fiji cube herbie question

[LDPatton]

I just bought the fiji cube 2000 gph overflow box and I will be setting it up as a herbie style drain. This overflow box has a main drain, a secondary drain and the emergency drain. Whats the best way to setup the primary and secondary drains? Do you pipe them separate with their own valve or run them into one line with a single valve? If you run them together into a single line do you need to upsize the pipe after the t or y?

 

[LDPatton]

No one has any input on plumbing this overflow box with main drain, secondary drain and an emergency drain?

 

[TheWolfman]

What you are describing is know as a bean animal drain. The full syphon gets tuned with a gate valve, the secondary drain hight sets the water level in the overflow box and does not get any valve. The e drain is set just above the secondary drain and gets plumbed into the bio chamber above the water level so it makes noise. All of the pipes should be independently plumed to the sump and should not be tied together.

 

[LDPatton]

They say you can set it up as a herbie or a bean animal. I have seen the herbie method setup using a primary drain, secondary drain and the e drain. I could never find out what the best plumbing method was tho. The only real comment on it was to not tie the primary and secondary drain. No real comments talking about having a valve or not on the secondary drain. After reading more about the two different setups I had decided the bean animal was the one I wanted to use. From what I could find the bean animal seems like the better system once you get to a larger size or at least the more popular setup for larger size and higher flow. Thanks for responding.

 

[TheWolfman]

They say you can set it up as a herbie or a bean animal. I have seen the herbie method setup using a primary drain, secondary drain and the e drain. I could never find out what the best plumbing method was tho. The only real comment on it was to not tie the primary and secondary drain. No real comments talking about having a valve or not on the secondary drain. After reading more about the two different setups I had decided the bean animal was the one I wanted to use. From what I could find the bean animal seems like the better system once you get to a larger size or at least the more popular setup for larger size and higher flow. Thanks for responding.

They are more or less the same. They use the same exact concept. The full syphon takes the brunt of the flow and gets restrictied with a gate valve until it just the water just starts to rise in the overflow box. Then that little bit of flow goes down the secondary open channel drain. This is know as a herbie overflow. A bean animal is exactly the same, it just has the extra insurance of a emergency drain that never sees a drop of water. So they will both move the same amount of water and be just as silent as each other. If your plumbing is sized corectly the secondary should take the full amount of water the pumps putting out. So a herbie the secondary drain is already a e drain, and the bean animal is just one more pipe for extra insurance.