newbie piping questions - what size return - what size overflow?

[MikeInToronto]

Originally Posted by kien

All you need are two drains to run a herbie as already mentioned. One for the main and one for the emergency. It looks like you have a third in your overflow box? I'd either cap that off and don't use it, or 'T' two of them together as your main and use the third as an emergency. Another option is to use the third as a second emergency which I think you were planning but that is a little overkill. Nothing wrong with that though I guess. If your drains are 1.5" it will be very hard to overflow a wide open 1.5" drain unless your return pump is rated for something insane like 3000gph (don't forget about the loss of flow due to elbow, head and such), which it probably won't because then you're pushing way too much water through your sump in my opinion

He has 3 because he's planning a Beananimal, and he has more than enough room to do it. I wouldn't sacrifice the extra security if I didn't have to, even if I thought it was redundant.

[golf nut]

Originally Posted by kien

It looks like you have a third in your overflow box?

He doesn't have an overflow box yet, just the 2 holes

[Milad]

to answer some questions
I dont have overflow yet
And only two holes drilled around 8in from top 4 inches from side (i dont have aquarium yet so im not sure exact mesurements)

You guys are giving me some great info btw, very appericated
Taking into considertion everything everyone is saying, I made two new models. One has a herbie one has a bean. Both returns feed to other side of tank (now i gota build a damn canopy!)

1in drains, 3/4 return to 1/2 at the end of return (the T for two nozzles).
At the ends of the return, ill drill two holes on each end so it doesn create a siphon when water gets below them.

My biggest concern about the herbie is it looks like I have to try to match the flow of the return pump with the full siphon otherwise its going to make some noise. Plus there is only one emergency which kinda freaks me out.

For the bean, because my holes are so low, I had to "modify" the design by going up then coming back down. Not sure if thats safe or not.

I didnt model the refugium in because it looks like I have to do a herbie/bean to the small 5.5g otherwise all the fail safes im doing on the big tank wont matter if the 5.5g drain clogs. Thoughts? I really wanted a refugium display!

Here is the herbie


Here is the bean

[monocus]

you might have a dead area furthest from your returns-i stuck a 4 way wave maker on my return pump and had my returns at all 4 corners of my 220 coming up the outside of my tank and hidden by 4 pillars