Durso or Bean?

[TideNumOne]

Working on setting up a new reef cube (60 gallon) and funny how things work out, I now have two tanks...the only difference is that one is reef ready and the other is not. One of my goals is to make this as easy as possible to maintain going forward.

My question is which option do you think I should go with & why?

• Option 1: 60 gallon cube with an eShopps overflow (will drill the glass).
  • Positive:
    • Not much space used in the tank
    • Low risk of overflow
  • Negative
    • Pipes on the back of the tank.
• Option 2: 60 gallon cube with a Durso overflow in the corner.
  • Positive
    • No pipes on the outside of the tank
  • Negative
    • Takes up a lot of room in the tank
    • Higher risk of an overflow

 

[Oscaror]

Working on setting up a new reef cube (60 gallon) and funny how things work out, I now have two tanks...the only difference is that one is reef ready and the other is not. One of my goals is to make this as easy as possible to maintain going forward.

My question is which option do you think I should go with & why?

• Option 1: 60 gallon cube with an eShopps overflow (will drill the glass).
  • Positive:
    • Not much space used in the tank
    • Low risk of overflow
  • Negative
    • Pipes on the back of the tank.
• Option 2: 60 gallon cube with a Durso overflow in the corner.
  • Positive
    • No pipes on the outside of the tank
  • Negative
    • Takes up a lot of room in the tank
    • Higher risk of an overflow

I'm personally all about keeping a much equipment out of the tank as possible, so I personally would go with the eshopps overflow

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

option 3: herbie.

 

[TideNumOne]

okay — why?

I do like the clean look of option 2 or 3, but my wife likes the idea of no pipes on the back.

 

[Salps]

The Herbie is silent. The Durso will make noise. I converted my Durso to a Herbie. I'd go with option 1 which actually uses the Herbie or Bean animal concepts. Depending how many pipes you can connect to it 2 or 3. Basically the Durso takes water from the surface and has it fall down the pipe with air and that creates some noise. The other two systems take it from under the water so no air equals absolutely no noise. My tank sits a couple inches from the wall and I have my return come up the back along with wires for my lights. I never even notice them since the back of my tank is painted black.

 

[TideNumOne]

The Herbie is silent. The Durso will make noise. I converted my Durso to a Herbie. I'd go with option 1 which actually uses the Herbie or Bean animal concepts. Depending how many pipes you can connect to it 2 or 3. Basically the Durso takes water from the surface and has it fall down the pipe with air and that creates some noise. The other two systems take it from under the water so no air equals absolutely no noise. My tank sits a couple inches from the wall and I have my return come up the back along with wires for my lights. I never even notice them since the back of my tank is painted black.

Okay - I can see that...if I only have two holes, then I would have to add a third or have the pipe over the back.

Not great, but it does sound like the Durso design is not great and I should try to avoid going that direction.

 

[Salps]

With option 1: If you have two holes drilled in the back. One for your return and one for the eshopp overflow there is no need for a pipe to go over the back of the tank. My tank is 90 gallon and has an internal overflow chamber that was drilled with two holes so I did the Herbie with the return pipe over the back. The smaller of the two hole is my main return with the larger being my emergency overflow. The internal overflow chamber does take up a lot of space inside the tank and I will never do that again. The internal overflow causes me to many inconveniences verse the less than desirable aesthetics of the pipes on the back of the tank.

The Durso design works well for in wall builds since noise is less of a problem. It has less of a chance of getting clogged since it uses several small holes at where the water enters the system and every thing down stream is larger than those holes. The Bean & Herbie methods have the restrictor valve down near the bottom so a snail can climb in, die and create a clog right at the valve. That is why those systems have an emergency drain that needs to be able to handle all the overflow and has no restrictor on it. This will prevent your house from flooding. The only downside I see to these methods and it is a very very small one, is that you do need to adjust the valve to keep a slow trickle of water running down the emergency overflow so you keep the water level in the overflow box where you want it. The adjustment is needed when the return flow rate changes due to things like the return pump building up gunk or it becomes more efficient after a cleaning.

 

[TideNumOne]

Great information!

The tank which is currently drilled is through the bottom so I would not be able to use the eShopps on it.

But after reading this information, think I will drill the new to use the eShopps

 

[Sailingeric]

Herbie or Bean, they are nearly silent once dialed in.. and get yourself a gate valve instead of ball valve, it will make dialing it in a lot easier.