis. I don't know anything or have ever ran one of those pumps before but that is weird that installing that valve cuts down on flow that much.....If you are think of replacing I might look at a quiet one or an ehiem as they are both super quiet and very reliable pumps and have used both many times in the past. That is good that the drain is larger sized pvc and the only thing I did different on my set ups in the past with a herbie was that I had a gate valve installed on the siphon drain line instead of a ball valve and a ball valve installed on my return line and no swing check valve. I could dial it in perfectly that way and it worked perfect and was silent and yes over time there will be a slime build-up in the siphon line and a little tweaking might be necessary in the future.

You do have the siphon line running underwater in your sump correct? I forgot to ask that earlier as my siphon line ran underwater almost to the bottom of my sump drain section and emergency drain was cut off so that it was above the water line and I could hear it. Other than that it might just require tweaking a bit as I ran a stronger return pump and then throttled it back some with a ball valve and then was able to play with the gate valve and dial it in with both valves over a few days. Hopefully that was of some help to you and all that I can think of from my old system that had this drain style. I am back to standard durso drains because it is a dual overflow tank.

 

[Jimbo662]

how tall is your main drain? I would think with the bottom weirs it would be dangerous to use this method as you'd have too much volume draining.

 

[sayhy2mark33]

how tall is your main drain? I would think with the bottom weirs it would be dangerous to use this method as you'd have too much volume draining.

I see the concern, but on the Perfectos, the bottom drain actually finally terminates into the overflow at the top, just under the teeth of the top weir (it runs through an inside channel before reaching the overflow side), so it doesn't drain the tank to the vents, but instead only to the teeth of the overflow.

 

[sayhy2mark33]

Yes if it had 2 overflows I don't think a Herbie or a Bean will work so its good that you have only 1 overflow. Is there a reason that you even run a check valve on the return? Will your sump not handle all the water if power outage occurs? The only reason I ask is that those swing valves will fail over time if not cleaned out on a regular basis. I don't know anything or have ever ran one of those pumps before but that is weird that installing that valve cuts down on flow that much.....If you are think of replacing I might look at a quiet one or an ehiem as they are both super quiet and very reliable pumps and have used both many times in the past. That is good that the drain is larger sized pvc and the only thing I did different on my set ups in the past with a herbie was that I had a gate valve installed on the siphon drain line instead of a ball valve and a ball valve installed on my return line and no swing check valve. I could dial it in perfectly that way and it worked perfect and was silent and yes over time there will be a slime build-up in the siphon line and a little tweaking might be necessary in the future.

You do have the siphon line running underwater in your sump correct? I forgot to ask that earlier as my siphon line ran underwater almost to the bottom of my sump drain section and emergency drain was cut off so that it was above the water line and I could hear it. Other than that it might just require tweaking a bit as I ran a stronger return pump and then throttled it back some with a ball valve and then was able to play with the gate valve and dial it in with both valves over a few days. Hopefully that was of some help to you and all that I can think of from my old system that had this drain style. I am back to standard durso drains because it is a dual overflow tank.

This is making me think I need a gate valve. I really appreciate your help. And I do have my drain lines running under the water level in my sump.

 

[sayhy2mark33]

To Russ and the rest, last night I used a Dremel to round off the inside of my emergency pipe quite nicely, actually. Unfortunately, this didn't alleviate the sound any further, as the small notch I made in the overflow actually seemed to do a pretty good job in the first place. On the bottom of the tank, I unscrewed the union and dry-fitted a 45 degree elbow in there to angle the bottom quarter of my full drain line. Surprisingly, this cut down the noise to not be as aggravating. When I have some time, I will be cutting that line and placing the union just under the bulkhead, and then angling my line from there. I know that this will help the noise based on what I learned, last night. If there's still further issues, I my options are to lower the emergency pipe just a little to where the weir isn't making noise, but there's less of a fall for the water, or to try and angle my pipe within the overflow. I'm traveling in a few days, but I'll be sure to update the thread with what I find.

 

[Russ]

Sounds like you're off to a good start. If you lower the emergency pipe, be sure to lower the siphon drain as well. If they are too close, it becomes hard to tune, and you may even prevent the siphon from starting. I was actually going to suggest lowering the siphon drain as it was, to help in fine tuning it. The pressure on the water in the siphon increases as the height of the water line over its opening increases. This helps in tuning the system, especially if you're using a ball valve, because it gives you a bigger 'sweet spot' to work with. Once you have the valve closed enough to create the siphon without drawing any air, the water level will begin to rise over that drain. As it rises, the pressure on the water in the drain will increase. With a little luck and some patience, you can find a point where the water level will hover between the two drains if you have a few inches of separation.

I had not brought this up yet for two reasons. For one, as I mentioned, your pump flow will fluctuate over time, so it helps to have everything tuned well (and quiet) first if you can. Then this balance can be achieved later. Second, I'm not sure how much extra volume you have in your sump to work with. If you lower your drains, you will drain more water out of the tank during power outages, etc. and you will need to have the room for all of that extra water in the sump. Do not rely on a check valve to prevent the draining if your sump can't handle the drained water, you will come home to wet carpet one day when it fails!

 

[sayhy2mark33]

Sounds like you're off to a good start. If you lower the emergency pipe, be sure to lower the siphon drain as well. If they are too close, it becomes hard to tune, and you may even prevent the siphon from starting. I was actually going to suggest lowering the siphon drain as it was, to help in fine tuning it. The pressure on the water in the siphon increases as the height of the water line over its opening increases. This helps in tuning the system, especially if you're using a ball valve, because it gives you a bigger 'sweet spot' to work with. Once you have the valve closed enough to create the siphon without drawing any air, the water level will begin to rise over that drain. As it rises, the pressure on the water in the drain will increase. With a little luck and some patience, you can find a point where the water level will hover between the two drains if you have a few inches of separation.

I had not brought this up yet for two reasons. For one, as I mentioned, your pump flow will fluctuate over time, so it helps to have everything tuned well (and quiet) first if you can. Then this balance can be achieved later. Second, I'm not sure how much extra volume you have in your sump to work with. If you lower your drains, you will drain more water out of the tank during power outages, etc. and you will need to have the room for all of that extra water in the sump. Do not rely on a check valve to prevent the draining if your sump can't handle the drained water, you will come home to wet carpet one day when it fails!

All solid advice. It looks like I have some tuning to do, but I may run out of time before my trip, unfortunately. I'd really like to get this thing going so I'm confident with the plumbing before I add the hard-scape and fish. Thanks again for all of your help!

 

[sismjw]

Hi sayhy2mark33, I have exactly the same noise as your original video with my emergency overflow. I'm hoping you you managed to fix the issue and would be really happy if you could share your fix if you did?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[sayhy2mark33]

Hi Mike,

I did, and I've had it on my list of things to do to follow up with everyone on how I accomplished it. Since you need it now, I will actually put it on my list to do a video tonight if I can, to show you what I did.

 

[sismjw]

Hi Mike,

I did, and I've had it on my list of things to do to follow up with everyone on how I accomplished it. Since you need it now, I will actually put it on my list to do a video tonight if I can, to show you what I did.

You would make a very happy man as I currently have a half done plumbing job where I have been trying all sorts. Changing the length of the emergency drain in the weir, using 45 degree bends instead of 90, altering the length of pipe extending down into the sump and even filling down what I thought were lumps of solvent weld in the pipe from my bulkhead!

 

[Bad Company]

Check valves gum up and fail all the time. I would not rely on one at all. Herbies are relatively easy to tune with gate valves. You should be able to balance two easily.

 

[sayhy2mark33]

You would make a very happy man as I currently have a half done plumbing job where I have been trying all sorts. Changing the length of the emergency drain in the weir, using 45 degree bends instead of 90, altering the length of pipe extending down into the sump and even filling down what I thought were lumps of solvent weld in the pipe from my bulkhead!

Here you go, Mike.

[video=youtube;ZEELgjoNLN8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEELgjoNLN8&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Golden rules I've learned (with the help of these forums):

• Gate valve is a must. Do NOT try this with a ball valve. You may be able to get it to work eventually, but spend the extra 20$ and get a quality gate valve. Your time is precious and these will need to be re-tuned periodically.

• It's all about what you do BELOW the bulkhead, vs. what you do above it. I tried angling above and it did nothing for me. Angle the bottom drain lines.

• Siphon drain line needs to be in its own drain section where the height of the water stays the constant, unless you're using a top-off in which case the sump level stays constant anyway.

• Quietest way is to leave some of the exposed drain pipe past the bulkhead open to air. It kills the echo sound from cascading water. My video doesn't use this but if you angle your emergency drain pipe, leave the top half of the outlet exposed to air. It kills the echo sound.

• Emergency drain standpipe needs to have a notch cut in it, and the bevel helps too. I used a dremel to bevel mine.

I'd like to thank everyone on the forums for their help in this. I spent over 40 man-hours trying different configurations to get this to the way I wanted, and now hopefully I've saved someone else some of their own time. The tank is **** near silent and the gf has expressed several times how impressed she is with how quiet the tank is. For any Freshwater CO2 junkies, the drain and sump system was design with minimal turbulence to the water, to minimize any CO2 outgassing. I haven't hooked up the CO2 yet, but I'm expecting this tank to work very well in my application.

 

[sismjw]

Here you go, Mike.

[video=youtube;ZEELgjoNLN8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEELgjoNLN8&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Golden rules I've learned (with the help of these forums):

• Gate valve is a must. Do NOT try this with a ball valve. You may be able to get it to work eventually, but spend the extra 20$ and get a quality gate valve. Your time is precious and these will need to be re-tuned periodically.

• It's all about what you do BELOW the bulkhead, vs. what you do above it. I tried angling above and it did nothing for me. Angle the bottom drain lines.

• Siphon drain line needs to be in its own drain section where the height of the water stays the constant, unless you're using a top-off in which case the sump level stays constant anyway.

• Quietest way is to leave some of the exposed drain pipe past the bulkhead open to air. It kills the echo sound from cascading water. My video doesn't use this but if you angle your emergency drain pipe, leave the top half of the outlet exposed to air. It kills the echo sound.

• Emergency drain standpipe needs to have a notch cut in it, and the bevel helps too. I used a dremel to bevel mine.

I'd like to thank everyone on the forums for their help in this. I spent over 40 man-hours trying different configurations to get this to the way I wanted, and now hopefully I've saved someone else some of their own time. The tank is **** near silent and the gf has expressed several times how impressed she is with how quiet the tank is. For any Freshwater CO2 junkies, the drain and sump system was design with minimal turbulence to the water, to minimize any CO2 outgassing. I haven't hooked up the CO2 yet, but I'm expecting this tank to work very well in my application.

Thanks for the video and all the recommendation. The one that cracked it for me was the gate valve, I was attempting to use a ball valve and this was causing me no end of trouble. I still need try cutting out notches in the emergancy drain pipe to see if I can make it even quieter.

 

[Tide pool]

Wow, a lot of info. We just got a ML 90 corner flo. Just starting to plan. I know I d like a to switch it to a herbie so there's a emergency overflow,it is also a 1" & a 3/4 bulkhead . Need better lights and a bigger skimmer so couple months out but it be nice to get it right the first set up so any links or tips that I could follow be great . Will be switching from a scratched up 46 bf that's been up and stable for 6 months, fish live rock some softies a mushroom and some Zoas.