Tank overflow design help

[reef rider]

The tank is a 60 gal Oceanic, about 7 yrs old. It has a internal overflow and return in left rear corner of tank. Both return and overflow are in this box, plumbed down thru the base of the tank. The overflow is a plastic tube with many holes from top to bottom. I am thinking this going to create a 15-20" waterfall, with only about 5-10" of water in the bottom of this overflow box. Also worried about possibly draining the whole tank during power outage. I've looked into the Durso standpipe, but would like to know if there are any other options available. The overflow and return are 1". Trying to make this quiet and efficient. Thanks for suggestions

 

[Tecnomage]

The Durso option well, I ran it for a while but also had some noise issues. If you went with an over tank return you could use both the current overflow and return in the Herbie overflow configuration. It works really well and is dead silent, the only problems are finding a gate valve, and dealing with an external return. Replace the ball valve with a gate valve on the picture below and you'll get the general idea. The siphon keeps things totally silent, and the backup overflow only kicks in if something goes out of whack.

 

[kpiotrowski]

I used a simple yet effective design where I have two 1 inch drains. the 1st is fine tuned with a gate valve ( must be gate and not ball) to just "almost" match the return pump and runs at full siphon about an inch blow the water level. the 2nd pipe catches an ever so slight trickle of water and runs completly silent . I can plug my primary and the secondary will take over completly so its also failsafe. but COMPLETELY silent is the key! takes a bit of fine tuning and once you are close you are only turning the valce like 1/16 turn, but its pretty easy to achieve. Ive messed with durso's and they are tricky and need much tinkering as time goes by so I pretty happy about my current set-up. call it a lazy beananimal if you will cuz I am using only 2 pipes.

 

[Tecnomage]

I used a simple yet effective design where I have two 1 inch drains. the 1st is fine tuned with a gate valve ( must be gate and not ball) to just "almost" match the return pump and runs at full siphon about an inch blow the water level. the 2nd pipe catches an ever so slight trickle of water and runs completly silent . I can plug my primary and the secondary will take over completly so its also failsafe. but COMPLETELY silent is the key! takes a bit of fine tuning and once you are close you are only turning the valce like 1/16 turn, but its pretty easy to achieve. Ive messed with durso's and they are tricky and need much tinkering as time goes by so I pretty happy about my current set-up. call it a lazy beananimal if you will cuz I am using only 2 pipes.

That's the herbie

 

[kpiotrowski]

Yes...thats it! lol. Its a basic herbie with no elbo's, holes drilled, or air lines. works well! don't know why anyone would need to complicate it any more than that. any beananimal users out there that previously used a herbie want to chime in and tell us the benifit of using a more comlpex design? except for a 3rd failsafe I don't understand the benefit.

 

[Tecnomage]

Yes...thats it! lol. Its a basic herbie with no elbo's, holes drilled, or air lines. works well! don't know why anyone would need to complicate it any more than that. any beananimal users out there that previously used a herbie want to chime in and tell us the benifit of using a more comlpex design? except for a 3rd failsafe I don't understand the benefit.

I was amazed at how quiet the herbie is, I used to have to turn the TV up with the tank in the same room, now it's just the hum of the skimmer and return pump, it's so quiet now.