Cue the waterfall - Q's on sump noise

[vmaxxt]

Ya-hoo! Live rock arrived yesterday, tank is wet and running! I'm on my way! Thank you to all of you who gave me advice and helped me assemble equipment.

Now my problem. The water pouring into the sump is loud! The tank is drilled in the back with an overflow box. The overfow bulkhead is fully submerged and it elbows into a 1" vinyl tube, no durso pipe, and no sucking noise. The drain line in the sump is about 1/2 inch above the water level and makes a constant pouring noise. I putzed with it a little last night and if I restict the output too much it starts the sucking noise. Should I put an elbow on the drain partially submerged at the waterline? Will that restrict the flow and necessitate a durso? The tank is a 75g with a Mag7 return pump.

And I swear, I wet tested this thing and it was fine. There must have been salt water gremlins hitchhiking with the rock. It seems like the return pump is running a lot faster than it was in the test. Maybe it's just been so long that I've forgotten. If "nothing good happens fast" then I'm doing ok. It's taken me 9 months to get this far!

Tammy

[WildPraire]

Tammy,

I'm of no help with your plumbing problem! I just wanted to say that I'm so excited for you that your tank is now running! How does the rock look?

You are officially on your way!

Sue

[David Grigor]

Usually just have to fiddle until you get it acceptable.

An elbow may help or add another elbow so the water going into the sump point up instead of down. That will reduce the air/water collisions that add to the noise.

Can also drill holes in the pipe right at the water level so some of the air can escape.

I like to leave that last PVC fitting not glued ( as long as it is over the sump ) so you can tweak and try different things.

[Dwayne]

I had a similar problem, this fixed it for me.

FWIW

Dwayne

[reeftanktime]

I was having a similar issue. I agree with David that it just takes some tweaking and balancing the return pump and the overflow water. Did you install ball valves? I have mine nice and quiet now.

[vmaxxt]

Thanks David and Dwayne. I'll try adding some curves. No, reeftanktime I didn't install a ball valve. My return line is actually 1" clear vinyl tubing. If I can't get that to work I'll have to convert it to PVC and add a valve .... and an outlet for water changes... hmmm..... Thanks Guys!

PS Hey Sue! The rock looks good! Got 45 lbs figi and 35 lbs kaelini from PA. I'll post some pics once it's aquascaped. They are just stitting on the bottom right now.

[FastFish720]

For me I'm running a 75g tank off a mag 9.5 return. My overflow has 19.5" of linear overflow and is drilled for 2 1" bulkheads, which is drained by 2 1.25" durso external standpipes. Hope that helps.

[vmaxxt]

FastFish720, can you send me a picture of your external standpipe? What does the drain into your sump look like?

[Dwayne]

Originally posted by vmaxxt
My return line is actually 1" clear vinyl tubing. If I can't get that to work I'll have to convert it to PVC and add a valve .... and an outlet for water changes...

You can use a PVC valve that has threaded ends. Use hose barb fittings that fit the valve and vinyl hose to put the valve inline.

FWIW

Dwayne

[otolith]

I would actually recommend NOT restricting flow of water out of your tank. What happens if your water flow becomes even more restricted-->flood. I would recc going with Dwayne's option or else having the outflow be just under water or at the water surface.

[FastFish720]

Hmm I don't have any pics of it cause I haven't been using the digi lately. But it is basically I have my 1" bulkhead in which I attached some sort of adapter so I can slip out the entire drainpipe if I want to, it's pretty cool. It pretty much looks like this picture, except I have that extra adapter and my pipe goes 1. into my sump, 2. gravity fed into my protein skimmer through a male adapter, and a t is in there to free any fish that may fall down. So far it's saved my clowns 7 for 7.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/show...ight=standpipe

[spazz]

here is the big question. what do you plan to put in the tank? will it need high flow or low flow. you might want to think of that when you do your restrictions to the flow. p.s. when you get it set up and readyfor stock, let me know i will give you some xenia if you want.


scott

[vmaxxt]

Got it! I started building an S curve and all it really needed was an elbow on the bottom. The vinyl tubing still has some spring in it so the elbow is actually sitting like a "V". That silenced the waterfall, but did start a cycle of rise, then fall, then sucking in the overflow so I stuck some air tubing in each end of the drain line so it can draw air that way until I can build a durso.

Thanks FastFish for the drain line link. I am curious to see the mystery adapter though

dwayne and otolith - I'm going to have to add the valve to my diy list. If for no other reason than a convenient place to drain water for water changes.

Scott - thanks for the xenia offer, I'll have to take you up on it when I'm ready. I'm not sure yet how far I'll take this. I need to research more on lps and sps yet. But some clowns, cleaner shrimp, clams, frogspawn, hammers, something like that.

Oh, and I saw my first living things on the live rock on Sunday. Little fan worms and I think some spagetti worms. and the little red bud looking things (foraminiferans?)

[HFG]

I have my to-the-tank-flow split. You really just need a valve on the lower of the two splits. In this case half goes to one tank and half goes to another tank. But, you can use this split to just go back to the sump. Start with it closed and open it up till the higher tank stops sounding like a sick cow. Its not a hard thing to install..