180 gallon filtration setup

[Fish Tank Travis]

You'd have to read through is thread very carefully (for the 100th time). I think he said he got tired of trying to get it to work with 2 gate valves. But, keep in mind, he started out with a ball valve under each siphon drain, which had nowhere near the same fine adjustment as a slice gate valve.

So, he could have had trouble getting them to drain at the same rate because his valves weren't good enough. Or it could have been because it was just 2 different drains.

I'd rather set one gate valve than two. And, if you had 2 gate valves and two overflow boxes, they'd have to both be kinda close or you'd definitely have issues.

but, I've never run a Herbie with 2 gate valves, never tried. Travis has, I'd be interested to hear his experience with it.

I cant remember but do you have overflows ? Or the h20 thing

I started off with the H2Overflows on all three of my 1.5" drains and they were setup as a standard overflow drain, that was super noisy. So, I swapped out the long radius elbow on the two side overflows to short elbows and used the H2Overflows on the sides as full siphons. I also added 1.5" ball valves to all of the drain lines down near the sump. Then, I swapped out the middle H2Overflow for a low profile drain that sits just higher (like maybe 1/4") than the top of my H2Overflows on the sides. I then used the ball valves on the two side drains to tune them into full siphon, while trying to keep them pretty even. The third drain stays pretty much dry and its ball valve always stays open. Lastly, I have the tube extend below the water line in my sump so that there is absolutely no water sloshing. Here are some pictures:


This is what all three of my H2Overflows originally looked like. They skimmed the surface and were just standard drains.



After replacing the long elbow with a short one, this is what my right overflow looks like. The water line is just above the top of the overflow.


Here is the left, same as the right.



Here is what the middle looks like.



Here is what the lines look like going into my sump. They all stay separate and each has its own ball valve. The left and right are both a little less than halfway closed and the middle is wide open.

As I mentioned in other threads, the replacement of one of the RIO 20 HF's with a Jebao DCP 8000 has also helped tune the overflows because I can adjust it from 30% to 100% in single % increments. I currently have it set on 58% to keep the water at the level it's at. As evaporation has been occurring over the past few days I have had to turn it up from 57% to 58% in order to keep the siphons from starting to suck some air down. The third emergency overflow still stays dry.

Also, in these pictures my water level is a little low because I have not replaced the evaporation water in a little while. I have found that an amount as little as about 2-3 gallons of evaporation can make enough of a difference in the head height between my pump chamber and the main tank to let the water level in the tank drop about 1/16-1/8". Not really a big deal to me. I just need to add a little bit to top it off.

 

[jaws7777]

I started off with the H2Overflows on all three of my 1.5" drains and they were setup as a standard overflow drain, that was super noisy. So, I swapped out the long radius elbow on the two side overflows to short elbows and used the H2Overflows on the sides as full siphons. I also added 1.5" ball valves to all of the drain lines down near the sump. Then, I swapped out the middle H2Overflow for a low profile drain that sits just higher (like maybe 1/4") than the top of my H2Overflows on the sides. I then used the ball valves on the two side drains to tune them into full siphon, while trying to keep them pretty even. The third drain stays pretty much dry and its ball valve always stays open. Lastly, I have the tube extend below the water line in my sump so that there is absolutely no water sloshing. Here are some pictures:

View attachment 1229822
This is what all three of my H2Overflows originally looked like. They skimmed the surface and were just standard drains.

View attachment 1229823
View attachment 1229827
After replacing the long elbow with a short one, this is what my right overflow looks like. The water line is just above the top of the overflow.

View attachment 1229824
Here is the left, same as the right.

View attachment 1229828
View attachment 1229829
Here is what the middle looks like.

View attachment 1229830
View attachment 1229831
Here is what the lines look like going into my sump. They all stay separate and each has its own ball valve. The left and right are both a little less than halfway closed and the middle is wide open.

As I mentioned in other threads, the replacement of one of the RIO 20 HF's with a Jebao DCP 8000 has also helped tune the overflows because I can adjust it from 30% to 100% in single % increments. I currently have it set on 58% to keep the water at the level it's at. As evaporation has been occurring over the past few days I have had to turn it up from 57% to 58% in order to keep the siphons from starting to suck some air down. The third emergency overflow still stays dry.

Also, in these pictures my water level is a little low because I have not replaced the evaporation water in a little while. I have found that an amount as little as about 2-3 gallons of evaporation can make enough of a difference in the head height between my pump chamber and the main tank to let the water level in the tank drop about 1/16-1/8". Not really a big deal to me. I just need to add a little bit to top it off.

So you have 2 siphons and 1 E-drain ?

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

So you have 2 siphons and 1 E-drain ?

Yep, that's correct. Two separate siphons and one emergency drain.

 

[jaws7777]

Yep, that's correct. Two separate siphons and one emergency drain.

You mentioned that the 3rd drain stays mostly dry and is the only Edrain ? So im guessing it wont handle the flow if you lose a siphon drain ? Also maybe thats what helping you with the adjustments of the valves you dont have an overflow box so no water level to really tinker with.

 

[jaws7777]

For what it's worth, I have two 1.5" siphon drains on my tank that don't "T" together. Instead, they just drain down to the tank and into the sump completely separate, and each has its own ball valve. I have not had any trouble tuning the herbie style overflow with the two of those. I then have a third 1.5" drain that stays dry for my emergency drain.

I could be wrong but i dont think your application woukd work for OP, you dont have an overflow box so maybe your not seeing any fluctuations or differences between the siphon drains and possibly both siphons and the most dry e drain are balancing each other. What i liked about the dual herbies was the fact that we would need 3 (2siphons ad one of the Edrains) drains to fail inorder to flood.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

You mentioned that the 3rd drain stays mostly dry ? So im guessing it wont handle the flow if you lose a siphon drain ? Also maybe thats what helping you with the adjustments of the valves you dont have an overflow box so no water level to really tinker with.

My third drain should definitely handle the flow if I lose one of my siphon drains completely. If I lose both of them partially, it should still handle the flow. If both of my siphon drains get completely blocked, then I might have a problem. However, I'm pretty sure my pumps will run dry before my display tank actually overflows in that situation. I also think the chances of both siphon drains getting completely blocked is a next to nothing probability.

I'm not really sure what the difference would be with an overflow box since I've never had one, but you could be right about that.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

I could be wrong but i dont think your application woukd work for OP, you dont have an overflow box so maybe your not seeing any fluctuations or differences between the siphon drains and possibly both siphons and the most dry e drain are balancing each other. What i liked about the dual herbies was the fact that we would need 3 (2siphons ad one of the Edrains) drains to fail inorder to flood.

I'm with you there. I wanted to make my setup as safe as possible with the flow rate I wanted to run. So far, I think the chances of a flood are pretty low. The emergency drain is wide open so it could flow full flow if needed. The two siphon drains are almost half closed, so it would take both of them being pretty much completely blocked to possibly overwhelm my emergency drain, which I see as an extremely low probability.

 

[jaws7777]

My third drain should definitely handle the flow if I lose one of my siphon drains completely. If I lose both of them partially, it should still handle the flow. If both of my siphon drains get completely blocked, then I might have a problem. However, I'm pretty sure my pumps will run dry before my display tank actually overflows in that situation. I also think the chances of both siphon drains getting completely blocked is a next to nothing probability.

I'm not really sure what the difference would be with an overflow box since I've never had one, but you could be right about that.

Im not speaking from experience since i havent actually installed it yet but what ive inderstood about other herbie builds is the waterlevel in the overflow box should be at or about the same level in both and would indicate both siphon drains are moving rougly the same amount of water. Your not running dual herbies like op and i are trying to achieve and i dont know what 58% of the pumps power is in terms of gph. My fear would be IF the siphons arent balanced and one maybe moving more water than the other. What if that were to be the drain that clogged ?

Not being critical of your build just trying to understand the difference between what you did and how it would impact what op and i are trying to do

 

[jaws7777]

I'm with you there. I wanted to make my setup as safe as possible with the flow rate I wanted to run. So far, I think the chances of a flood are pretty low. The emergency drain is wide open so it could flow full flow if needed. The two siphon drains are almost half closed, so it would take both of them being pretty much completely blocked to possibly overwhelm my emergency drain, which I see as an extremely low probability.

Again im not being critical just trying to understand this but if we use the attached graph and assume its some what accurate then the 1.5 e drain would move/handle around 1400 gph. Does that match your pump ?

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

Im not speaking from experience since i havent actually installed it yet but what ive inderstood about other herbie builds is the waterlevel in the overflow box should be at or about the same level in both and would indicate both siphon drains are moving rougly the same amount of water. Your not running dual herbies like op and i are trying to achieve and i dont know what 58% of the pumps power is in terms of gph. My fear would be IF the siphons arent balanced and one maybe moving more water than the other. What if that were to be the drain that clogged ?

Not being critical of your build just trying to understand the difference between what you did and how it would impact what op and i are trying to do

Ok, I think I see what you're asking now. With the external overflow boxes, you would probably have to have the dual herbie drains tuned more even than you would with my setup. This is because if one is tuned to the point that it is full siphon and keeps the water level up near the overflow teeth, the other would have to be the exact same in order to keep the water level in its box up near the overflow teeth as well, thus avoiding the noise of water crashing down into the overflow box. The second overflow box could still be full siphon, but if it's water level at full siphon is a few inches lower than the tank there will be water crashing down into the overflow box, before draining down through the full siphon line into the sump.

This is different than my setup because the drains in my setup could be flowing different rates, as long as the water level inside the tank is kept above the full siphon level of the drains.

As far as the gph of my setup, my RIO pumps are what I used to determine that. My head height is a little over 4' and then with a few angle fittings thrown into the mix, and a 3/4" bulkhead, my head height should be somewhere around 6'. The RIO 20HF pumps 825gph at 6' of head height, so I estimate that I was running about 1600gph between the two of them.

I then replaced one of the RIO pumps (soon to be both) with the Jebao DCP 8000. Without changing my drains at all, I found the setting on the Jebao pump that made my tank run exactly like it did with the RIO pump. It so happens that this setting was 57-58%. So, at 57-58% on my Jebao pump, I should be pushing about 800gph, and then another 800gph from the RIO that's still in there for a total of 1600gph.

Since my emergency drain is an open 1.5" line, it is rated to handle 1400gph. Therefore, it would take a situation where both of the siphon drains are pretty much completely blocked at the same time to overwhelm the emergency drain, which is extremely unlikely. Then, even if that did happen, there would be enough room in my tank to hold the water that the pumps would pump up before they ran dry, which would ruin the pumps if I'm both there, but save my house from a flood.