building a 500 gallon plywood tank

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Mygiants, the reason egon and I suggested valving down a return line is to slow the water in that return since his overflows can outperform his pump. As you mentioned, it is pulling water so quickly air comes down with it. Ideally, if he could do a herby style, one pipe would be full siphon to match his return pump and the other overflow pipe would be above the water level to acts an emergency. that way you have silent pipes and you are covered in case of emergency. I believe that is actually the herby method and the 3 pipe method that egon mentioned is the bean-animal method. I am using the herby method and once i got my ball valve dialed in it works really well. If you valve it off too much, your emergency pipe kicks in, if you valve it off too little, its a regular overflow, but once you get it dialed in you dont have to deal with it very much. The bean-animal method is good if you have a lot of water moving for the amount/size of return lines you have.
 
tomomothy said:
Mygiants, the reason egon and I suggested valving down a return line is to slow the water in that return since his overflows can outperform his pump. As you mentioned, it is pulling water so quickly air comes down with it. Ideally, if he could do a herby style, one pipe would be full siphon to match his return pump and the other overflow pipe would be above the water level to acts an emergency. that way you have silent pipes and you are covered in case of emergency. I believe that is actually the herby method and the 3 pipe method that egon mentioned is the bean-animal method. I am using the herby method and once i got my ball valve dialed in it works really well. If you valve it off too much, your emergency pipe kicks in, if you valve it off too little, its a regular overflow, but once you get it dialed in you dont have to deal with it very much. The bean-animal method is good if you have a lot of water moving for the amount/size of return lines you have.
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+1 Thank you for the added detail. That's exactly what I was trying to say. I recommend having an emergency pipe. If your able to have a full syphon and an emergency pipe then your all set. A standalone emergency pipe is very important. I had an Angle fish die in my 360. The body of the dead fish blocked 90% of my overflow (worst case scenario) . The tanks water raised 2" and my emergency 1.5" overflow was at full syphon when I noticed!
 
kherron666 said:
running with 1 or both overflows , it make the sound ,, running with 1 , make my water level 1/2 inch higher , but it all works , i dont want to turn down the pump , im little under for turning water over , my pumps is little over 4 times an hour , i should be around 5 times since i have bigger fish
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I don't think you should slow it down either. Just wondering why anyone would want too by valving one of the returns.
How many times the water turns over really doesn't matter since its the same water circulating in the system. I think 4 times is plenty 5 would not make any difference. If you need more water circulation in the tank just add a powerhead or another pump. I was thinking another way to quite the gurgling is a even bigger diameter stand pipe so the water can't gap over the opening so it drains down around the sides for the pipe not trapping any air.
 
tomomothy said:
Mygiants, the reason egon and I suggested valving down a return line is to slow the water in that return since his overflows can outperform his pump. As you mentioned, it is pulling water so quickly air comes down with it. Ideally, if he could do a herby style, one pipe would be full siphon to match his return pump and the other overflow pipe would be above the water level to acts an emergency. that way you have silent pipes and you are covered in case of emergency. I believe that is actually the herby method and the 3 pipe method that egon mentioned is the bean-animal method. I am using the herby method and once i got my ball valve dialed in it works really well. If you valve it off too much, your emergency pipe kicks in, if you valve it off too little, its a regular overflow, but once you get it dialed in you dont have to deal with it very much. The bean-animal method is good if you have a lot of water moving for the amount/size of return lines you have.
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The overflow can't out perform the pump. The amount the water that overflows is the exact amount that is being pumped in. The overflow can only under perform which would cause the tank to overflow. I'm not familiar with any named methods. He's getting gurgling cause he using a stand pipe for an overflow. Most overflows are made with a large box with slits on top. If the slits begin to clog it just rises the water higher up the slits. The water doesn't have to travel down a narrow pipe. Using an overflow box lets the water just drains at the bottom of the tank through the bulkhead into the sump just a short distance doesn't trap air. If he made the drain pipe flow out the back of the tank instead of in the middle of the tank he could put a small breather down in the middle of the pipe to let air escape. I'd think that look better IMO so you don't see those pipes standing inside the tank.
 
Egon said:
+1 Thank you for the added detail. That's exactly what I was trying to say. I recommend having an emergency pipe. If your able to have a full syphon and an emergency pipe then your all set. A standalone emergency pipe is very important. I had an Angle fish die in my 360. The body of the dead fish blocked 90% of my overflow (worst case scenario) . The tanks water raised 2" and my emergency 1.5" overflow was at full syphon when I noticed!
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I agree if your using a pipe for a overflow that could be blocked completely by 1 Angel fish. Thats why overflows generally are boxes made wide enough so 1 dead fish cannot block it. My 300 overflow box is 12" x 6" plenty of area so 1 small dead fish happens to get stuck on the overflow it will not block all the flow. In all the years my tank has run its never overflowed.The level has risen few times cause slime builds up on the slits and slows the flow but it doesn't happen all of a sudden its a very slow rise in the water level gives you time to notice it.
 
I understand that a passive, gravity based overflow cannot outperform a pump. I must not have worded myself clearly. Its physically impossible for such a drain to move more water out of the tank than the pump is even providing. I am saying that the overflow is capable of moving so much water that the pump he has is only keeping the water level to a height where its still pulling air in, and if his overflows were restricted a little more, than the water level would rise, and he could probably get it to a point where it stopped pulling in air.

On my 100g, I had an overflow with an opening behing the tank to break siphon like the breather hole you suggested and in that case the gurgling noise was replaced with the splashing noise of the water flowing down the pipe. If he has enough water movement through the drain though this method may work.

The slotted overflow design is pretty much fool-proof, but then again you have water pouring down the length of the tank which can also be noisey.

Also, I think 4x turn over would probably be okay as long as your parameters are okay, but turnover rate really does matter. Even though you are moving the same water as mygiant pointed out, the more water passing over bio media, the more exchanges can occur between the beneficial bacteria and ammonia and bad organics. Plus the more water you move through mechanical media the cleaner your water can be. As long as you arent flowing at rate that is disrupting the media more turnover can be beneficial
 
I think we were both saying the same thing about flow rate. But I suggested slowing the pump is safer then slowing the drain if you go this route using a pipe for an overflow. Restricting the overflow to slow the water will just rise the level would not change anything. The same amount of water still got to get out if the pump has not been restricted. It would still flow the same speed at a higher water level or increase the flow on the other unrestricted drain which would still gurgle. But he doesn't want to slow any flow down so increasing the diameter of the pipe would act the same as slowing the flow. Wouldn't trap air and allow the water to flow freely out.

In my overflow box I don't get any splashing sounds its almost silent. You can get splashing sounds in the sump if the outlet water is hitting surface water. In my sump I don't use socks I have a stack of media mat that high above the water line in the sump so water hits the mat and makes no splashing sounds,
 
MyGiants said:
I think we were both saying the same thing about flow rate. But I suggested slowing the pump is safer then slowing the drain if you go this route using a pipe for an overflow. Restricting the overflow to slow the water will just rise the level would not change anything. The same amount of water still got to get out if the pump has not been restricted. It would still flow the same speed at a higher water level or increase the flow on the other unrestricted drain which would still gurgle. But he doesn't want to slow any flow down so increasing the diameter of the pipe would act the same as slowing the flow. Wouldn't trap air and allow the water to flow freely out.

In my overflow box I don't get any splashing sounds its almost silent. You can get splashing sounds in the sump if the outlet water is hitting surface water. In my sump I don't use socks I have a stack of media mat that high above the water line in the sump so water hits the mat and makes no splashing sounds,
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I think thats a pretty good way to do it. If you can dampen the splashing then it pretty much solves the whole situation. Depending on the spacing he could build an overflow box around the stand pipe area pretty easily but in order to seal it the tank would have to be drained, thats why I kept hammering at the herby method.

Well anyhow, sounds like we got you covered either way kherron. You just have to decide what makes the most sense to you and do it
 
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