OMG! I almost rang in the New Year on a terrible note!!!!

[Squid]

To get rid of the intermittent siphon, Put a gate valve on one of the drains and dial it in to become full siphon. Your other drain will act as an emergency. Either do that or turn down the flow on your return pump.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

To get rid of the intermittent siphon, Put a gate valve on one of the drains and dial it in to become full siphon. Your other drain will act as an emergency. Either do that or turn down the flow on your return pump.

I've already turned the return pump way down and throttled the ball valve in that particular drain line. We'll see how that works.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Okay, so on mine I have two bulkheads in each overflow box, one was meant for return line and the other is a durso from the factory. I did away with the return line and made it into a emergency drain that stays dry and is slightly above the water line in the overflow box. If for some reason the main drains got blocked, the emergencies would take the load.

I just made my returns come over the back of the tank in the center.

The other thing is you should never restrict the flow on your drains, unless your running a herbie drain system. Your drain lines into the sump should be as straight as can be and have little horizontal run. If you have to go horizontally, make it at a angle as much as possible to eliminate the possibility of a air pocket restricting the flow.

Where the drains exit into the sump, there should be less than an inch below the water line in the sump. This keeps back pressure from restricting flow.

Hope this helps!

Do you have a picture of you drains into your sump?

 

[Flippers4pups]

This was before I put on my canopy two years ago.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Okay, so on mine I have two bulkheads in each overflow box, one was meant for return line and the other is a durso from the factory. I did away with the return line and made it into a emergency drain that stays dry and is slightly above the water line in the overflow box. If for some reason the main drains got blocked, the emergencies would take the load.

I just made my returns come over the back of the tank in the center.

The other thing is you should never restrict the flow on your drains, unless your running a herbie drain system. Your drain lines into the sump should be as straight as can be and have little horizontal run. If you have to go horizontally, make it at a angle as much as possible to eliminate the possibility of a air pocket restricting the flow.

Where the drains exit into the sump, there should be less than an inch below the water line in the sump. This keeps back pressure from restricting flow.

Hope this helps!

Do you have a picture of you drains into your sump?

I'll get you a picture, but I don't have one right now. On the bright side, I figured out that my EB8 is not toast!

 

[Playa-1]

Whew!!! That was a close one.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Whew!!! That was a close one.

After about 3 stiff drinks, I'm finally starting to calm down! I was totally freaked out :/

 

[Rick.45cal]

Take a picture of how you have the standpipes inside your overflows set up. Something ain't right!

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Take a picture of how you have the standpipes inside your overflows set up. Something ain't right!

Agreed. Will do. It really sucks. I thought it was how I was inserting the drain tube into the filter sock, but that's not it.

With my luck, it will out to be a dead turbo snail shell in the piping :/

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

As I sit here replaying the incident in my head, I could've lost everything. My New Year's resolution will be to figure this out and to engineer out the problem if possible.

 

[Playa-1]

Now you will be sleeping with one eye open

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Now you will be sleeping with one eye open

I know that's right

 

[Bradw18]

Simple float switch on rim or tank when triggered will kill return pump. And on ato add a few extra

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Here is a picture of the plumbing layout:

The top piping is the drain to the sump, and the lower piping section is the return from the pump to the display tank. As you can see, because the water enters the sump on the righthand side, one drain line is short while the other is much longer.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Another picture:

 

[120reefkeeper]

IMHO it sounds like your just outpacing your drains . With this kind of setup you have to have those drains wide open, no restrictions, no throttling the drains. [emoji6]

You'll need to keep your return pump either throttled back, or slightly restricted in order to match what your drains can handle. This is not a herbie style overflow. It's a durso .

On a durso style drain when you get that sudden full siphon surge that tells me your return pump is pushing to much water up to the tank, and the drains are struggling to choke it all down if you will . [emoji4]

1. Make sure the drains are wide open.

2. Throttle back that return pump either with controlling it or using a valve to restrict the flow enough to stop that full siphon surge. It should never do that with a durso style drain. [emoji4]

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

IMHO it sounds like your just outpacing your drains . With this kind of setup you have to have those drains wide open, no restrictions, no throttling the drains. [emoji6]

You'll need to keep your return pump either throttled back, or slightly restricted in order to match what your drains can handle. This is not a herbie style overflow. It's a durso .

On a durso style drain when you get that sudden full siphon surge that tells me your return pump is pushing to much water up to the tank, and the drains are struggling to choke it all down if you will . [emoji4]

1. Make sure the drains are wide open.

2. Throttle back that return pump either with controlling it or using a valve to restrict the flow enough to stop that full siphon surge. It should never do that with a durso style drain. [emoji4]

Thanks. That's pretty much what I've already done.

 

[sneub]

Simple float switch on rim or tank when triggered will kill return pump. And on ato add a few extra

That is what I employ, the float is setup to turn off the return pump.

 

[bif24701]

No, the other siphon never acts as an overflow...just the one with the shorter piping, which I believe is a clue to what happened.

I had an Aqueon 120 dual over flows, if you want a quiet over flow system then you can run one drain at full siphon, adjust the durso or down pipe in the other overflow so that it is a little taller and gets just a trickle but if the tank starts to over fill it will go full siphoned and drain the tank. Honestly the best way to go with the stock drilled holes is turn one return into an emergency drain.

Personably I just had a Durso in each overflow and through several tinkerings I was able to get it nearly silent and fail safe.

Either way inspect and clean all drains weekly. Snails, salt creep, dead fish, algae, anything really can cause a drain to slow and if you don't have an emergency drain there is a risk of a flood.

 

[Pola0502ds]

I have not read this entire thread just some of it but i have ran into a situation before where my tank was not draining enough water so my ATO would kick on dumping more water into the sump almost creating the same situation. If i wasnt home to catch it then it would have happened. But with my situation the problem was i had just put some Seaweed sheets in the tank to feed my tangs. They ripped off big pieces of the sheets and they ended up getting stuck to the front of the overflow blocking the teeth. This obviously caused less water to go down the drain which made the sump less full which made the ATO turn on multipal times. Be careful with the nori guys. I use a clip but want to switch to something that keeps the entire nori contained.

I brought this up because maybe that is what caused your problem? If nothing else a little advice and reminder that nori can do this.