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Silent overflow with one pipe

Perksta90

Seedling
Joined
2 Sep 2019
Messages
3
Location
Wolverhampton
Hi guys, I just wanted to share something with you as I know a lot of people ask about how to silence their overflow into a sump.

One good way is to drill two holes and have a syphon drain and an emergency drain. However, if like me your tank came with a really small overflow and only one hole for a pipe, you can't practically do this.

My tank has a 1 and a quarter inch pipe in a 4 inch wide overflow box, so there's not much room to play with. I've tried everything to silence it, durso, maggie muffler, filter floss, with airline, without airline, but it's always been incredibly loud.

So, my solution:

I drilled a 22mm hole about a third of the way down the pipe, and pushed some 16/22mm tubing down it to sit well below the waterline of the sump, and sticking about 2cm out of the pipe in the overflow. I then put a valve on the end of it in the sump.
Then I turned my 2000l/h return pump on full, and closed the valve until I achieved a full syphon through the tube.
If this pipe ever gets blocked, the water will just rise and fall through the main pipe. You need to close off the tube completely to make sure there's enough room left in the main pipe to accommodate the full flow.

Just thought I'd share it, as I've not seen anyone else do it on any forums and it's the only thing that's worked for me.

If you have any suggestions or reasons as to why I shouldn't do this, I'd like to hear your input, as you could be saving me some hassle further down the line!

Cheers

Craig
 
Yes, indeed a picture or a realistic diagram would be helpful to get an idea of what you are talking about.

Extremely loud? Where? And how so? Is it splashing water sound, a jet stream sound in the sump? Is it a slurp and burp at the top outside overflow box?

In case of a syphon overflow box and we are both thinking the same design i guess you are talking about slurp 'n burb sounds in the external overflow box part?

Mainly caused by capacity or aeration issues.

Anyway, that's just a guess or as"sump"tion for now... :) :rolleyes:
 
Hi, thanks for your replies.

So the tank was from Maidenhead aquatics, I think it was called a Pheonix or something like that. It's just got the single overflow box in the left corner.

The noise was from the water falling down the pipe, I tried loads of things, but nothing would make it quiet enough for the front room.

I've attached some pics of it. In the side view of the overflow box you can see the green pipe sticking out a little bit. This goes all the way down the big pipe into the sump. If this gets blocked, the water just rises up and falls down the big pipe
 

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If water is falling and makes cascading noise, obviously because of a water level difference? The water level behind the weir is lower than the water level in the tank? Thus it comes down like a waterfall? Or is it really sound of water gushing down a pipe?

In both cases, you can put a coarse piece of filter sponge over it, then the water falls on the sponge and seeps through. In case it's an open straight pipe and you hear the water gushing down, it is because it sucks air in it as well and this functions like a flute amplifying the sound. Then also putting a coarse sponge on top will dampen the sound.

I can't see it in the last picture, too much reflection, i see your hand and leg but not what's behind your reflection. :) So i'm still guessing..
 
From what I can make out the main flow is now a siphon directly to the sump via the green 16/22 that is poking out about half way up the stand pipe into the overflow box.

If you switch off the return pump/power cut and water level in the overflow box falls, does the syphon break and restart when power returns? If it doesn't restart can the original overflow 1 1/4" take the full flow (upto 2000lph minus head losses), given that the overflow lumen is now mainly full of 16/22 pipe?

Also presumably the additional volume in the overflow box draining into the sump with a power cut does not cause the sump to overflow.

Those would be my concerns. It needs to be fool proof with power failures to avoid overflows.
 
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