Herbie Overflows and Fluval Bulkheads??

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Do you have pictures of how you plumbed this up? Because I don't see an overflow box around the bulkheads, but then I see a box in the picture below it? Will this use an overflow box? Also, you said you went for 3" below the desired water level. 3" below, inside the overflow box?
 
There wont be an overflow box, the picture I used showing the overflow box was the only one I could find online for the Fluval parts.

My tank is down my parents garage so I will take some pics tomorrow. It is basically 2 vertical pipes. The emergency is about 1/4" above the desired water level the other is 3" below

What do you think on this pump till an Eheim 1262 comes up for a good price?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Submersib...den_PondsWaterFeatures_UK&hash=item1c1cdcba4a
 
Hmm I'm not sure that will work. Your MAIN drain will need to be where you want the water level to be, maybe a 0.5-1" below. By putting it 3" below your desired water level and not having an overflow box, when you turn the pump off, all that extra water will drain down to the sump, and it's most likely going to flood your sump. So, when not using an overflow box, the main drain needs to be at the desired water level, and the emergency drain below the point of spillover.
 
but that will be accounted for in the spare capacity in the sump surely?

In fact, once the siphon is throttled down to match the pump then surely the water level will be able to adjust to where I want it?
 
I don't know, that's quite a bit of water. Do the math. Take the footprint of your tank and calculate how many gallons that is at a 3-4" height. Yes, you can adjust the water level with the valve, but do you really want that much water draining down each time the pump turns off? Then you have to wait for all that to fill up again before the system gets going. I don't really see a reason to want to run the pipe so low, and to be honest I'm not sure how easy it will be to keep the water level set at all times with the valve. I have a feeling it's going to fluctuate slowly, over the course of several hours.
 
I went with 3" below as it allows the Fluval 405 strainer to fit on top.

thecoolguy above said to go 5-7" below to reduce vortex etc, my sump would not be able to cope with that much volume in power outage.

I worked it out as follows:
Tank is 90g
20% min for sump = 18g

The tank is 24" high, 3" would therefore be ~12g

As my sump is actually 21g that will give me 9g to use for bio media. That is 4.5 x my existing bio media

I could be wrong but we will see when the pump arrives............
 
I don't know if he knew you wouldn't be running an overflow box :) Yeah give it a try and see how it works. Try it outdoors before you put it in the house! And leave it running for several hours, as the water level will slowly fluctuate each time you make a small change in the gate valve, and this isn't always noticeable right away.
 
Actually I see what you're saying now about powering the pump off. With this type of set-up do you turn the pump off at feeding time to reduce most of it getting sucked in?

I may just extend the pipe then to 1" below surface of desired level and either leave pipe with strainer off or just put an end cap on and drill it
 
but if I fill the tank up to main drain level, then fill sump, then put power on there could never be a spillage??
 
I don't ever turn off my filters for feeding, but you will need to each time you do a water change.

If the main drain pipe goes higher, there's no issue of spillage. Just make sure you leave enough room for the emergency drain. Just test it out. Block the main drain with your hand and make sure the emergency drain can handle the flow without flooding anything. If the tank gets close to flooding then you might have the emergency drain too close to the lip of the tank.
 
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