Help with herbie emergency drain

[ragin_cajun]

So the holes for your drains are drilled on the back/vertical wall of your tank? Dude, I'd just drill another hole somewhere, put a bullkhead and another elbow like you have in the overflow, done. 2 Emergency drains now.

I was visualizing you having holes on the bottom of the tank and it'd be a huge production to add another drain.

 

[DN328]

The more I think about this, the more questions I have. There is simply not enough information to really provide a solid solution.

OP says his pump is 630 gph, I'm assuming that's best case scenario. His primary is closed off quite a bit. That means the 1" drain is more than sufficient when fully siphoned - no issues. The real question then is how close is the water rising in this test? The original description just states it's rising, which is expected. Is the tank about to overflow?

 

[FluffySackson]

The more I think about this, the more questions I have. There is simply not enough information to really provide a solid solution.

OP says his pump is 630 gph, I'm assuming that's best case scenario. His primary is closed off quite a bit. That means the 1" drain is more than sufficient when fully siphoned - no issues. The real question then is how close is the water rising in this test? The original description just states it's rising, which is expected. Is the tank about to overflow?

it's like a centimeter below the edge and I don't wanna have mushrooms growing in the soaked carpet on the edge of my stand like what happened way back, forcing me to take down that tank and remove the mold and dry it for months.

 

[DN328]

OK. When it's running, is there a trickle to the second drain? If not, how much lower is the water? Just want to see if lowering the pipe is an option? Else adding a another drain may be in order, but hard to say how much room you have available.

 

[ragin_cajun]

Just pull the elbow out of the bulkhead for the emergency drain and test again. Ya might get lucky

 

[DN328]

I'm not following that suggestion, ragin - can you elaborate?

 

[millerkid519]

Personally I would take your 90 for the emergency and cut it off right where it 90's upward it will catch a full syphon a little lower which makes a big defference

 

[DN328]

True, but you'll also want to consider how much the second drain takes on when the primary is open and running. It may then make a lot of noise. That's why I had asked OP where the water level is relative to the second drain when the system is up and running.

 

[ragin_cajun]

I'm not following that suggestion, ragin - can you elaborate?

Basically, I'm saying to do the same thing millerkid said to do. I just figured the elbow isn't glued into the bulkhead. So you can pull it out, close the gate valve on the main drains, and see if the emergency drain can handle the entire pump output. If not, you just pop it back in the bulkhead like nothing happened.

But, I'm thinking that we can't trust the Emergency drain to ever catch full siphon. So let's pull the elbow and close the gate to see if it'll drain the pump output without siphon, see if it ever catches siphon, all that with no elbow at all. If the E-drain won't work with no elbow at all, we know we just need another drain somewhere and we can skip some steps. If the E-Drain DOES work, then we know we need to adjust the height of the drain.

 

[DN328]

OK, I see. Thanks. It's a good test to allow the second drain a chance to have a full siphon, true. But we'll still have to deal with how it works with the primary drain. That is, it will still need to be higher than the primary drain to be used as an E drain.

Anyway good discussion, I think we lost OP...LOL.