Bean animal purge after feed cycle

[TobyPhatz77]

Hi all

Ive had my bean animal set up for about 9 months.
Lately it’s taking a lot longer to purge and level out after I feed.
Ive cleaned the pipes in the overflow, didn’t find that much detritus and when my gate valve or ball valve is open independently the flow seems to be good.

Does anyone have suggestions as to why it’s slowed down?
Can be pretty noisy exceeding a couple of hours these days, not great when I’m trying to watch some lockdown tv

Hope you can help!

 

[Oberst Hajj]

I'm not going to be much help on this, but I've been running my BA setup for about 4 years and I've not cleaned any pipes and I've yet to see this behavior. Do you happen to have a check valve someplace?

 

[TobyPhatz77]

Thanks for the reply.

I don’t use a check valve.
I have a gate on my submerged and a ball on my secondary.

 

[TobyPhatz77]

Still purging after 20mins.
Itll level out eventually but it used to be done in less than 5mins.

 

[Water Dog]

How deep is the the primary full siphon line submerged into your sump... how far is it beneath the surface of the sump‘s waterline?

 

[TobyPhatz77]

How deep is the the primary full siphon line submerged into your sump... how far is it beneath the surface of the sump‘s waterline?

Just an inch

 

[Water Dog]

So the depth is right... you don’t want it any deeper than an inch. The deeper it is, the more back pressure and harder it is to purge.

I’d recommend that you slowly close the gate valve. Get it to where it takes less than a minute to fully purge.

What return pump are you using? DC pumps are known to have fluctuations in their flow over time.

 

[TobyPhatz77]

Could be that, I use a TMC return, the new type whatever that is.
I have noticed my sump has also started flowing over the higher baffles too.
Gave it a clean making sure gaps are clear today but still flows over them.
Skimmers gone a bit mental too, I’ve not ran it in a few days because it just overflows.
Sounds like the water levels gone too high but it’s only a qtr inch.
Maybe all unrelated but if it rains it pours.