Single pipe Herbie?

[chasingcorals17]

I currently have a durso overflow that you can hear gurgle like the washing machine is on. There’s two drilled holes: overflow and return. I was wondering if I could just turn the durso into a Herbie full siphon without the second emergency pipe. 
 

my question being does that emergency pipe have a hand in making the Herbie dead silent or is it simply for the chance the main pipe gets clogged?

[Jaren45]

All you need for it to be silent is a full siphon, ideally with a gate valve. The emergency is nice though as you can hear it pretty audibly when something's wrong 

[mcarroll]

16 hours ago, chasingcorals17 said:

I currently have a durso overflow that you can hear gurgle like the washing machine is on. There’s two drilled holes: overflow and return. I was wondering if I could just turn the durso into a Herbie full siphon without the second emergency pipe. 
 

my question being does that emergency pipe have a hand in making the Herbie dead silent or is it simply for the chance the main pipe gets clogged?

Sorry in advance if this is too off-topic...it's related, but I realize not what you are asking about.  😬

 

Assuming there isn't something wrong with your plumbing that's causing this noise...  (Maybe post pics of your plumbing if there's any question.  It should be a pretty straight shot from tank to sump using 1" plumbing or better.  If it's not...pics!)

 

If this is a reef tank where in-tank flow is provided by powerheads, then there is no reason for running so much return flow that your drains make noise.  

 

Almost miraculously, gravity drains will be dead silent at 50% of their rated flow.  (Which is naturally based on pipe size.)

 

For example, 1" drains are rated at 600 GPH.  So ≤ 300 GPH would be dead silent.  (You can google up a chart that shows various pipe sizes.)

 

So, assuming it's a "normal" reef tank, the simplest/best solution is to stop over-driving your drains....reduce flow from your return pump a little bit at a time until the noise stops.  Problem solved!!

 

FWIW, things like the Durso and Herbie were created back in the day when we were all trying to do 100% of the display tank's flow with the return pump.....but within the limits of 1" and 3/4" pipe since that's what all "reef ready" tanks come predrilled with.  

 

Those days are past for the most part thanks to the modern propellor-based powerhead.  The return pump only has to provide 2x to 4x the display tanks's size in GPH when it's just serving things like filters, etc. in the sump.  

 

For example, a 125 Gallon tank would need between 250 GPH and 500 GPH of return flow.  (ie 2*125 or 4*125)  A 125 is likely to have two 1" drains, so could support up to 600 GPH silently.  Perfect fit to carry that 500 GPH!  🙂 

 

(I guess to make my post "even more relevant" I can add that the reason the "main drain" in a Herbie setup is silent is because the siphon keeps main-drain flow to a minimum – under 50% of it's rated size. 😉 )

[jservedio]

17 hours ago, Jaren45 said:

All you need for it to be silent is a full siphon, ideally with a gate valve. The emergency is nice though as you can hear it pretty audibly when something's wrong 

If you put a gate valve on your only drain, you'd better have a float valve in your overflow box or DT relayed to the return pump. It WILL fail at some point - they all do. It might be two years, it might be five years but it's only a matter of time. All it takes is a clump of hair algae, a snail, accumulated detritus, or a million other things on the gate to ruin your floors.

 

I ran a full siphon on a single drain for 8 years and I went through two gates and my emergency relay was tripped 6 times that I know of to shut down the return. Make sure you test it every time you make a change!

[Jaren45]

3 hours ago, jservedio said:

If you put a gate valve on your only drain, you'd better have a float valve in your overflow box or DT relayed to the return pump. It WILL fail at some point - they all do. It might be two years, it might be five years but it's only a matter of time. All it takes is a clump of hair algae, a snail, accumulated detritus, or a million other things on the gate to ruin your floors.

 

I ran a full siphon on a single drain for 8 years and I went through two gates and my emergency relay was tripped 6 times that I know of to shut down the return. Make sure you test it every time you make a change!

good point, didn't even know there was a way to shut off the return pump via sensor like that. Single drain in general is just a little scary to me haha