My Herbie overflow write up. (pics/beware)

Im well aware of this, and I cant seem to find a balance, and when I do, it will just all the sudden without any input from me go wild. Also My skimmer affects it a lot to. Maybe I dont have enough water coming in?

 

hey wilber, do you have any of the messenger software?? Like yahoo, msn, aim??? it would be much easier for us to communicate on there live.

 

dude, your 20, I know you have to have atleast one of them, lol.

 

You sump volume is small, so it just pumps it up tot the tank. I know you know that.

Are you using a ball valve or gate. If you can't adjust properly you might need to use a gate.

What you could also do is set your secondary drain lower. Some people run with a slight trickle down it. It makes adjusting flows much easier, and might be the way to go if you are using a ball valve.

Try to get you water level some where you want, then set secondary a 1/8-1/4" higher. Get it to where it starts to overflow before your sump is pumped dry.

I have a larger volume in my sump, but my overflow level never changes unless I change it. Other have reported differences with sump level changes and evaporation/top off issues.

 

I noticed if I dont keep my sump at roughly the same height, im constantly adjusting the valves to keep it from making noise. Im working on an auto top off as we speak to keep this from happening. Once I get that setup I wont ever have to touch the valves except when i cycle them bi weekly to keep them clean. Then i will have to deal with the re-adjusting. Something else I also noticed is if I change the direction of the power heads or even the returns within the tank, it screws with the level in the overflows and I have to adjust them.

 

I am going to eventually plumb in a new return line that hangs over the back of the aquarium also so i can use the original return lines as the emergency overflows.

 

I would not feel comfortable not using the secondary drain. Some do though. I had the same question about using it. Seems most have it for an emergency. However, on a practical note, many use it for ease of tuning. They just allow it to barley drain, so they don't need to be so precise with the primary drain.

One thing about ball vales is that there is no real dead space. The valve is not going to get plugged with gunk. When I talked about periodic cycling to keep it clean, I was talking like every 6 months. Heck do it once a month, but bi-weekly is unnecessary to say the least.

The only thing I would have a problem with is an upside down gate valve. The gate would accumulate stuff behind it.

 

What is driving the flow through the primary drain is the head pressure on top of it. Head pressure at the out let will effect it. Since my drain goes to the skimmer section, which is set by the baffle, my level was pretty constant.

Even with I ran it over, I only used a quart or so, so the level didn't change that much. With my ATO it's constant.

READ THIS: It is important you understand the implications of an ATO. Since you do not have a secondary drain, you might not adjust your valve right. Not enough will drain. Your sump will go empty. Your ATO will kick in. You stand a good chance of overflowing your tank. You really need to give an ATO and only one drain some thought.

 

Just thought I would drag this back up. Been discussing overflows with others and thought I would put this back up for anyone that wants a silent bubbleless overflow.

Since install, only minor tweaking from time to time. It has worked flawlessly. Open up the gate valve from time to time to flush it. I'm happy I did this.

 

I've thought about doing this for a while. Currently I have the normal two hole overflow. One for return and one back to the sump. So I only have the one going down now... why do I need an emergency drain? The reason I was asking is I was thinking about just adding a gate valve to the drain and be done with it. I read most of that RC thread long ago but can't remember.