Overflow Diagrams

[Sebea]

Ok, that's good news. Thank you!

[ficklefins]

Quick question.

 

If you add an elbow (90deg connection) to the inside of the durso design will it still work well? I wanted to add an elbow so that I could adjust my water level on a drilled tank.

 

Or would you suggest to not add the elbow?

[Tigahboy]

yeah, it should still work.

[DitchPlains]

TIGAH sup mang??

 

 

What I did on my 55 was this,

 

Basically the external durso with strainer, however not a tee but a 90* elbow, my problem is after drilling little holes in the elbow, I am not getting enough flow and my pump is too powerful, do you think adding a tee on the drain, then a ball valve on my return will help?

 

this is rhetorical lol

David

 

[Tigahboy]

haha. sup, dude. wow, u just have an elbow w/ a hole? how does water not spill out from the hole? Maybe I'm not picturing the overflow correctly in my head.

 

rhetorical question...but I think the best solution would be to add a T to the return line w/ a ball valve to redirect some of the flow back into the sump to reduce the flow going thru the overflow.

[DitchPlains]

Dood....just trying my hands at decent sized tank finally a 55gg....hehe, yea my drain is a durso sorta, just a strainer and 90* elbow with holes ontop, my return line I think needs a valve to back off my too powerful pump Quiet One HH4400.

 

No water spillage as of yet as the holes are on top, but definately better then jaming a piece of AT down the strainer lol...

 

take care

David

[kingborris]

Hi all,

 

New to this site, and although I dont keep marine (nano or otherwise), I am just setting up a 180 gal discus tank with sump. Someone linked me to this very handy thread about standpipes

 

here's my query:

 

I found this article on an impropvement to the Durso standpipe:

 

http://www.fishfurfeather.com/forum/module...e=article&sid=5

 

Any comments on this modification? (i havent tried it myself)

Do you think it would also be viable with a stockman standpipe (which is what i think i will be using)

 

Any comments would be appreciated

 

TIA,

 

KB

[cncmastr]

Great post! Where can I buy the materials, like the bulkhead fittings? Can I find them at Home Depot?

 

Also, I was thinking of adding a durso standpipe into the second part of the my M-Tank 20gallon. See picture. What do you guys think?

 

Edited January 19, 2006 by cncmastr

[Bluelegs]

How can you make a standpipe self-priming. Like if it sucks downs too much water, and then the pump pushes it back up, what's to stop the tank from overflowing?

[Bluelegs]

Bump

[neanderthalman]

So long as the standpipe and drain plumbing can handle the flow rate of the return, then it won't overflow. It doesn't need priming, it's just a pipe, it's not a siphon. There's a hole drilled in the cap at the top to prevent it from becoming a siphon and sucking in air.

 

The situation you describe can't happen. The standpipe can't drain water below the level of the intake. There is no "too low" that the standpipe can drain to (so long as the sump has sufficient volume).

[Blind Tree Frog]

External PVC overflow siphon (no drilling required)

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...74entry643674

 

Just to add this to the overflow thread as an option for those who don't want to drill there tanks (And so I don't need to search everywhere to find it when I need to link it for a thread)

[reiple]

i made something similar for the 6 gallon nano i am setting up. hope it does well.

[ninjafish]

Great work Tigah, very helpful diagrams too.

 

I would like to add though to anyone who is starting out, that using a stockman or durso design should only be done if you don't have a better alternative. If you are building a tank and are able to have two drain bulkheads, then the simplest and quietest way of getting water to your sump is the "Herbie method" (search on RC).

Baisically you don't use a standpipe at all on your drain - just a naked bulkhead. The diference is that you put a ball valve on the drain pipe to the sump and close the valve until the water is draining at the same rate as the pump is putting out. By opening and closing the valve a little bit you can adjust how high the water level is in your overflow box. For example. if the surface of the water is 7" above the bulkhead, there is no possible way that any air can go down the bulkhead and this equals zero noise. It also means no vacumes or venturies to mess with. Another advantage is that, because no air is getting into the sump, it is just as quiet as your overflow and will not boil or 'hot tub'. There is no noise or bubbles.

The second bulkhead is necessary to serve as an emergency drain if the primary ever got plugged. Put a standpipe on it and have the top of it up by the top of your tank. If the primary ever got plugged and the water level started to rise, it would just drain safely through this one. I had my setup for over a year and never had to adjust the ball valve and never had a blockage, but I still wouldn't risk running it without a back up drain.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense. I was fortunate enough to learn it early on in my reefing career and it might be the most useful piece of knowledge I have come across.

 

- Chad

[FreakShow]

OH NO! The images of this awesome DIY are gone. Can we put them back up? I know they can be found elsewhere but the illustrations where to educational. I vote that this go to the information section and not the forums.

 

They're back! Must of been something with the computer in my office?

Edited October 17, 2006 by FreakShow

[xJoshx]

What would you recomend for a proclear 75 overflow NOTHING ######IN WORKS!~...

[stan]

Best Thread Evar! Here's an idea.. maybe you guys can chime in.

 

A durso with no breather hole (full siphon) and then a ball valve on the exit pipe like the herbie method. Would that be "safe" enough to have just a single overlow drain?

[mybuickskill6979]

why not leave the standpipe open at the top with out the hole turn down thing? Noise muffling?

[stan]

I've learned that keeping the standpipe open on the top can create an ugly gurgling noise.

 

Anyways..since i read this i actually tried it and it's pretty much impossible. My thought was to create a super high flow durso with just the smallest little crack of an airhole where it basically creates a siphon, then tune down the return until it reached equilibrium.

 

Couldnt get enough control with the ball valve to maintain any kind of constant level.

[mybuickskill6979]

I've learned that keeping the standpipe open on the top can create an ugly gurgling noise.

 

Anyways..since i read this i actually tried it and it's pretty much impossible. My thought was to create a super high flow durso with just the smallest little crack of an airhole where it basically creates a siphon, then tune down the return until it reached equilibrium.

 

Couldnt get enough control with the ball valve to maintain any kind of constant level.

lol after i posted that i though about the noise in my LFS and said oh yeah lol!!! i kind of like the stock man idea unless you have a huge overflow box lol!!

[ninjafish]

The Herbie method doesn't require a standpipe because no air whatsoever goes down the drain. A standpipe is the source of any gurgling (and hot-tubbing in the sump), so there's no reason why you would want one if you didn't have to. If you are interested in high-flow, the Herbie method will drain water way faster than a stockman will (for equal sized bulkheads). Not only will it have the same syphon effect, but it will also have the weight of 7" of water (or whatever level you set) sitting on top of the naked bulkhead - this added pressure will give you a higher flow rate than you would get with a standpipe, which only takes water from the top of the standpipe.

 

- Chad

[mybuickskill6979]

The Herbie method doesn't require a standpipe because no air whatsoever goes down the drain. A standpipe is the source of any gurgling (and hot-tubbing in the sump), so there's no reason why you would want one if you didn't have to. If you are interested in high-flow, the Herbie method will drain water way faster than a stockman will (for equal sized bulkheads). Not only will it have the same syphon effect, but it will also have the weight of 7" of water (or whatever level you set) sitting on top of the naked bulkhead - this added pressure will give you a higher flow rate than you would get with a standpipe, which only takes water from the top of the standpipe.

 

- Chad

 

what the heck is the herbie method? is that just the bulkhead stuck throught the back of the glass? at a lower level in the water column?

 

syphon is a bad thing dude, it means that if you pump stops you will most definitely have a gang of water on your floor.

 

quite frankly i'd rather have the gurgling and the hot tubbing for life then the one time a power outages happens completely ruining the carpeting and furniture in my place. uhmm but thats just me!!

[ninjafish]

I explained the Herbie method a little earlier, and you can search for it on RC.

There is absolutley no risk of gettting your carpet wet or whatever you were talking about.

The risk of draining a tank in a poweroutage is only a risk for those slap on overflows that suck water up and over the side of the tank. With an overflow the only water that comes over the side of the overflow is that water that is pumped into the tank by the return pump. That means that if the power goes out, there is no water coming over the overflow, but even if it did, it would just go down the drain like normal.... the carpet is never involved. It might have been confusing because I said the word 'syphon'. I was not saying this method operates via syphon, I was just referring to Stan's post. The water draining to your sump can still create a syphon in the line, pulling down water (and air if it's a durso) behind it. I think that's what Stan wea referring to.

I think that the only reason why a person would ever put up with gurgling or hot tubbing, is if they assumed that just because everyone talks about dursos and stockmans, they are the way to go.

 

Edit: Here is the original post:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=344892

Its 27 pages long but the first post pretty well explains it.

And here is a piture he took of it:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.p...&thecat=500

You can see how no air is going down the pipe in the forground because the water level is above the intake. The pipe in the background is just the backup and is never used unless the main one got blocked (it's never happened to me). When I ran this, I just pulled the main pipe out so it was a naked bulkhead - the water level would stay the same. HTH.

 

- Chad

Edited October 30, 2006 by Fish

[mybuickskill6979]

I explained the Herbie method a little earlier, and you can search for it on RC.

There is absolutley no risk of gettting your carpet wet or whatever you were talking about.

The risk of draining a tank in a poweroutage is only a risk for those slap on overflows that suck water up and over the side of the tank. With an overflow the only water that comes over the side of the overflow is that water that is pumped into the tank by the return pump. That means that if the power goes out, there is no water coming over the overflow, but even if it did, it would just go down the drain like normal.... the carpet is never involved. It might have been confusing because I said the word 'syphon'. I was not saying this method operates via syphon, I was just referring to Stan's post. The water draining to your sump can still create a syphon in the line, pulling down water (and air if it's a durso) behind it. I think that's what Stan wea referring to.

I think that the only reason why a person would ever put up with gurgling or hot tubbing, is if they assumed that just because everyone talks about dursos and stockmans, they are the way to go.

 

Edit: Here is the original post:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=344892

Its 27 pages long but the first post pretty well explains it.

And here is a piture he took of it:

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/showphoto.p...&thecat=500

You can see how no air is going down the pipe in the forground because the water level is above the intake. The pipe in the background is just the backup and is never used unless the main one got blocked (it's never happened to me). When I ran this, I just pulled the main pipe out so it was a naked bulkhead - the water level would stay the same. HTH.

 

- Chad

 

 

it doesn't sound like a bad idea!! but you;d have to leave some extra space availble in your sump in the event ofan outage because of the water above the pipe will flow into it.

 

i didn't see any pics. well the one you showed but in the thread i didn't!! would the vavle not have to be below water level? because the water will still crash into the sump making noise if it's not. and couldn't the hot tubbing be cut out by simply putting a nipple on out end of the stanpipe plumbing that would tank the water below water level on the sump? like into the fliter sock? if you run a wet dry lol you still gonna have noise!! just a few things i thought i'd ask!!

Edited October 30, 2006 by mybuickskill6979

[ninjafish]

You're right, depending on the capacity of your overflow box, it could make a big difference to the level of your sump when the pump is shut off. With my 20gal sump it only changed the water level by an inch. If it was going to be more of a change than that, I would just mark a max level on the side of the sump so you didn't fill it up any higher than what it could handle when the power went off.

 

You brought up a good point about the placement of the valve but with my system, the valve was up near the top and I still didn't get any noise from water in the sump - it was totally silent. I really think that the noise isn't from the water but from the air. With my setup, I closed the ball valve a little more so that the water level in my overflow was only a couple inches below the ledge. The only noise I could hear is the slight 'tinkle' of water going over the ledge. If I put my ear against the drain pipe I could hear a faint rushing - the sound of friction between water and pvc... totally inaudible unless you put your ear right against the pipe.

My sump was just as quiet; all I could hear was the sound of the water going over the first baffle. Another benefit is that the only bubbles I had in the sump were the ones from my protein skimmer.

 

This is just my experience. I have tried both the stockman and durso and even ordered a professionally built durso online... I can state 100% that this is the quietest and safest way to get water to the sump. Try it and you will see.

I'm just trying to help out some fellow reefers - I wish someone would have shared it with me a lot sooner!

 

- Chad