Bean Animal tuning help

[KJAG]

If your drain lines flow more than your return pump is capable of flowing, how do you maintain siphon (the answer is, you cant)? While your method may work for you, beananimal designed it to have a valve on the primary drain for a reason.

@leahfiish, it sounds like your lines just arent purging after they start back up. The biggest cause is typically having the return lines submerged too far below the surface of the water in the sump. A very short length typically purges much faster (mine are about 3/4" below the water level in the sump). If your sketch is fairly accurate, there could be an issue with the primary and secondary drains fighting for the same water if the secondary is actually over the primary. Perhaps this is causing some turbulence that allows more air into the system. If that is true, separating them to something like the image I attached may help.

As mentioned earlier, agreed on the depth of the standpipes into the sump. And well aware that the original design “requires” a valve on the full siphon to adjust the water in the overflow box. In reality, it really isn’t required as long as your pump and plumbing are sized appropriately. The reason I feel it’s pertinent to not focus on the siphon valve as your main control is that it can essentially operate as a potentially dangerous band aid to an improperly plumbed system. Example: someone wanting to run a Bean with a grossly undersized return pump plumbs their standpipes with say, 1.5”. They’ll have to valve down their full siphon possibly to the point of total occlusion. A fish, plastic bag, etc etc goes up and over the overflow and instead of a straight shot into your sump, the siphon is clogged secondary to the gate/ball and the system is triggered, which can cause all sorts of catastophries if you’re not home when it happens.( a dead fish that otherwise would’ve made it to the sump, skimmers overflowing etc etc.) The siphon should operate as unoccluded as possible.

 

[KJAG]

@leahfiish,
I might’ve missed it in the photo but do you have an airline drilled and tapped into your secondary? (Open channel) If not, and if the waterline isn’t above the opening of the open channel, then you have a siphon trying to operate as such mixed with air. Further, looked closer at your pic and as I believe MWzl mentioned, your open channel is hovering over your siphon, which could potentially be creating a suction upwards toward your open channel( I say could, because that phenomena would land in the realm of physics of which I haven’t encountered, since I’ve never seen anyone plumb their OC directly over their siphon before) I would first drill and tap an airline in the OC, see if that solves the issue, and if not, move the elbow away from your siphon. As long as you don’t have an air leak in your siphon and the standpipes aren’t submerged beyond approx an inch into your sump waterline, that should solve your issue. In your sump, hold your hand under the “secondary.” Is it acting as the siphon?

 

[leahfiish]

@leahfiish,
I might’ve missed it in the photo but do you have an airline drilled and tapped into your secondary? (Open channel) If not, and if the waterline isn’t above the opening of the open channel, then you have a siphon trying to operate as such mixed with air. Further, looked closer at your pic and as I believe MWzl mentioned, your open channel is hovering over your siphon, which could potentially be creating a suction upwards toward your open channel( I say could, because that phenomena would land in the realm of physics of which I haven’t encountered, since I’ve never seen anyone plumb their OC directly over their siphon before) I would first drill and tap an airline in the OC, see if that solves the issue, and if not, move the elbow away from your siphon. As long as you don’t have an air leak in your siphon and the standpipes aren’t submerged beyond approx an inch into your sump waterline, that should solve your issue. In your sump, hold your hand under the “secondary.” Is it acting as the siphon?

AFter further investigation this is definitely my issue. the left (secondary) is siphoning water (and air).

 

[KJAG]

AFter further investigation this is definitely my issue. the left (secondary) is siphoning water (and air).

Does your siphon then, have minimal flow out the bottom in the sump?

If you’re open channel is below the top of your dry emergency, just drill a hole in the top. This will suffice/ replace an airline. I mentioned drilling/ tapping earlier but Ive been laying flooring in my house all day and it didn’t occur to me that you’re not running caps on your fittings.
I would drill a hole in the OC and see if that reverses the roles of your standpipes/ triggers your siphon. In your open channel you’re aiming for water “hugging” the sides of the pipe and not cascading down the middle of the pipe. I’ll post a picture of the inside of my open channel tonight to give you an idea.

If the air vent doesn’t work,( you need one anyway though) then I would play with your valve on the siphon/ flow from your return, and if that doesn’t work, I would move the open channel away from hovering over the siphon.
Your return doesn’t appear to be undersized so you will( should) fix this issue with one or all of these steps. Hopefully one.

 

[leahfiish]

Thanks. I can't get my drill to work so I am unfortunately going to have to wait.

 

[Robert_ellis]

I have the same overflow. Plumbed a bit different but all the same none the less. I have the middle as an emergency which would siphon if needed and the other 2 I have gate valves on. I get very little to no bubbles and it's whisper quiet.