Strainers on standpipes?

Smotz · Jun 23, 2016

All, I have a double-herbie on my 120g. Should I be using stainers on my standpipes?

I ask because my frag tank's strainer recently clogged up and the water level rose significantly. I caught it before it was a problem.

dbrewsky · Jun 23, 2016

I would say yes because it is easier to maintain the strainer itself. Usually strainers will not fail abruptly, but flow can be reduced until they are cleaned. It is also difficult to address a clog in a valve or drain line. Premium aquatics offers a long 6 inch strainer that is much more reliable than the typical bulkhead strainer.

thewbell · Jun 23, 2016

I had the same issue with the strainer on my bean overflow. I only use one on the siphon and after having it clog and slow down the flow (making the open channel noisy) a few times I removed the strainer. During the next 3 days I had 4 instances of snails getting stuck in my gate valve causing the same issue so I put the strainer back on. Now I have a reminder set up to clean it bi-weekly.

Smotz · Jun 23, 2016

thewbell said:
I had the same issue with the strainer on my bean overflow. I only use one on the siphon and after having it clog and slow down the flow (making the open channel noisy) a few times I removed the strainer. During the next 3 days I had 4 instances of snails getting stuck in my gate valve causing the same issue so I put the strainer back on. Now I have a reminder set up to clean it bi-weekly.

How did you remove them from the gate valve??

thewbell · Jun 24, 2016

All I have to do when they get in the gate valve is open the valve until I see the snail come out. It has not killed any but it also means I have to reset the valve position and balance the siphon out again.

Smotz · Jun 24, 2016

dbrewsky said:
I would say yes because it is easier to maintain the strainer itself. Usually strainers will not fail abruptly, but flow can be reduced until they are cleaned. It is also difficult to address a clog in a valve or drain line. Premium aquatics offers a long 6 inch strainer that is much more reliable than the typical bulkhead strainer.

Luckily it is/was that easy. Could be a lot worse.