Overflow box noise

[Westy82]

i know this question has come up before but how do you eliminate the overflow noise? i drilled my 125 gallon glass tank, got glass cut and made my own internal overflow. leak test went fine with the whole plumbing system, problem is that my dining area sounds like it has a waterfall in the room. any ideas how to soften the noise?

[30reef]

What is the diameter of the standpipe and how far does the water have to fall into the overflow box? What size is your return pump? There are several factors that determine if an overflow will be noisy. You can reduce some of the noise if you do not have a "stockman" or "durso" device on the standpipe by inserting a plastic drinking straw into the top of the pipe until the noise goes away. This allows air to be vented and not drawn into the pipe with the water.
If you have a monster sized return pump, put a smaller one on and you will be amazed at how quiet it can be. I am sitting in front of my 30cube and can only hear the droning noise of the needle wheel skimmer pump. It is really quiet except for that.
Tell us what your plumbing specs are and maybe we can figure this out. It can be made very quiet.

[Westy82]

well the aquarium is a standard 125 gallon so its 24" high i belive. i have a mag 18 as the return pump with three 1" drains in the overflow to keep up with the pump. pump is run at full speed and the overflow box only fills up about 6-8". the drains are on the back glass as i was unsure if the bottom was tempered or not.

any ideas????

[Westy82]

anybody have any ideas? all thoughts or ideas are appreciated. thanks

[soni]

try the durso mod

[Westy82]

can you explain to me what the durso mod is? right now i just have the bulkheads in the back. no piping attached to the intererior side of the bulk head

[dgin]

Can you take a picture of your overflow? Its hard to imagine how much space you have in the overflow box, where the drain holes are located relative to the overflow level, etc. A pic of behind the tank would be helpful too.

Since you have the bulkheads in the back wall of the tank, you will need to make a modified version of the durso.

The typical durso looks like this http://www.dursostandpipes.com/

[aztbs]

If the holes are on the back, it is a lot harder to use a durso standpipe. Are you getting a slurping sound as the water rushes through the bulkheads? If so, attach a 90degree piece of PVC and point it down a few inches.

Or is it splashing because the water level in the tank is higher than the level in the overflow?

[Westy82]

id say its more of a splashing as the waterlevel in the tank has a good distance to reach as it hits the bottom. doesnt sound like a slurping to me, sounds more like a waterfall. ill try to get a picture tonight as i am at work right now.

[jefathome]

Slap a 90 on there then, and add a standpipe so that the water doesn't have to fall as far in the overflow.

Also, I had some slurping gurgle noise on mine, and this worked great:

Gurgle-buster

[AZDesertRat]

Sounds like you need 3 standpipes. Its going to be hard to keep them balanced though. You may get some flushing action even with standpipes. As dgin asked, where are the holes/bulkheads in relation to the overflow box? Does the overflow extend all the way down to the bottom of the tank? Are the 3 holes near the bottom or top? Do you have enough room for 3- 1" 90 degree elbows and some piping in the overflow box? My Stockman standpipe is silent. Dursos are good also.

[Westy82]

here are some pictures hopefully this helps and hopefully they show up

[Westy82]

sorry they are so big and i do not know how to shrink them down. i used tinypic.com to upload them to the internet

[Westy82]

i was just looking at the pictures do you think this might echo more as the center brace covers a majority of hte overflow to create the echo? all thoughts and ideas to get rid of the noise woudl be appreciated

[BLUESMAN]

Yeah I can See how that would sound like a waterfall!! Anyway to install some ball valve in the drain lines? You need the water not to "fall" so far, i.e. Fill the overflow more. Slow the drain Or increase the return pump. Blue

[AZDesertRat]

How much room is inside the box front to back? Are the bulkheads slip or threaded, if they are threaded it may be tough to get your hand inside to screw a nipple or male adapter and 90 degree elbow into. If they are slip get some 1" PVC and 90 degree elbows and cut 3 short pieces to connect from the bulkhead to the 90 and then three identical sized pieces about 18" long so all are the same height and see if that helps. If you come over Sunday you can look at the construction of my modified Stockman standpipe and see if 3 of them will fit in your overflow box.

[Sway_A_Way]

im pretty sure u could still use the durso method. except have 90 degree and attatch to the bulkhead. that way the overflow would fill up almost 70% (or however much u want) and have less noise.

EDIT: oh i see there might not be much room.....

[Westy82]

yeah there is just enough room to replace the bulk head if needed. about 2.5" deep. the bulkheads in there are threaded. i do have ball valves on 2 of the drains right now i will turn them dwon to see if that will solve the problem. ill try that and let you know. with teh amount of space i am limited to what i can do as its tight to get my hand in there. i was even thinking close up one of the 3 drains. any thoughts on that?

[AZDesertRat]

Rather than slowing the overflow try slowing the return pump by valving the discharge side. The tank will balance out. You really need standpipes though to raise the level in the box or it will always be noisy. A Mag 18 is a darn big pump for a return, I have a 100G with a OceanRunner 3500 return and a single 1" overflow and return and flow is good as well as being silent. You only want about 5x turnover through the sump so you only need about 600 to 700 GPH. Make the rest up with a closed loop,, Tunzes, Seios or Koralias.

[Westy82]

i have two seio m1100's im going to put in the tank. i do have a ball valve on the return pump to control output flow. sounds like ill have to experiment one of these days

[aztbs]

I think that you have good advice here, I just wanted to say nice pictures! I can hear the waterfall from here.. but it looks cool.

[30reef]

Holy cow, you weren't kidding about a waterfall noise. When you get the water level inside the box to within an inch or two from the main tank level, it should be much quieter. Then you need to work on a silencing device for the standpipes, otherwise it will still gurgle. I agree with AZDR about throttling back the Mag18, a little less flow won't hurt. The connection of the standpipes to the bulkheads needs to be as watertight as possible so in the event of a power outage or pump failure, the volume of the overflow does not leak down into the sump. Sometimes the extra volume of water will overflow your sump if levels are out of whack. I like to keep a couple of extra inches of capacity in my sump even after it is filled when the return pump shuts off. But maybe you already knew this. I'm glad you got so many responses.
Keith.

[Westy82]

thanks for all the input its all very much appreciated. looks like i have a couple hours of figuring out how to raise the water level in the overflow to cut down the noise. now i just have to find some time between building my outdoor patio bar and getting this tank up and running without the waterfall.

[kstockman]

what is with the 3 pipes? Are all three of them drains? You should have no issue quieting this setup. Elbow up from the bulkheads and run standpipes up to to near the top, then put in a Durso or and Aqua-Silencer on the top of each. Like stated by others, the water level in the overflow should be about a 1" drop.

[AZDesertRat]

Westy, the standpipe you saw in my tank last week is one of kstockman's designs. You have the guru answering your post.