MicroBubbles Haters

[starreef05]

Do you hear a lot of air being studied in by the durso? Do you see water level in overflow box going up and doen?

Wondering if the drain is trying to full siphon then sucking in lots of air due to the amount of flow.

I do hear a lot of air being sucked in. How do I correct this?

 

[mcarroll]

I do hear a lot of air being sucked in. How do I correct this?

Backing down the flow rate, but I'll let that go....

 

[Reeferdood]

If this

I do hear a lot of air being sucked in. How do I correct this?

If this is the case like @mcarroll said you are likely overdriving your drains. Along with that, are the drain pipes below the surface of the water in your sump? If they are you need to vent them or by your design you could likely always have this issue. Also, does your standpipe in the overflow have a hole in it to vent it?
Hope these ideas help.

 

[starreef05]

If this

If this is the case like @mcarroll said you are likely overdriving your drains. Along with that, are the drain pipes below the surface of the water in your sump? If they are you need to vent them or by your design you could likely always have this issue. Also, does your standpipe in the overflow have a hole in it to vent it?
Hope these ideas help.

Mine is the durso design with 1/4 inch hole at the top.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Mine is the durso design with 1/4 inch hole at the top.

What size tank? What size drain pipe?

That's a pretty big pump. I run a dct6000 on my 75

I'd experiment with your flow rate. Decrease it slowly. Small increments over longer periods. I still am thinking that pipe is trying to full siphon to handle the flow and that is sucking in a lot of air

 

[WVNed]

My drain doesn't run with air in it. Air in a drain makes it noisy and produces microbubbles.

I also don't understand the logic of the drain is too fast so turn down the pump. If the drain can go full siphon and then suck air it is flowing all the water the pump is producing.
The drain is too fast, not the pump to big.

Then again I don't use dursos. I just use standpipes.

I would redesign what you have to 1 drain running full siphon with a valve to adjust it and a backup drain. This would also allow you to raise the level of the water in the overflow so you don't get bubbles from there either.

 

[Forsaken77]

I miss the old Marineland style wet/dry with the huge dual bio-wheels. They had the 3 separate trays ABOVE the water for mechanical, chemical and biological over each wheel. You just had to swap out the pre-cut pieces of filter pad every once in a while and those bio-wheels were awesome for bio filtration.

Too bad they stopped making them. Probably the best piece of equipment Marineland ever made. They were before their time. I bet they would sell much better now.

As to the OP, if you have baffles, they sell big foam blocks on eBay to stop bubbles.

 

[starreef05]

What size tank? What size drain pipe?

That's a pretty big pump. I run a dct6000 on my 75

I'd experiment with your flow rate. Decrease it slowly. Small increments over longer periods. I still am thinking that pipe is trying to full siphon to handle the flow and that is sucking in a lot of air

It’s a 180 gallon main tank with custom 60 gallons sump. The drain pipe is 1 inch. The pump is set on 5 of 10 dots (approximately 7500lph). My goal is to have 10x the tank size flow rate. So 1800 gph (6814 lph), counting for the head height and elbows.

 

[starreef05]

My drain doesn't run with air in it. Air in a drain makes it noisy and produces microbubbles.

I also don't understand the logic of the drain is too fast so turn down the pump. If the drain can go full siphon and then suck air it is flowing all the water the pump is producing.
The drain is too fast, not the pump to big.

Then again I don't use dursos. I just use standpipes.

I would redesign what you have to 1 drain running full siphon with a valve to adjust it and a backup drain. This would also allow you to raise the level of the water in the overflow so you don't get bubbles from there either.

Good thing is nothing is glued in the overflow box. Could you elaborate more and pics of the design please?

 

[WVNed]

This is the idea and what I run. The height of the emergency standpipe sets the water level inside the overflow box.

 

[Reeferdood]

My drain doesn't run with air in it. Air in a drain makes it noisy and produces microbubbles.

I also don't understand the logic of the drain is too fast so turn down the pump. If the drain can go full siphon and then suck air it is flowing all the water the pump is producing.
The drain is too fast, not the pump to big.

Then again I don't use dursos. I just use standpipes.

I would redesign what you have to 1 drain running full siphon with a valve to adjust it and a backup drain. This would also allow you to raise the level of the water in the overflow so you don't get bubbles from there either.

The logic is not that the drains are too fast it is that they are not large enough to handle the volume of water that is run through them. Think of it this way, on a kitchen sink which is larger the inlet water lines or the drains?
Drains are not supposed to flush, just flow with little to no noise.

 

[WVNed]

Flushing is caused by a cycle where a drain draws air and slows down. Water then builds up over the inlet and submerges it until it stops ingesting the air . The drain purges this air by pushing it through out the bottom and speeds up again. It then drains down the water in the overflow until it sucks air again and the cycle repeats.

To stop this cycle you slow the drain down with a valve that is adjusted so the level in the overflow stays high enough so that it never swallows the air.

 

[Reeferdood]

Flushing is caused by a cycle where a drain draws air and slows down. Water then builds up over the inlet and submerges it until it stops ingesting the air . The drain purges this air by pushing it through out the bottom and speeds up again. It then drains down the water in the overflow until it sucks air again and the cycle repeats.

To stop this cycle you slow the drain down with a valve that is adjusted so the level in the overflow stays high enough so that it never swallows the air.

Or back off the supply, personally I would never restrict a drain in any way whatsoever. Neither method is wrong just a different way to skin the cat.

 

[WVNed]

I didn't invent putting a valve on a drain to control it.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

My drain doesn't run with air in it. Air in a drain makes it noisy and produces microbubbles.

I also don't understand the logic of the drain is too fast so turn down the pump. If the drain can go full siphon and then suck air it is flowing all the water the pump is producing.
The drain is too fast, not the pump to big.

Then again I don't use dursos. I just use standpipes.

I would redesign what you have to 1 drain running full siphon with a valve to adjust it and a backup drain. This would also allow you to raise the level of the water in the overflow so you don't get bubbles from there either.

The drain is struggling with the flow. Its trying to full siphon but with a durso it cannot.

I run a modified bean animal so 1 full siphons a durso as an open channel and an e drain. If I have the water level too high in my overflow box the open channel tries to full siphon and sucks in a ton of air, breaking that siphon, thus lots of noise and air bubbles as the OP is experiencing.

That is a large pump. A 1" pipe is rated for around 1000 gpg at full siphon maybe a little more. To me it seems the OP is exceeding the flow rate of his current setup

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Or back off the supply, personally I would never restrict a drain in any way whatsoever. Neither method is wrong just a different way to skin the cat.

Nothing wrong with throttling the flow of a drain as long as there is a backup or two. That's the beauty of the Herbie and even more so the bean animal

 

[jjflounder1]

I run two 1" drains in my 72gl tank ...
Hardly keeps up (with out getting noisy) with my 900 gph pump..
Wish I had used 1-1/2" pipe

 

[vetteguy53081]

I had same from my skimmer. I used a phosphate sponge (10" X 10") and now use an acrylic plate with holes in it to break up bubbles and allow water flow through it

 

[Lexatron Prime]

Put a slice of pond filter in your last baffle

 

[Lexatron Prime]

It has larger pores so you don't need to change it out too often