mseepman's 16" starfire nano

[fkshiu]

Originally Posted by JDigital

The herbies I have seen, all the emergency pipes are left out of the sump water level, including my tank. If it is submerged, it will be just as quiet as the main drain if you get a clog. The whole point of a herbie is silence, having a trickle in the emergency would kind of defeat the purpose, IMO.

I'd leave it where it is... and I would scrap the union on the emergency to, The emergency pipe is usually tall enough in the overflow that it only drains the for and inch or so (again, on the herbie systems i have seen).

You don't hear anything if there's just a trickle of water going down. Surface tension makes the salt water adhere to the sides of the pipe as it goes downward. It's only above a certain volume of water that the you start hearing anything. In fact, Herbie himself concluded (somewhere in the original RC thread) that adjusting it so that you get a slight trickle down the emergency drain appears to most easily stabilize water levels.

If you get a clog in the main drain you will get a very noticeable flushing sound because there's no valve to slow the water down.