Finally...peace & quiet at last!

After many attempts to quiet my gravity overflow, I finally did it!

The way I had it before, the water was basically getting siphoned down the tubes and sucking the air from above the water...this led to a LOUD toilet flushing sound that just wouldn't quit! It was driving me INSANE!

Here's the OLD set-up:

The plumbing included 2 1"bulkheads at the top of my tank and water flowed from my main display down to my sump/refugium via 2 elbow hose barb adapters and clear I.D. tubing...

This is how I finally quieted that loud bugger:

Replaced the elbows w/ threaded T-unions and connected the T's to the bulkheads by way of a nipple tube...of course using teflon tape to seal all the connections.

Then connected another nipple tube to the top of the T-union...just to ensure that water wouldn't spill over from the top...

Added a cap to the top of the nipple tube

The cap was drilled at the top to ensure that air would enter the tubing to relieve pressure and prevent a vacuuming action. Then connected the clear tubing to the T-union by a hose barb adapter.

Then Booyah! The finished product and NO MORE TOILET FLUSHING SOUND! Yay! Silence at last!

Okay. I know I sound way too excited for this very simple project, but I tried so many different ways to quiet the overflow (simply cuz I didn't want to mess w/ the plumbing again), and nothing worked...until now. Okay. That's it. =)

Tigahboy, i'm in the process of rigging up a new tank with an overflow and was planning to try the way you've done it to see if it would help keep the noise down. Obviously, i've now got living proof that the method works now so I'm chuffed to bits.

Thanks for posting the details.

no problemo....make sure you check for leaks tho. first time around I had a little leakage, so I had to disconnect and add more teflon tape to the threading and then re-connected. now it doesn't leak. good luck w/ yours!

hahahah....you got there in the end ......you made a "DURSO" overflow .....

yup, durso standpipe in action!! good work!

one other thing, you may want to add a small air tube, stuffed down that hole in the cap where you drilled the hole. just stuff it in there going down about 6-8" then having it hang up out of the cap about 2" or so...this will help relieve the air thats causing that toilet bowl flushing effect...

KrackerG, thanks for the input. Sounds easy enuf...I'll give it a try and see what happens.

what, may i ask, is a nipple tube? I have the same kind of overflow (without durso) and it's loud as hell, want to do this mod....

thanks

looks like this: http://aquariumpros.com/Merchant2/merchant...t_Code=P1NIPPLE

just basically a tube that is threaded on both ends so you can connect two female fittings together.

Hey tigah, tonight I redid my drain, and made a T-union, with an endcap and a hole, to help reduce the sucking problem. The only new problem is that a lot of noise is now comming from the hole. Its not really the same "sucking" noise but it almost sounds like a coffe pot. The sucking noise is gone from the nozzle attached to the bulkhead however, but like I said a new noise is now commnig from the t-union. Did you experience this.

The hole also seems to make water drain faster.

shaz, make the hole bigger maybe. maybe its doing a whistling effect.

like those big nipple ends, lol give it a little flush now then

drouls over progress photos