Standpipe Problems
 

Hey everyone, i was wondering if anyone knows how to make a silent downpipe. I have tried stockmans and durso and just cant dial it in. Any help would be appreciated, thanks, Greg

I found the easiest way to dial the standpipe is to drill a large hole for the air intake and putting a valve on that.

If that didn't work for you, then.... you're out of luck?

If you are talking in a overflow box. I use a straw and put it an inch or 2 down the tube, you could use an air hose. The slurping sound is the pipe sucking the air down.

Okay, CHECK IT OUT - I spent a lot of time on this, hope it clarifies things:

http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/9103/dursorl5.th.gif

nice drawing albert, you should apply at acad! :D

what do u mean "can't dial it in?"
do you mean the input from the tank is noisy, or where it's going to the sump?

here's an illustration of how I did my durso (this way is SO much easier, and cleaner looking than a standard durso):
http://www.esopenko.com/images/aquarium/lsd.gif
if you find the water's rising up and down over n over within the standpipe, either drill a larger hole, or attach a piece of airline tubing. it means the water level's reaching higher than the air hole, breaking the siphon.

and for your return, this is what I wish I did, to stop most of the bubles, and get rid of the pip gurgle:
http://www.esopenko.com/images/aquar...gurglesump.gif

you can do away with "dialing in" your standpipe, by putting airline on the hole, then getting one of those powerhead venturi silencers... you won't hear a thing :)

Fist image is the Stockman.

For the second image, you'll actually want to increase the diameter of the pipe starting at the first 90 degree elbow to get the most use out of the design.

I have had a stockman running on my 90 for over a year


This pic shows it stock with a hole and a tube to silence it.
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../Img2005-4.jpg

I could not get it to work eather.

SO....I took the tube out and redrilled the hole on top and now works fine.

Its running about 1500gal through it and you might be surprized in the size of the hole.....I drilled and tested then drilled larger then tested....@ the rite hight its almost silent......:biggrin:

these were my first attept.........went very wrong........
http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../Img2005-5.jpg

Hope this helps.......:wink:

Jumping on to watch the show.
:wink: :wink:

Just tried all the ideas...its now louder haha. anyone interested in prefabbing one for me?? name your price

I tried both Durso and Stockman's for my standpipe and both were loud. Then finally, I just took a pipe and drilled a whole bunch of holes randomly near the top of it and used that as the standpipe and it was dead silent. Its super simple and its been working for months. I don't know why no one else does it and what its drawbacks are. My flow is about 300GPH.

I figured that it is quiet because no whirlpool is created and there is no air being sucked down the pipe. The water is sucked down at full speed at the bottom holes while the water trickles in slowly at the top few holes so there is no splashing and almost no bubbles formed. The result is a quiet overflow with almost zero bubbles coming out of the return.

I don't think anyone does it because most people have MUCH, MUCH more than 300 gph going down their standpipes. I know I've done what you're describing in the past at 700ish gph and it would gurgle unless I capped the unit. Even then, I wasn't able to push more flow through the unit without drilling more holes in the standpipe; this would just defeat my original intent.

Why can't you drill more holes? Just curious. I'm not sure why twice as many holes over the length of a larger pipe wouldn't work for 600-700GPH. The idea is to have the water flowing into the top holes at such a slow rate that there is no splashing and no sucking of air into the pipe.

any prefabbers haha?

that was my original setup, a few things that are not good about it.. only handles lower flows (the higher flows in durso's and stockman are obtained by creating a suction using the air and then getting rid of the air. free flow in to a tube like my old set up and what you are using doesn't preform quite as well) and algae plugs it up fast so it is a lot of upkeep.

other than that it was good.

Steve

I originally put a cap on my standpipe with one hole, this was ok for a while, until salt started to build up and restrict the air flow, I then drilled about 5 holes in the top of the cap and have had no problems since. I can't tell the difference in the noise level between one hole and five.