Herbie Overflow in Eshopps Eclipse (M)

Kendrid · Jul 23, 2016

Thanks! When I decided up upgrade my tank the idea of an in-wall in my office got stuck in my head. I'm glad I went through with it. My #1 priority was that it was dead silent and except for the Jebao cross flow pump I am trying out it is.

Clayton Jessup · Jul 23, 2016

Thank you very much that's a lot of useful formation. I am running the smallest Waveline do pump @ about 660gph with my glassholes.com 700gph overflow and I can at times still hear the water coming through the the 1.5in pvc into the sump , like a lil waterfall. It is quite but not silent. I even tried to line up a ghost overflow with the predrilled hole (glass holes of)on my tank and the ghost overflow was a little to tall. So that's why I am thinking the eshopps over flow . It is the same measurement as my glass holes over flow . So I may get one later and try to see if they will line up and match on the holes., later on.

looneeii · Nov 21, 2016

wpeterson said:
I have been running mine with just the emergency straight pipe and open bulkhead since my previous post.

I run a lot of flow from the returns, so I saw strong turbulence in the external side of the overflow box, causing a vortex around the main drain that could suck air. To address this, I inserted a 1" 45 degree elbow fitting inside the 1.5" bulkhead feeding the external overflow box, and turned it to direct the inflow away from the main drain. This effectively prevented the vortex and air being sucked into the main siphon drain. The small hose in the top of the overflow lid is my ATO inlet hose.

Did you glue the 1" 45 degree fittings in place or not? I'm thinking of doing the same but can't seem to make it stay in place.

wpeterson · Nov 21, 2016

looneeii said:
Did you glue the 1" 45 degree fittings in place or not? I'm thinking of doing the same but can't seem to make it stay in place.

I did not glue any fittings in the overflow. The only glued fittings are on the exterior bulkhead connections.

In my setup, the 45deg elbow is held in place between the mouth of the 1.5" main tank bulkhead and the back of the overflow box. It's loose and can rotate a bit. The role it serves is primary to redirect flow away from the open siphon drain, which prevent a whirlpool/air getting sucked in and it also reduces the flow slightly from the internal side of the overflow. I personally suspect this setup might have been better with 1" bulkheads all around - 1" from internal/external and 2x 1" external drains.

The 1.5" internal/external bulkhead flows too much, which results in more noise and lower internal overflow water levels for my application. So, I suspect artificially reducing the aperture of the internal/external bulkhead with a restrictor might be helpful as long as your main siphon drain gets full flow.

looneeii · Nov 21, 2016

Ok thanks.

JCSReefing · Mar 20, 2017

Just wondering how ya'll like this overflow? Pros, cons? would you purchase again? also, what is the big difference between this and the synergy reef ones besides price?

looneeii · Mar 20, 2017

jcs401 said:
Just wondering how ya'll like this overflow? Pros, cons? would you purchase again? also, what is the big difference between this and the synergy reef ones besides price?

I admit that this over flow is good but the only and somewhat annoying issue is that I had to improvise with 45 degree plumbing to quiet the water sound from the weir into the overflow box. Even at that I still have to run a trickle from the emergency overflow into my sump to get it to "near silent".

ifarmer · Mar 26, 2017

how is your tank doing wpeterson?

joeby97 · Aug 15, 2017

If you cut new pvc pieces longer than the ones that come with the overflow box and use them as your emergency height you can dial the water level to be higher in the box. So its not midway up the bulkhead making tons of noise. The water level will come through the bulkheads at the top. No noise. And running it herbie will make everything dead silent.

esse · Jul 28, 2022

wpeterson said:
I have been running mine with just the emergency straight pipe and open bulkhead since my previous post.

I run a lot of flow from the returns, so I saw strong turbulence in the external side of the overflow box, causing a vortex around the main drain that could suck air. To address this, I inserted a 1" 45 degree elbow fitting inside the 1.5" bulkhead feeding the external overflow box, and turned it to direct the inflow away from the main drain. This effectively prevented the vortex and air being sucked into the main siphon drain. The small hose in the top of the overflow lid is my ATO inlet hose.

Here's a picture of the internal overflow and two 3/4" return lines:

And finally the 1" plumbing to the sump drains and from the sump 1" return, T-ed into two 3/4" lines.

heh, old thread, but I cannot thank you enough!!

Adding the 45 degree fitting worked for me, where extending the emergency drain pipe did not. It felt like the box was not tall enough to prevent the main drain from whirlpooling & sucking down air. Perhaps part of my problem was running too much flow on the return pumps, but I'm using ac return pumps and my small sump space makes it kind of a pain to go in & adjust