zodiii Posted June 12, 2014 Share Posted June 12, 2014 So, I am moving up in the world to a 75 gallon tank which will have either a 20L or something around that size for the sump, maybe even a 40B if it will fit in my stand. I just flat out don't trust a single drain, so I get the joy of drilling my own tank and building my own overflow. My current two options are: Beananimal with a long, shallow overflow with 3 drains: 1" full siphon, 1" trickle/open channel and a 1.5" emergency. A coast-to-coast overflow would be great, but I can't seem to find one for < $150, which I just don't know that I want to stomach that. Herbie with a 1" full siphon and a 1.5" trickle/emegency. Does anyone have opinions on it? To me, it's sort of splitting hairs. My current and past tanks had Herbies. They are silent, work great and a pretty low maintenance other than every once in awhile adjusting the flow to silence things out. But, this is my largest tank, will be in my living room over hardwood (ok, laminate) floors and an overflow would cost me a lot more than just a wet floor in there. In theory, there should be a 0% chance of overflow if I limit my head space in my return chamber properly, which I didn't do on my last tank. So what are everyone else's opinions on it? Link to comment
BattleAthletics Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 What happened to arks post? I love my over flow and it's silent, I hear nothing and the loudest thing in my sump is my skimmer. Link to comment
Arkayology Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 What happened to arks post? I love my over flow and it's silent, I hear nothing and the loudest thing in my sump is my skimmer. I deleted it. I felt I really didn't have much to add lol. Basically, I like my herbie style drain. Link to comment
zodiii Posted June 13, 2014 Author Share Posted June 13, 2014 I deleted it. I felt I really didn't have much to add lol. Basically, I like my herbie style drain. On both my original Fluval and my current Mr. Aqua, my overflow is silent with the herbie drain. Did you make any modifications, or is it a standard herbie style? Link to comment
NirvanaandTool Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 I'm essentially in the same situation. 90g over laminate floors. My tank is a Marineland Reef Ready so I went Herbie with 1" bulkhead upsized to 1.5" for both the siphon and emergency drains. I wanted to make sure it could handle any amount of flow I threw at it. In water tests, it does handle everything I can throw at it and more. My 40B that's currently in my basement is a Beananimal though. I originally built this for an apartment so flood proof was crucial. Never had any problems. Honestly if you are making the overflow from scratch, you might as well go Bean. If you are dealing with a prebuilt reef-ready tank, Herbie. Both systems are great but the Bean does have that extra drain so it's a little more peace of mind. Link to comment
Arkayology Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 On both my original Fluval and my current Mr. Aqua, my overflow is silent with the herbie drain. Did you make any modifications, or is it a standard herbie style? Standard herbie with 2 1" drains. Link to comment
farkwar Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 If you dont go with the 40b, at least get a 29tall. It will give you 10 more gallons of safety on the sump side. 20l is so low, its just begging to overflow with power out. Nice looking overflow boxes. http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cpr-retrofit-overflow-box-with-backing.html Link to comment
zodiii Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 If you dont go with the 40b, at least get a 29tall. It will give you 10 more gallons of safety on the sump side. 20l is so low, its just begging to overflow with power out. Nice looking overflow boxes. http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cpr-retrofit-overflow-box-with-backing.html That's a good point, I haven't sat down to do the math yet, but I imagine that I would have to run that 20L so low on water to catch the back wash that it almost wouldn't be a sump. Link to comment
farkwar Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 The 20l is only 12 inches tall. Youre going to have a skimmer and they need average 8 inches of water. So most of your water is going to be 4 inches or less from the top. Your drain chamber will probably run higher, pump chamber lower. Lets just say 4 inches clearance. (4x12x30)÷231, so around 6 gallons. Thats room, but not a lot of room. Say a gallon in the pipes. You have about 5 gallons of tank water that can backflow before sump overflows. Thats without a high refugium cgamber in sump. Link to comment
frankdontsurf Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 There's a few DIY 'ghost overflow' write ups out there. Link to comment
zodiii Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 There's a few DIY 'ghost overflow' write ups out there. I will look into it, my only beef is the external box. It's complete personal preference, but for some reason having the box sticking out of the back bothers me. Then again, there's going to be plumbing sticking straight out the back, so maybe I should build some kind of cover for it at the very least. Link to comment
Paleoreef103 Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 If you dont go with the 40b, at least get a 29tall. It will give you 10 more gallons of safety on the sump side. 20l is so low, its just begging to overflow with power out. Nice looking overflow boxes. http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cpr-retrofit-overflow-box-with-backing.html I've been running a 20L for my sump on my 40b for years now. My baffles are ~8.5-9" tall and when I turn off the return pump the water level in the sump doesn't come within an inch of the trim of the 20L. Granted, I'm only running about a 5 or 6X turnover through my sump and my return doesn't drain much thanks to some loc line, but still. I chose the 20L over the 29 because the 29 was too tall for me to remove the skimmer completely from the sump due to the height of my stand. The point is, it's easy to make a 20L work as a sump without sacrificing safety. Link to comment
farkwar Posted June 18, 2014 Share Posted June 18, 2014 Yup, I have similar problem with zeo reactor, its a partial birth abortion getting it out to change rocks...I have the 20L from March Petco sale ready to be built. Did you know that the whole field of obstetrics was invented to get dead fetuses out of women.Interesting subject. Link to comment
zodiii Posted June 21, 2014 Author Share Posted June 21, 2014 Well my tank/stand hasn't came in, so I haven't had a chance to measure, but I am hoping that a 40B will fit under it. Apparently Aqueon makes a 30B as well, which I think would fit. I am shooting for a shallower tank since I am hoping to use 1/4 to 1/2 of it for a mini-frag tank, so long and shallow I think would be the best option. I am still unsettled whether I am going with Herbie or Beanimal with a not-quite coast-to-coast overflow box. I think I just need to get the tank in and stare at it for awhile. I was looking at the actual size of a 1 1/2" bulkhead, and it's a lot bigger than I thought it was, so I think whatever I do I will probably only go with 1" and (if herbie) keep the full siphon drain relatively choked down. I pretty well change my mind on an hourly basis, though so we'll see what I actually end up with. Link to comment
Gooburz Posted November 25, 2016 Share Posted November 25, 2016 Herbie without a doubt. Cheaper and is 100% fail safe, I tested mine multiple times before setting up and I couldn't get it to fail. My main drain is a 3/4" full siphon and the back up is a 1". Link to comment
ajmckay Posted December 1, 2016 Share Posted December 1, 2016 Agree that the difference is splitting hairs for most people... No significant advantage one over the other IMO. I run a herbie because it's simpler to setup, tune, and has all the redundancy I need. Oh and it's got a very small in-tank footprint and cheaper too... Your call though... Equally good choices. Link to comment
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