Hey Tony,

I'm not sure how high you will be running your return chamber:

I had mine set up much the same way and was having issues with the dart pulling air from the surface and blowing bubbles all over the tank. I had to change out the strainer for an elbow. By the looking at the hight of your baffles you probably won't run into that problem, just thought I'd mention it.

Oh ok good to know, thanks. In that picture the sump hasn't filled yet but under normal circumstances I'll have the water level straight across so the intake is a good 8" submerged. An elbow is an easy fix - worst case scenario and if I don't have enough space for an elbow I could make take a length of pipe and drill holes into it and thus spread out the intake over the width of that whole section.

Right now there is still a massive amount of air bubbles drawn into the Herbie overflow so I have to retool that a bit. Was thinking of shortening the main drain so it sits much lower down, and then raising the emergency overflow as much as I can because right now there is a 4" level drop into the overflow and it's quite the waterfall. That should both create fewer bubbles and those that do still get created have to travel further down so hopefully that will do it. There are no microbubbles in FW but that of course could all change once it's SW. Also it would be nicer to further reduce the sloshing sounds. At least with the tank room door closed the sound is contained but seems to me a Herbie is supposed to be quiet as well as bubble free. :lol:

You're splitting hairs that's *SO* 17 years old of you Randi.

And Tony you're playing with fire man. Glad you're this close to transferring over! You've got at least a month of cycle ahead of you I imagine tho which sucks but still...

I run no piping on my main drain, just the bulk head on the bottom and my emergency is about even with the top of the overflow. The downside is my entire overflow drains when I shut the return down, but the sump is big enough to handle it. I would say my overflow probably holds 35/40 gallons.

war.

Side note...today I've done nothing at the shop...besides waste time on here and facebook...and she complains. *facepalm*...okay..>THAT was 17 year old of me...dear self, grow up...and stop talking to yourself.

Another thread successfully hijacked by this gypsy tattooer.

In my experience with the herbie setup I can't ever tune the gate valve finely enough to EXACTLY match the pumps output. The output also does change I suppose very slowly as it gets dirty. Either way what I have done is get it as close as possible so that the very slow creep is up and the emergency drain always has a very small amount just seeping down it. Bubble free, silent and like you said I have both my main pipe and my emergency very high. The overflow skims but drops about 1/2" into the box.

Exactly.

um thats how it suposed to be set up. so a small amount is flowing through the second tube.

Steve

I have a small amount going into the upper tube, although it's not steady. Because of the variable flow coming into the overflow (because of the waves going) the water level tends vary by about 1/4" so it comes up about 1/8" above the drain pipe then 1/8" below.

The issue was that, well, actually it's not really an issue, it's not THAT loud, but because I used a strainer on each standpipe, and the Eurobracing overlapping part of the standpipes, I can't get the top of the standpipe higher than 4" down from the top. It still works it's just that there's enough flow you can hear the waterfall when you're in the tank room. Outside the tankroom there is no noise so it's not like it's a problem.

But I found something that will allow me to raise the standpipe while keeping a strainer on it. Pictures tonight if I get the standpipe reworked. Would have done it last night but I decided to watch some TV instead. :lol:

Somehow I never read exactly how it's supposed to work that was the only way I figured it could. Just brain-dumping here in the hopes of helping out.

It IS helpful, thanks. :) FWIW I didn't realize you were *supposed* to have a trickle in the upper standpipe, rather I figured it was harmless to have it.

nice skimmer......

Ok, so, you know how sometimes Home Depot will surprise you by what they don't have? Sometimes, although less frequently .. they'll surprise you with what they do have.

I found this by serendipity last night:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1618-0.jpg

It's meant as a vent cover for 2" PVC, sits inside a coupler piece.

So, a quick bout with the chop saw and the top of the standpipe now looks like this:
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1619-0.jpg


So I cut a new piece of pipe (only had about 12" left of 2" PVC) and extended the standpipe. Looks like I could have gone 1/2" - 3/4" longer still, but nevertheless it's still a huge improvement in noise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wed0uKr0AY8

Well now that's a lot easier than cutting one out of egg crate.

thats slick brochacho!.....very clean looking standpipe....*hopes that didnt sound gay(not that theres any thing wrong with that)*:mrgreen:

Wow! And to think i had to waste my time fabbing not one but 2 of them for my closed loop intake. Good score Tony!

Tony that's awesome but if you're worried about fish getting past the eggcrate into the overflow in the first place how does this help? Looks like same spacing as eggcrate?

You're not switching sides on me now are you? :razz: j/k

The standpipe looks awesome, great find Tony.

Just read through your journal and I must say........ I'm more than jealous

Nice set-up.

noise be gone
 

I just want to say thanks for the info on overflow setup. I have been battling noise issues and flooding into the basement with the wife for almost a year. As of last night with the new emergency drain line instalation (35 min including driving to home depot) the tank is silent. Not one gurgle, trickle or gulp. Thanks again for saving my tank from my wife
DJ

Nice video. Herbie is working perfectly!

I was even able to eliminate that small waterfall noise by building a small scaffold out of eggcrate inside the overflow. On top of the scaffold, I placed two small sponges. This way, the waterfall lands silently on the sponges. It has no other effect on the overflow. Even if the sponges get all clogged, the water just runs over their surface and down the overflow normally.

Not too much to report but here's some activity progress.

Reef building 101!
http://photoshare.shaw.ca/image/a/d/...img_1634-0.jpg

At this point I should mention that I'm considering just lining the floor and walls with acrylic and calling the tank room the new tank, and then poof, I'm done with this. Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier. The door might be a bit tricky, but I'll figure something out..

Anyhow just because I have nowhere else to put these:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/IMG_1632.jpg
The colour is ever so slowly restoring in the purple carpet these days. Hope that positive trend continues!

Someone was out earlier tonight so I snapped a few photos. Glass was dirty so not the best quality, sorry...
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/IMG_1635.jpg

Not quite in focus but I love the shot, such classic moray attitude:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/IMG_1637.jpg

Seeing this photo after I uploaded it, I see I found the elastic that disappeared last night.

Also I find it odd that I find myself at odds with piecing together rock the way I think I want it to go together, and yet being influenced by how the rock itself wants to go together and then finding I'm going in a totally different direction than what I thought I had in mind. The thing is ... it's rock? Isn't it inanimate? How is it that I'm losing in a contest of wills to inanimate objects? No wonder my kids are able to get away with anything. Geeze!

love the rock work tony. so... going to give sps another go?

Thanks!! And yeah, that's the plan/hope ! :)

Looks promising already man get that rock WET!

Where did you get that Rock from Tony.

love your moray pics :)

:mrgreen:

Curse you people who can make nice piles of rock!

Looks great Tony!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhh

Tony, the rock work looks great. I love that shelf rock: It looks just like the Eco-Rock I got from BRS when I set up the new tank.
I totally get you when you say the rock goes where it wants. I got frustrated and broke it with a hammer and suddenly it fit! :lol:

It's funny how that always seems to be the case, doesn't matter though as I think the rock looks great so far :biggrin:

that tower looks great Tony:biggrin:.....lots of shelves and such to place corals....are those just stacked or did you get fancy somehow?

He's got a piece of 1/2" pvc holding them together. Word on the street is it's NOT Kien's 1/2" but maybe one of them can chime in here?

That particular pile has a 1/2" column of PVC (you can see it coming out the top rock as I hadn't cut it yet when I took that pic). Otherwise the rocks are just laying on top of each other. I took some thorite yesterday and bonded a couple spots so that when I take the rock layers apart (I'll never be able to lift that pile on its own) to put into the tank, I hopefully have some reasonable hope of refinding how they fit together when in the tank (I realize I'm only kidding myself but I'm clinging to optimism here). I also came to the realization I'm probably going to have to crawl INTO the tank to get rock pile placed properly, so that should be an interesting exercise later today. :neutral: (Wish me luck!!)

I used an acrylic rock and some thorite to bond the three rocks at that slanted angle for the smaller pile in beside to create that ravine (the real goal of the whole thing pictured there was to have a ravine. :lol: That whole thing was "just a pile of rock" until I put a second pile of rock next to it and all of a sudden it turned into this angels signing "Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" moment and light was shining on the ravine. Weird stuff.)

This is just one rock pile and will hopefully be sitting on the right side somewhere. For the rest of the reefscape it will likely be a mixture of zap straps, acrylic rods, and the occasional splop (or maybe even a splurch or splotch) of thorite and/or epoxy. I haven't quite got the vision yet for the rest except for things like "want caves, ravines and shelves." I'm not very good at artistically placing rocks - when I moved the smaller rock pile last night the big pile went right away back to "just a pile of rock" and the angel choir left. I said "come back, I have beer!!!! I totally don't mind sharing it with angels!!" but it didn't change their mind.

I would say it looks like your winning! Great looking structure there Tony, can't wait to see it in the tank.

Photos plz :lol:.

That's because you offered them beer Tony. It requires something a little more "heavenly", like vintage red wine made from grapes crushed beneath the feet of thirty virgins.

Rock 1 - Tony 0

... sigh. Tomorrow's a new day..

uh oh things not working out liked planed?