How to Install BeanAnimal Drains into Synergy Reef (or Ghost) Overflow

[Rumjahn]

Originally Posted by Jayro

Does this setup provide enough flow for a 125 gallon? I am worried the 1" pipes may be too small. I plan on doing FOWLR. Also, does the siphon for this kind of setup start automatically? For some reason, I have a hard time wrapping my head around that as when i think of a siphon, you need to "suck" for it to start.

For my understanding, the siphon line elbow is pretty much in the center on the bulkhead opening?

Thanks for posting these pictures, I am not a very handy DIY type of guy and need to understand how everything works in order for me to start doing this or else I will fail miserably.

How much flow are you planning on running through your 125 gallon? Mine is a 112, running at 600 gph. I have a reef, but looking for only 5-6x tank turnover per hour through the sump, because the rest of my flow is provided by an MP40. Remember, you don't want a lot of flow through your sump, just enough to bring the water past your skimmer, carbon, GFO and other media.

Don't think of a siphon as sucking, as much as a waterfall. When the overflow box fills, the water has to go somewhere, so it goes down. That's how it starts "automatically." It attains the properties of a siphon, or the sucking as you imagine it, when the tube completely fills with water. At that point the weight of the water in the tube "pulls" the water above downwards with more force than if air were entrained in the system, because water is not compressible and acts as a single unit. Siphon must have no air in order to work, so your pipes can't be too big for the amount of flow you're generating. If you use big pipes with small pump, siphon won't occur because the pump won't be able to replace the water as fast as the siphon is sucking it. Therefore, air will get entrained in the system and you'll lose the siphon.

My 1" pipes run 600 gph with the valve about halfway closed, and if I open the valve all the way, the increased capacity breaks the siphon. I could probably run 1200 gallons per hour at full siphon with the 1" pipes, which I won't do in my 112 nor should you in your 125. So yeah, the 1" plumbing is more than sufficient. Remember, the overflow is designed to accommodate 1500 gph, way more than you need for your FOWLR 125 gallon.

[Jayro]

Originally Posted by Rumjahn

How much flow are you planning on running through your 125 gallon? Mine is a 112, running at 600 gph. I have a reef, but looking for only 5-6x tank turnover per hour through the sump, because the rest of my flow is provided by an MP40. Remember, you don't want a lot of flow through your sump, just enough to bring the water past your skimmer, carbon, GFO and other media.

Don't think of a siphon as sucking, as much as a waterfall. When the overflow box fills, the water has to go somewhere, so it goes down. That's how it starts "automatically." It attains the properties of a siphon, or the sucking as you imagine it, when the tube completely fills with water. At that point the weight of the water in the tube "pulls" the water above downwards with more force than if air were entrained in the system, because water is not compressible and acts as a single unit. Siphon must have no air in order to work, so your pipes can't be too big for the amount of flow you're generating. If you use big pipes with small pump, siphon won't occur because the pump won't be able to replace the water as fast as the siphon is sucking it. Therefore, air will get entrained in the system and you'll lose the siphon.

My 1" pipes run 600 gph with the valve about halfway closed, and if I open the valve all the way, the increased capacity breaks the siphon. I could probably run 1200 gallons per hour at full siphon with the 1" pipes, which I won't do in my 112 nor should you in your 125. So yeah, the 1" plumbing is more than sufficient. Remember, the overflow is designed to accommodate 1500 gph, way more than you need for your FOWLR 125 gallon.

Great, thank you very much for the explanation! It looks like this setup will work just fine for me and am confident I can put this together.

[Jscwerve]

Well, I'm ready to test and tune!!!

AAAAAAnnnnd I can't. It hasn't been above freezing here in over two weeks and someone forgot to remove the nozzle from the end of the hose last time it was used so it is frozen and I can't fill it up in my garage to test.

Waiting on the hose to thaw then I can do my test run in the garage before I move the whole shebang into the house. Here is is. I didn't want an open back stand because it can be seen from both sides so getting all the plumbing to like up was a PITA!!! Will have results once I can fill it up.

[danrobberg]

I made the mistake when I installed mine of keeping the bulkheads the way they were attached. They do this for shipping and must be flipped around. Wasn't the end of the world as my lfs stocks the same size bulkheads but was pretty frustrating. So far I love my overflow and it works great. It is not completely silent though. I can here the water trickle in through the weirs. I think I have to raise the height of the pipes inside the box.

[Gorgok]

Originally Posted by danrobberg

I made the mistake when I installed mine of keeping the bulkheads the way they were attached. They do this for shipping and must be flipped around.

As long as the flange and gasket are on the same side of the glass it doesn't actually matter which way they go. I have mine with the gasket/flange on the outside so i could remove the entire plumbing assembly by just removing the gasket nut and internal pipes (not glued).

[danrobberg]

It ships with the bulkheads upside down. If you glue the pic in from the bottom there is no way to really tighten the locknuts inside the overflow box.

[Gorgok]

I made a 70mm socket driver to tighten the nuts on mine (1.5" bulkheads) out of 3" pvc. As long as the flange would fit my tool will also fit and makes it really simple...

[terry4505]

I am running this system on my recently built 180 peninsula. I could not be happier with how it looks and functions. The tank is in my living room, dividing my kitchen from living room, and needs to be quiet. The overflow is silent:

http://vid1354.photobucket.com/album...psh7juuijy.mp4







I removed the airline from the OC

[woodnaquanut]

Originally Posted by Jscwerve

Well, I'm ready to test and tune!!!

Looks great.

Are you going to 'pretty up' the pipes? Since they will be seen, perhaps a coat of Krylon Fuson black while you wait for the hose to thaw?

[Jscwerve]

Originally Posted by woodnaquanut

Looks great.

Are you going to 'pretty up' the pipes? Since they will be seen, perhaps a coat of Krylon Fuson black while you wait for the hose to thaw?

Not quite sure yet. Black might be ok, it would subdue the appearance. I may also build some sort of matching wood cover.

Got it tested today. Well, I tested it yesterday, but some idiot put some of the o-rings on the overflow in the wrong spot (this guy) so I had to drain some out and remount it.

I've found that my sump is too small for me to be comfortable with it. With the level just about 3 inches above where you'll see in the video and I shut the pump off the sump fills up to about an inch from the top. That is of course if one of the loc-line returns are pointed down. If they are above the overflow it's acceptable and safe in my mind. I don't know if I trust the loc-line to not get knocked around or be watertight though. I may plumb the returns higher and not worry about it, but that may be too ugly to accept.

Also, the sump is a ghetto-fab job that used to be some lifereef iteration. with all the weird baffles its a pain to try to get equipment in it and useable.

[Jayro]

Originally Posted by Jscwerve

Not quite sure yet. Black might be ok, it would subdue the appearance. I may also build some sort of matching wood cover.

Got it tested today. Well, I tested it yesterday, but some idiot put some of the o-rings on the overflow in the wrong spot (this guy) so I had to drain some out and remount it.

I've found that my sump is too small for me to be comfortable with it. With the level just about 3 inches above where you'll see in the video and I shut the pump off the sump fills up to about an inch from the top. That is of course if one of the loc-line returns are pointed down. If they are above the overflow it's acceptable and safe in my mind. I don't know if I trust the loc-line to not get knocked around or be watertight though. I may plumb the returns higher and not worry about it, but that may be too ugly to accept.

Also, the sump is a ghetto-fab job that used to be some lifereef iteration. with all the weird baffles its a pain to try to get equipment in it and useable.

Curious, how big of a sump do you have? i just ordered the overflow and the sump is next on the agenda. Most sumps I have seen come with the 2 filter socks that you can drain into. That type of sump setup won't work with this as you want water falling from the pipes direct, less than an inch below the waterline, right?

[Rumjahn]

I have 3 filter socks in my sump, but the pipes don't drain directly into them. They drain into a separate baffled compartment, then flow over the baffle into the socks. You want something like that.

[Jscwerve]

The sump in the video is temporary. I'm buildung a 40B sump. The one pictred is also about 40 gallons, but it is not set up how I want it. Picked up a tank on my way home today to get started on that.

Only the main full siphon overflow needs to go into a filter sock, if of course you feel you even need a filter sock at all. If there is water coming through the other drains, something is wrong and needs to be addressed. I am actually making the other drain lines not empty under the water line when it is running so that it makes some noise and I notice it. The drains are however submerged if the pump is off.

[Rumjahn]

There needs to be a small amount of water coming through the open channel for the system to work as designed.

[Jscwerve]

Originally Posted by Rumjahn

There needs to be a small amount of water coming through the open channel for the system to work as designed.

No, there doesn't. That completely defeats the purpose of the system. That would produce noise.

If you notice on my video, there is nothing coming through the durso line at all. It works splendidly. The full siphon line is sized (via the gate valve) to match the return pump. If for some reason the level in the overflow increases, the durso immediately starts taking the extra flow. If the full siphon becomes completely blocked, then the level in the overflow raises enough for the durso to become the main drain. As the durso is not valved back, it has a higher capacity than the full siphon, and with the return pump I have right now, cannot even make the durso become submerged enough to become full siphon. Worst case scenario, ful and durso are clogged, then the emergency takes over of course.

I had to mess with the standpipe heights a BUNCH to make it work perfectly this way. There's a dozen various height pieces sitting in my garage that I tried in combination to get it to work properly. If you look at the heights, my durso (on the right) is a bit higher than most put theirs in comparison with the full siphon line. This makes it so that there is NO water flowing through the durso when running properly.

With a different sized pump, maybe it wont work the same way, but as it sits right now it works perfectly while running and passes all failure modes. No water through the open line at all.

[WilRams]

Thanks for sharing this. Im def looking into this overflow for a big display.

[stevemaxwellrn]

HELP!!!!! I got my overflow set up and something is not working! I was filling up the DT and got to the point where the water was flowing into the front overflow box...then instead of going down the primary or the secondary pipe, the rear box kept filling up until I had to pull the plug before it overflowed...at that time it started flowing down the emergency line. The valve on the primary line is open...I have no idea what is wrong...HELP!!!!

[danrobberg]

Actually the way the system is designed there does need to be a small amount of water running down the open channel for it to work properly. Just a small amount that stays on the wall of the pipe and doesn't go down the hollow middle of the pipe. This is completely silent. If you read the thread on the silent and fail safe overflow where the bean animal came from I believe it explains it better in there.

[danrobberg]

You need to figure out what is preventing the water from going down the drain properly. Something is clogged somewhere

[scuzy]

Something is not right if only one overflow is having water

[stevemaxwellrn]

Figured it out...had to drill holes in the PVC in the back overflow box...working great now!

[woodnaquanut]

Originally Posted by stevemaxwellrn

Figured it out...had to drill holes in the PVC in the back overflow box...working great now!

Holes?
That doesn't sound right. There should only be one hole, in the open channel line. There should be no holes in the siphon.

[Jscwerve]

Originally Posted by danrobberg

Actually the way the system is designed there does need to be a small amount of water running down the open channel for it to work properly. Just a small amount that stays on the wall of the pipe and doesn't go down the hollow middle of the pipe. This is completely silent. If you read the thread on the silent and fail safe overflow where the bean animal came from I believe it explains it better in there.

Quick update on mine. It was working without a single drop through the open lone when I was testing. Changed to saltwater and started running for good and had to tune with a little bit going through. I will enjoy my crow dinner!


As for the other guy having to drill holes, I'd be willing to guess your lines are draining too deep in the water, or there's too much horizontal pipe in the setup.

In my pictures above you can see that there is a small horizontal section on my open line. It made noise so I ended up replacing it with spaflex this weekend. Oh, that's as I was replacing the gate valve that I split the body of by torquing it down too much.

Now I'm running with a temp-fix ball valve until a new gate shows up. Took a bit to tune that in properly!

[bps619]

Finally finished the plumbing on my 112 and I have a couple of questions. In the video I cut off the return then turned it back on...the water fills up all the way to the emergency. It then drains down to where the open channel is barely submerged. It just continues to stay at that level with a constant gurgling noise. I then have to remove the siphon fitting and place it back into the bulkhead for it to go back to its regular silent function. Any ideas why this is happening? this is my first time plumbing a tank so any suggestions would be appreciated.

My second question is about the synergy overflow. I have a 112 ( 48x30x18 ) and when i cut the return, the water drains until it completely clears the bottom edge of the removable weir. My synergy sump gets filled up a little more than 2/3s. is this normal?



Thank you for your time.

[woodnaquanut]

Originally Posted by bps619

Finally finished the plumbing on my 112 and I have a couple of questions. In the video I cut off the return then turned it back on...the water fills up all the way to the emergency. It then drains down to where the open channel is barely submerged. It just continues to stay at that level with a constant gurgling noise. I then have to remove the siphon fitting and place it back into the bulkhead for it to go back to its regular silent function. Any ideas why this is happening? this is my first time plumbing a tank so any suggestions would be appreciated.

My second question is about the synergy overflow. I have a 112 ( 48x30x18 ) and when i cut the return, the water drains until it completely clears the bottom edge of the removable weir. My synergy sump gets filled up a little more than 2/3s. is this normal?

Thank you for your time.

Looks like your siphon is not clearing completely. How deep is the outlet in the sump? It should be just below the surface at normal sump running.

Also if you have long horizontal runs in the siphon line, you'll get that effect.

Yes it's normal for a sump to fill some when return pump is not on. It's mostly a function of how deep the return line is in the DT. There is a back siphon from the return line.