Noisy drain on RSR 525

[AidanMary]

Ok so i have had my red sea 525XL for almost a year now and in that time i have never been able to balance my over flow so that the main drain is silent without letting water trickle down the emergency it’s either gushing and too low or too high and water trickles down the emergency.
Im wondering is there anyway to eliminate the trickle sound of the water going down the emergency drain as i’ve given up on trying to adjust the valve.
Any tips would be great as the trickle sound is a constant annoyance especially at night as if can often be heard from my bedroom as i live in a small unit and the living room is close to the bedroom.
any help on a diy mod would be great.
I live in Australia so sourcing the necessary parts to modify the drain to a gate valve is difficult.

 

[ThunderGoose]

It is a total PITA to get these things adjusted. Try this - open up the overflow chamber and look inside. Your water should be just at the lip of the overflow - not above and not too far below. When you adjust turn the valve just a tiny bit and give it several minutes to readjust the water level then repeat. When mine gets noisy it can take me several days to get it adjusted just right. Why it gets out of adjustment periodically I don't know but it is frustrating.

 

[miPapareef]

Do you have a gate valve on the primary, versus a ball valve? The type of valve makes a big difference because it allows for micro adjustments. If you don't, I really recommend it.

As for the trickle in the emergency, it’s caused by water falling or tumbling somewhere in the pipe. It can be improved by not having long vertical drops, instead angle the pipe, so the water is flowing down along one side. Also 90 degree bends cause the water to tumble, specially bad where it goes horizontal to vertical drop.

 

[Midrats]

Do you have a lot of surface turbulence? This will cause fluctuations of the water level in the overflow. Did you use a return pump in the 1050gph range as recommended by Red Sea?

 

[pelphrey]

My Reefer 250 has been silent and the only time I’ve had to make adjustments to the valves is when I increased my return pump flow.

For me the key is to make tiny adjustments to the valve, like one click either way. Give the system some time to stabilize 10-15 minutes, maybe more. Adjust until you’ve reached your desired water level.

I do have a slow trickle going down the emergency drain also.

 

[AidanMary]

i seem to have tried everything, my plumbing is what comes stock with the redsea so there are vertical drops but it has 45deg bends not 90, the valve that comes with the redsea is a sort of diaphragm valve but isn’t very good at fine tuning, well not for me anyway.
My return pump is an AC ehiem 5000 compact which is a 5000Lph pump and that plus my vortdchs means there is quite a bit of surface movement but no wave action.
I’ve tried adjusting the valve in very small increments and waiting between adjustments but i just can’t gef it to stick to where i want. i might need to look into getting some plumbing parts shipped over form the US and modifying the existing valve to a true gate valve and hope that will solve the issue.