Help with starting and adjusting a Bean Animal overflow

[fishbox]

Got everything built and ready to start this baby up finally. When I initially start it up should I have the gate valve fully open or half open? And what am I adjusting for?

 

[BigHildy53]

Search the forums and Google and you'll find a lot of information.
http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx

 

[Travis Stewart]

Folling

 

[don_chuwish]

I will say that I was surprised how much I had to close mine down. Maybe start half open and see how it goes. The Spears gate valve makes it easy to make tiny adjustments.

 

[fishbox]

I will say that I was surprised how much I had to close mine down. Maybe start half open and see how it goes. The Spears gate valve makes it easy to make tiny adjustments.

Yeah, I started out with it fully open but had to close it a lot to find my quiet spot. I definitely could have started at the halfway point. I'm guessing that relates to how much flow you're pushing through it though. I have 1" drains and am only running a Jebao DCT 4000 which is rated for 1050gph, but I'm only running it at 30% at 4' head. I'm assuming that if I were to run that at 100% that I would find the sweet spot more towards the fully open range.

I think I have to play with the pipes entering the sump. I'm getting a lot of bubbles coming out of the full siphon which is obviously making some noise. It's about 1.5" under the water level in the sump. Think I'm gonna cut it back to 0.75" and see what happens.

 

[Travis Stewart]

Yeah, I started out with it fully open but had to close it a lot to find my quiet spot. I definitely could have started at the halfway point. I'm guessing that relates to how much flow you're pushing through it though. I have 1" drains and am only running a Jebao DCT 4000 which is rated for 1050gph, but I'm only running it at 30% at 4' head. I'm assuming that if I were to run that at 100% that I would find the sweet spot more towards the fully open range.

I think I have to play with the pipes entering the sump. I'm getting a lot of bubbles coming out of the full siphon which is obviously making some noise. It's about 1.5" under the water level in the sump. Think I'm gonna cut it back to 0.75" and see what happens.

So did you have to do anything to jump start the siphons or does gravity take control? Between the two drains, were you about half inch difference?

 

[fishbox]

So did you have to do anything to jump start the siphons or does gravity take control? Between the two drains, were you about half inch difference?

Gravity did it's own thing. I do have my full siphon lower than the open channel. I wanna say by 1/4".

 

[Travis Stewart]

Gravity did it's own thing. I do have my full siphon lower than the open channel. I wanna say by 1/4".

Can you explain what you mean by full siphon and open channel? Does the open channel not have a valve on it or?

 

[fishbox]

If you look at Bean's design in the link above, the full siphon is the one that gets the majority of the flow and is the one that NEEDS the gate valve for adjusting. The open channel is the one with the airline and only takes on a small trickle of flow and does not need the valve

 

[Travis Stewart]

If you look at Bean's design in the link above, the full siphon is the one that gets the majority of the flow and is the one that NEEDS the gate valve for adjusting. The open channel is the one with the airline and only takes on a small trickle of flow and does not need the valve

Ya I understand the style. I’m not adding an airline and will adjust both with valves to adjust noise level. Thanks man!

 

[fishbox]

Ya I understand the style. I’m not adding an airline and will adjust both with valves to adjust noise level. Thanks man!

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that airline is vital.

 

[Travis Stewart]

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that airline is vital.

I will have to check more out thanks man. Haven’t gotten to plumbing stage yet lol

 

[don_chuwish]

I do have my full siphon lower than the open channel. I wanna say by 1/4".

I'm not sure, but that might not be enough of a difference between the two. Mine are at very different heights. No airline on my open channel, but there is a hole in the top of each to let air escape the line as it gets going.

 

[fishbox]

I'm not sure, but that might not be enough of a difference between the two. Mine are at very different heights. No airline on my open channel, but there is a hole in the top of each to let air escape the line as it gets going.

I could be wrong. It could be more than that. I did the plumbing for this a while back but just now got around to adding a sump and am going off of fuzzy memory lol. I'll check it out tomorrow after school.

 

[bblumberg]

I have 3 tanks with BA overflows and have settled on the following strategy to set the heights of the pipes. These are all only pressed into the bulkheads at the bottom of the tank so they can be removed for cleaning or trimming as needed. My first tank needed a few rounds of trimming and playing until I got it right.

The emergency pipe is set to the highest water level you want the tank to ever reach. I have trapezoidal internal overflows and so don't bother with an elbow on this one - it is simply an open 1.25" pipe. Next, set the open channel height so that the middle of the elbow is where you want the water level in the overflow to be. I like to glue a 1/4" John Guest fitting into the top of this elbow and run the tubing to the emergency overflow, zip tying it to be just above the desired water level. I set the water level in the overflow to be about 2" lower than the edge of the weir but this is a matter of personal preference. My overflow is covered and the tank has a canopy so I don't hear much splashing. Lastly, set the full siphon depth to be an inch or two lower than the open channel. This does not matter much as long as it is lower. I have 6" strainers on the siphon and open channel to keep the critters out.

To tune this, open the gate valve all the way and fire up your return pump. Start closing the gate valve until you get the full siphon covered and the water level about halfway up the open channel. Watch it for a while and adjust so that you get the water level where you want it. If you hear a periodic flushing sound when the system is running, you need to open the gate valve a touch until it stops. The flushing sound comes from the open channel turning into a full siphon and rapidly lowering the water level in the overflow until it starts sucking air.

 

[whotzler]

Yeah, I started out with it fully open but had to close it a lot to find my quiet spot. I definitely could have started at the halfway point. I'm guessing that relates to how much flow you're pushing through it though. I have 1" drains and am only running a Jebao DCT 4000 which is rated for 1050gph, but I'm only running it at 30% at 4' head. I'm assuming that if I were to run that at 100% that I would find the sweet spot more towards the fully open range.

I think I have to play with the pipes entering the sump. I'm getting a lot of bubbles coming out of the full siphon which is obviously making some noise. It's about 1.5" under the water level in the sump. Think I'm gonna cut it back to 0.75" and see what happens.

You should not have any air bubbles at full siphon, you may be sucking air in at the inlet and need to drop it lower

 

[fishbox]

I didn't think I should be seeing bubbles. I haven't had the chance to take a look at it and mess around with it but hopefully I can do so this weekend.. I don't visually see any air going into the intake the water line is about 4 in above the full siphon intake but it's only about halfway to the top of the U portion of that pipe. Should that be fully submerged or to the top of that U portion?

 

[fishbox]

So I double checked the height of both inlets in the overflow. My full siphon is about an inch from the bottom of the overflow and the open channel is about an inch and a half from the bottom of the overflow. I'm gonna cut both of those down today to 1/4" and 1/2". I'm also gonna cut down how much it enters the sump waterline. Hopefully that cuts down the bubbles

 

[fishbox]

So I cut the output of the full siphon entering the sump. It was 1.5" under the waterline in the sump and I cut it to 0.75". It made a huge difference. It's basically dead silent with just a small amount of bubbles now.

The overflow is a true coast to coast overflow and the flow entering it is low. So it's not creating bubbles there. I'm guessing it's due to a leak in the plumbing somewhere. Or maybe due to my waterline in the overflow not being totally over the full siphon (I'll try to post a pic)

 

[fishbox]

Excuse my kindergarten style drawing but I can't seem to get a good pic. On the left is an example of the waterline on the full siphon. You'll see that it's near the top but not completely covering the pipe. I'm wondering if that area above the waterline is holding air and the source of my bubbles?

The pic on the right is an example of the waterline around the open channel. It's near the bottom. Water is barely trickling into this one but I don't have bubbles coming out of it.