Help with microbubbles..

[anarchyx914]

Hi all,

I have a 240 gallon tank, and a reeflo dart pump for return. I am getting alot of micro bubbles in the drain tubes. I have dual 1.5" drains a a herbie setup and I am looking for ways to reduce the turbulence in my sump..

I will have a video uploaded shortly to show you my problems.. Any suggestions for right now?

[cloak]

Bare with it? It might just be a matter of time...

How old is your tank?

[anarchyx914]

Video here -- tank is brand new, about 2 weeks cycling so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm9DB...ature=youtu.be

[cloak]

Do you have a skimmer? If so, bare with it. Sometimes it takes awhile for the skimmer to settle down. (among other things) GL.

[Mark SF]

More baffles can help disperse micro bubbles, more live rock in your initial sump could help as well. Sponges set in between baffles can also help trap smaller bubbles and I have used this in the past, however, I need to be diligent and remember to clean them often. These trap debris and can slow the water flow, eventually flooding (this would take sometime) if the baffle doesn't have an overflow cut into it.

Also, correct me if I am wrong but it didn't seem like you are using a siphon for the drain (Herbie). It looks like a Durso to me...this could cause some additional bubbles as a Durso mixes air and water through the drain.

Next would be your protein skimmer, which can initially produce a lot of micro bubbles.

[anarchyx914]

I kind of combined the herbie + Durso.. Should I not have done that? On the main drain I have a gate valve, its just I could never quite get it to be perfectly quiet, maybe that is my problem.

[cloak]

My room sounds like Niagra falls... Given time though, it's kind of quiet. (heartbeat) I can pinpoint things at 3:34 in the morning.... (different sound) Somethings wrong...

[Mark SF]

Originally Posted by anarchyx914

I kind of combined the herbie + Durso.. Should I not have done that? On the main drain I have a gate valve, its just I could never quite get it to be perfectly quiet, maybe that is my problem.

The Durso will never be completely quiet, due to the inherent issue with air mixing inside of the drain pipe. Yes, I know there are silent Durso's out there, but not as silent as my siphon drain

The only part that I see that is similar to a "Herbie" drain is your emergency overflow pipe. This is recommended with any drain and is not specific to the "herbie" or "bean animal" drains.

The Herbie is effective for those like me who only had room for three holes in my overflow (small 75G in comparison). I use two drain, one return.

The siphon drain in a Herbie system is controlled with a gate valve, and you already have one. What is required is that the siphon line is about 6" lower than your emergency drain pipe in your overflow. This siphon drain will always stay submerged in water, this is how a siphon works of course. Your emergency drain is actually in use quite often (not always due to varying pressures).

Here's the beauty, you "tune" the siphon with your valve to allow about 95% of the water to return to the sump through this line. The other 5% silently trickles down the walls of the "emergency" stand pipe. This ensures that over time, even with building friction and accumulation of algae and other detritus in your lines, you don't need to keep fidgeting with the siphon drain rate. So essentially, you are trying to match the return rate with the drain rate via the gate valve, but this is impossible to do perfectly, so the emergency drain handles the fluctuating water return rates. Of course, this does not mean that the system is maintenance free! If something were to clog the siphon line, you would need to address this relatively quickly. The emergency drain will obviously be more than capable of handling the new work load, pending there is nothing clogging this drain as well. Enter the "Bean Animal" method.

The only difference between this method and the Bean Animal is that the Bean animal uses three drains, not two, in which one is truly an emergency line (stays dry) for additional redundancy.

The good news is this should be relatively easy for you to incorporate with your current set-up if you decide to try it. I would definitely considering trying this route and I would imagine it will eliminate a lot of the bubbles we are seeing in your sump.

Not to mention, to further quiet your drainage, I would place the emergency drain pipe .5" - 1.0" below the overflow, this will quiet the "falling" water of the overflow yet not effect the skimming rate.

Hope this helps.

-Mark

[anarchyx914]

Great suggestion mark. I adjusted my main drain lower, and wallah the bubbles are gone. It still gurgles a bit cause it creates a vortex, I may make the overflow pipe a bit taller to avoid this.

I just had to spend more time fine tuning it is all!

[Mark SF]

Originally Posted by anarchyx914

Great suggestion mark. I adjusted my main drain lower, and wallah the bubbles are gone. It still gurgles a bit cause it creates a vortex, I may make the overflow pipe a bit taller to avoid this.

I just had to spend more time fine tuning it is all!

So you are keeping the Durso standpipe? If you still run into the "crashing" water issue with your drain I would suggest the siphon. Glad to hear that most of the bubbles have disappeared.

The next bet will probably be your protein skimmer due to its proximity to the return pump. It should decrease with time and you can always tune the amount of air into the skimmer. With my KZ Rev S I definitely dialed back the air inlet due to the height of the water in my sump.

Forgot to tell you I love the set-up! Good luck.

-Mark

Btw, this is what the siphon drain looks like in your overflow box:

[cdouble]

I have filter sponge taking the brunt of the downflowing water from the DT. It's 3 folds deep, then under that I have bio balls. There is glass dividing that from the skimmer section and the water travels from where the bio balls / filter sponge by traveling underneath glass. Water cannot go over and this means no bubbles ever go into where the skimmer is. The skimmer does it's thing, that water flows over another glass divider into my refugium, final section of sump handled auto top-off / rodi water. My tank is in week 3, peak cycle, but no bubbles in the display besides what the snails and horseshoe crabs have dug up. Good luck!

[anarchyx914]

Awesome Graphic. I have a strainer but when it was on, the pipe could not suck water down fast enough, perhaps i will try adding that again to prevent any fish death.

Originally Posted by Mark SF

So you are keeping the Durso standpipe? If you still run into the "crashing" water issue with your drain I would suggest the siphon. Glad to hear that most of the bubbles have disappeared.

The next bet will probably be your protein skimmer due to its proximity to the return pump. It should decrease with time and you can always tune the amount of air into the skimmer. With my KZ Rev S I definitely dialed back the air inlet due to the height of the water in my sump.

Forgot to tell you I love the set-up! Good luck.

-Mark

Btw, this is what the siphon drain looks like in your overflow box:

[pjwperth]

I would add another baffle at the end of your sump should help