Overflow water noise

[kimoyo]

Hello all,
The problem I'm having is with my cpr 150 overflow or rather the plumbing I have with it. I have the cpr on the back of my tank going into a gate valve going into a male adapter attached to about 3 feet of flexible pvc. The flexible pvc goes over the top of my sump but because it has to curve a little I attached a 45 elbow to it. After the 45 I have another section of flexible pvc going under the water surface close to the bottom of the sump. There is a serious flow noise coming from either the 45 or the water (with air from the cpr) hitting into the sump water or both. I'm pretty sure its not a noise coming from the cpr150 because I did a u-tube modification to its intake and its quiet now. Any help would be greatly appreciate.
Paul

 

[esmith]

You might need to tune back your return pump (via a ball valve) so that your drain line doesn't have to fight to keep up. I had to do this with my CPR100, otherwise I get a terrible toilet flushing sound...is this what you're refering too?

HTH

Eliyah

 

[kimoyo]

Hi Eliyah,
Thanks for the quick response. I think you and I are talking about the same noise. But I don't believe my noise is from the overflow because I got rid of its noise by doing the modification. I kinda thought of turning my return down but I would like to get as much flow as possible. I mean the 150 is supposed to be able to do 1600gph and my return isn't putting that out for sure. Is there anything else I might do? I was thinking about reducing the 1.5 plumbing of the overflow to 1 inch but I don't know. Thanks anyway.
Paul

 

[esmith]

I'd say don't reduce the plumbing, you'll only add to the problem (probably make it worse). You really ought to try to add your additional flow through other means than your return line (like a closed loop, or additional power heads if you have to). I'd try adding the closed loop if possible.

What size tank is this on anyway?

Eliyah

 

[kimoyo]

Thanks Eliyah,
Its a long story about whats going on with my flow. I actually have my sump plumbed back into my sump (thru a uv and skimmer) because I have a Dolphin ampmaster 2700. I got the dolphin because its quiet but it has a strong flow. I was searching on another site and found an idea to put a tee on the end of the plumbing into the sump. The middle outlet would be attached to a 90 elbow that lets out above the waterlevel and the other end of the tee would go under the water. It might let the air out of the system and quiet the noise. I'll let you know how it turned out but thanks for all the input.
Paul

 

[kimoyo]

Hello All,
So I changed things around a bit. Now I have the cpr on the back of my tank going into a gate valve going into a male adapter attached to about 3 feet of flexible pvc. The flexible pvc goes over the top of my sump and unfortunately it has to curve a bit and I attached a 45 elbow to it to direct the flow into the sump. I have a tee attached to the elbow with a 90 elbow on the middle section pointing up and breaking the surface of the water exposed to air. On the other part I have some pipe going down to about 1 inch above the bottom. This has eliminated a lot of noise but I still have a lot of noise coming from the overflow or the flexible pvc. For inside the cpr overflow I attached a 2-3inch pipe to the hole and a 90 elbow and another 90 elbow to make a sort of U. Then I drilled a 1/8th in hole on top of one of the elbows. Can anyone help me?? Thanks.
Paul
P.S. I took the gate valve off to see if there was any difference but nothing. I was just using the valve so I could shut the flow off if I needed.

 

[esmith]

Paul, so it sounds like you tried creating a durso style stand pipe in the overflow box right...I tried that myself with no success. I'm lost with ideas, I was hoping that if you added the tee and 90 your problems would go away and I'd try that approach myself. I'd say that if you can try to drill the tank and add an overflow, it will more than likely help out with most of the noise in this situation.

If you need an idea of how to do this, you can drill the tank and put a 90 inside with a tee on the back; then add a small section of pipe on the upside of the tee with a cap on the end and a hole for air (this is the same as a durso, just not inside the tank). That is the route I would have taken if I didn't have a glass tank. I helped a friend setup a tank with this type of overflow and it works great, although he still gets some toilet flushing once in a while.

Anybody else got any ideas on this one?

Eliyah

 

[kimoyo]

Hey Eliyah,
Well the tee and elbow really help out with noise coming from the overflow water hitting the sump water. You should try it. It really cut down on that noise. What it does is allow the air to escape at the surface of the water as opposed to going down and bubbling violently back up. But you have to really extend the submerged outlet close to the bottom of the tank and not have the exposed outlet go to far about the water surface. Another thing I'm going to do tonight is drill a small hole in the top of the 45 elbow to allow more air to escape. As you probably know, you need air for the water to flow down but you want it gone before it hits the sump water. As far as the noise in the flexible pvc, I don't know how to solve that yet. But does anyone else have any ideas please?
Paul

 

[esmith]

Thanks Paul, I'll pick up some fittings tonight and give it a try.


Eliyah

 

[kimoyo]

Finally...

Hey Eliyah,
How did that tee work for you? I hope it helped.

Anyway, I think I finally found a way to really silence the water flowing thru the piping. Firstly, I should tell you that I switched to a stockman setup inside my overflow because of space issues. I think it works the same though. The main problem with the overflow noise is that the piping going from the overflow to the sump isn't filled with water. Thus with the air and fast flowing water there is a bunch of noise. So I was thinking that if the flex pvc was almost full of water but its water flow was still a little more than my return pump I could stop the noise. So after looking around for ideas I thought I would try a gate valve on the line somewhere close to the sump water level. And I found a sweet spot that if tuned correctly you could pretty much silence the water flow. The problem was if you closed it just a hair too much or if something were to get caught in there then you would overflow your main tank. But I was convinced that this was the way to go and I set it up and left it running for a day and it was fine. But the overflow really still worried me and I kept searching for a solution. I finally found a post by a guy on reef central where he used a gate valve (he uses a ball valve but a gate valve has more control) also. His solution was the put a tee right under overflow with a reducer in the middle section. Then he added a 90-degree barbed nipple with vinyl hose attached leading to above the water level of the sump (it has to be above the water for air to escape). The minute I read it I knew this was it because the vinyl hose would serve two purposes, it could be an air vent and an emergency drain. But note that it's important that you get the vent's line as far up close to the bottom of the overflow as possible. I actually put a 90 degree up and then a U back down to the sump. I posted his picture but it is also on reefcentral. I still used the tee method we talked about under the sump water surface, he just has an elbow there.

Look for a post by electric130, its the sixth post on the sixth page.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...page=25&highlight=overflow noise&pagenumber=6

 

[esmith]

Paul, I bought the parts but am still hesitant/confused about what to do with the tee. I am using the 90 at the end of the pipe in the sump coming from the overflow, but this does little to affect the toilet flushing I always experience. Any chance you could post a picture of how you have the tee plumbed in to the line?

I'll have to checkout the post on RC to see if that's something I'd like to do; I'm going to be moving everything over to my new 75 gallon tank as soon as I get the stand finished so I might not go through all the trouble of changing the overflow plumbing on my current tank...the 75 has a stockman standpipe in a corner overflow so I'll be doing away with the CPR HOB.

Eliyah

 

[kimoyo]

Hey Eliyah,
Okay, I posted a pic (I made it real quick) that I hope will help you. Note that the connection between the tee and the 45 deg elbow does not have to be a the water surface. It can be anywhere but I just happen to draw it there. The important thing is for the pipe coming from the 90 deg elbow or the elbow itself if you don't use a pipe is roughly at the water surface. This is where the air will come out. For me, that section isn't too long and I'm not sure if it will work if you make it very long. This will quiet down the noise from the water splashing into the sump a good amount. I also drilled a few holes in the 45 deg elbow on the top side so more air has a chance of escaping before hitting the sump.

For the noise coming from the overflow, I would use a stockman or durso.

And lastly for the noise coming from the water rushing thru the pipes, I would use the method I just said before and also you can apply some pipe insulation. Unfortunately for me, I could find it in a 1.5 in size locally.

Paul

P.S. in my setup I have the 45 deg elbow connected to the gate valve going up the line to the overflow.

 

[esmith]

Yeah, you touched on what I was concerned about...whether to have to pipe off the tee below the surface of the water or above. I was thinking that water might also come out of this section of pipe, therefore I wouldn't want to have it sitting above the surface of the water.

Thanks,

Eliyah