Weir between tank and external box noisy, fix?

[iReefer12]

New 650 gallon tank, fired up the pumps yesterday and I’ve raised the water level as high as I can safely get it in the external box. It’s still noisier than I would like.

I feel like most of the noise is coming from water rushing between the teeth, I’m debating about taking a dremel and chopping out the teeth and creating a flat weir… any thought, would a flat weir be quieter than a teethed weir?

 

[TX_REEF]

do you have photos of the whole overflow and drain setup?

 

[Bret]

New 650 gallon tank, fired up the pumps yesterday and I’ve raised the water level as high as I can safely get it in the external box. It’s still noisier than I would like.

I feel like most of the noise is coming from water rushing between the teeth, I’m debating about taking a dremel and chopping out the teeth and creating a flat weir… any thought, would a flat weir be quieter than a teethed weir?

What is the distance the water is falling from the display side, down to the overflow side?
Creating a flat weir would likely be quieter, but then you would likely have issues with fish/snails/etc. entering the overflow.
Can you instead make the teeth "longer" so the height between the two water levels is more equal?

 

[iReefer12]

It’s beananimal style, the drain itself is silent, just the water coming into the box is creating a lot of noise.

 

[iReefer12]

I can’t make the teeth longer. The teeth are part of an acrylic plate that goes over the glass. The glass cut out is at the bottom edge of the teeth.

 

[TX_REEF]

it's tough to see how far the "teeth" go down inside the tank, but if they don't go much below the water level then I might agree that making the teeth longer down into the tank could help. you could also try reducing the drain speed a bit to reduce the flow rate through the weir first.

 

[Bret]

I can’t make the teeth longer. The teeth are part of an acrylic plate that goes over the glass. The glass cut out is at the bottom edge of the teeth.

I have the exact same style of overflow. What is preventing you from raising the water level in the overflow box higher?

 

[TX_REEF]

alternatively, and I don't know how feasible this is, you could raise up the external portion of the overflow box to achieve the same net effect as making the teeth deeper.

 

[iReefer12]

I have the exact same style of overflow. What is preventing you from raising the water level in the overflow box higher?

The water level just looked kind of high to me. You think it’s okay to go higher? Can you post a pic of yours? How high should the emergency be?

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

Make a Lid for the overflow box, out of thick Acrylic or ABS Plastic. BTW, I‘d make a spare, even 1/2“ Cast Acrylic Warps over time. After swapping them out, you can weight the warped one, to bend it back.

 

[Bret]

The water level just looked kind of high to me. You think it’s okay to go higher? Can you post a pic of yours? How high should the emergency be?

You can go fairly high in the box. You need to make sure your emergency overflow can handle the flow, and take over siphon fast enough if both your other drains were to clog.
The only way to figure this out is to test.
Set the water height in the box to where it is at an acceptable volume.
Close the valves to both the primary and secondary drains
Check that the emergency drain takes over before overflowing (be ready to open the other drain valve if it about to overflow during testing)
If it does, then you are pretty safe at that height.

Keep in mind that the primary siphon is generally pretty restricted by your gate valve, and the open pipes of the emergency drains can handle quite a bit more flow.

Also, another solution to help quite down the overflow, is to add a lid if you don't already have one.

 

[iReefer12]

Okay, I raised the water level even higher now, and it’s slightly better, but it’s higher than I’d like it to be and it’s still quite loud. I’m really leaning towards chopping some teeth out.

 

[KStatefan]

Okay, I raised the water level even higher now, and it’s slightly better, but it’s higher than I’d like it to be and it’s still quite loud. I’m really leaning towards chopping some teeth out.

Why do you think it is to high?

 

[iReefer12]

The operating water level is only an inch from the top of the overflow box. And the upside down elbow, the top is sticking out of the box so I can’t actually put the lid on the box. That just seems too high to me.

 

[iReefer12]

Just wanted to update this.

I found a leak on one of my drain lines, so had to shut the water off for 24hrs anyway.

So I did go ahead and chop the teeth on the overflow down. This lowered the noise considerably.



But it still wasn’t perfect… so I made a sloped waterfall shelf thing out of some scrap acrylic.. siliconed it into place, waited another 24hrs… and it made a huge difference. The 2 mods together and it’s whisper quiet in the box now, and I Don have to run the water level too high.