Drain tube height in sump

Kens Bees

Well-Known Member
BRS Member
I'm at the last stage in plumbing a new build and need some advice. I'm using an eshopps overflow with two drains, typical herbie setup I guess. Where the pipes enter the sump is where I'm having a hard time. Some information says both pipes should be about an inch below the water level. Others say leave the emergency an inch above the water level so you can hear any problems. Some pictures of installs I've seen show both pipes submerged several inches into the sump. I'm going to leave that last piece unglued until I figure it out but I was curious about how others have done it and why.
 
Agree with Joker.

You may consider leaving both lines above the water level when you glue them, then add unglued extensions to each that you leave unglued forever, that way you can easily change their respective depths. (I would only do this if your sump is set up such that if the unglued pipe came out, it would just be loud and not a flood.)
 
depends on your drain setup, bean animal or herbie. If you’re using the bean animal you will want main and secondary in the water so it’s quiet and leave the emergency above the water level so you know when you have a emergency. In both the secondary is supposed to have a drip into sump but you will hear it if it’s above the water line in a herbie setup. If you want extreme quietness place both under water but test out how much is going through the secondary before going all the way into the water.
 
depends on your drain setup, bean animal or herbie. If you’re using the bean animal you will want main and secondary in the water so it’s quiet and leave the emergency above the water level so you know when you have a emergency. In both the secondary is supposed to have a drip into sump but you will hear it if it’s above the water line in a herbie setup. If you want extreme quietness place both under water but test out how much is going through the secondary before going all the way into the water.
@Chris A. you seem to know how to get a tank to be quiet. I have a new Eshopps with the same setup as OP describes. 1” pvc for both main and emergency, both 1” under sump water line. The back of the box is nice and quiet, but any little ripple in the QT makes a loud sloshing in the wet-side box. I’ve tuned the system and made the water level on the outside box as high as possible- doesn’t help. My only other option seems to be to put open-cell reticulated foam inside the wet-side box to quiet down the splashing. I hesitate to do this for fear of clogging and disaster.

Have you encountered this? Any advice?

Sorry to hijack the thread, but it’s driving me up a wall
 
I have the same problem with the eshopps overflow. It’s badly designed, the rear box needs another inch on the top to make it quiet.
 
I have the same problem with the eshopps overflow. It’s badly designed, the rear box needs another inch on the top to make it quiet.
Agreed. I think I'll try my foam plan and see if 10ppi or 20ppi foam is open enough to keep from clogging and tight enough to reduce the noise. I'll let you know how it goes. I might have to buy more than enough foam too, so I might have leftover.
 
good news is no leaks that couldn't be dealt with easily. I was using an old pump to test so the flow will be different but I see what @chadfish means. putting the emergency overflow higher helps tone it down but the water does splash in to the wetside a little loud.

drain tubes about an inch under the sump water level seemed about right though.
 

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I have an eshopps M overflow on a 40B quarantine tank. It was the first time I drilled a tank and a great kit that came with the diamond hole saw and template. It's being fed by an Eflux 1050 GPH pump through 3/4" PVC and dumping into a 20G long with homemade baffles (copied Fiji Cube design). I was shooting for silent operation and had noise from from overflow like you describe. While coarse foam can maybe silence or mitigate the noise, it can also clog and ruin your day.....

I tried something a little different and can speak of it with a year of successful operation now. My return line has a nice gate valve for fine adjustment, but I just couldn't find the "happy spot" with regard to noise due to turbulence in the overflow itself. So I "throttled" the wet side of the overflow by blocking (in this instance) 5 of the weir slots. The system went silent and after a year of use the material I used to block them might be of interest. I used Flex-Tape. I looked for any reason not to prior to trying it and didn't find anything negative. The tank is as healthy as Eden and the coralline forms on it at the same rate as the acrylic and glass making me think this stuff is inert with regard to its chemistry.

Cool product and might be really handy in emergency leaks.

The emergency drain faces straight down at 1/2" above sump level to minimize splash but make some noise, and the return dumps into a single 4" sock about 1/2" below sump level for silence.
 
I have an eshopps M overflow on a 40B quarantine tank. It was the first time I drilled a tank and a great kit that came with the diamond hole saw and template. It's being fed by an Eflux 1050 GPH pump through 3/4" PVC and dumping into a 20G long with homemade baffles (copied Fiji Cube design). I was shooting for silent operation and had noise from from overflow like you describe. While coarse foam can maybe silence or mitigate the noise, it can also clog and ruin your day.....

I tried something a little different and can speak of it with a year of successful operation now. My return line has a nice gate valve for fine adjustment, but I just couldn't find the "happy spot" with regard to noise due to turbulence in the overflow itself. So I "throttled" the wet side of the overflow by blocking (in this instance) 5 of the weir slots. The system went silent and after a year of use the material I used to block them might be of interest. I used Flex-Tape. I looked for any reason not to prior to trying it and didn't find anything negative. The tank is as healthy as Eden and the coralline forms on it at the same rate as the acrylic and glass making me think this stuff is inert with regard to its chemistry.

Cool product and might be really handy in emergency leaks.

The emergency drain faces straight down at 1/2" above sump level to minimize splash but make some noise, and the return dumps into a single 4" sock about 1/2" below sump level for silence.
Which 5 weir slots did you tape? It’s totally silent from sloshing now?
Can you post a picture?
 
I have an eshopps M overflow on a 40B quarantine tank. It was the first time I drilled a tank and a great kit that came with the diamond hole saw and template. It's being fed by an Eflux 1050 GPH pump through 3/4" PVC and dumping into a 20G long with homemade baffles (copied Fiji Cube design). I was shooting for silent operation and had noise from from overflow like you describe. While coarse foam can maybe silence or mitigate the noise, it can also clog and ruin your day.....

I tried something a little different and can speak of it with a year of successful operation now. My return line has a nice gate valve for fine adjustment, but I just couldn't find the "happy spot" with regard to noise due to turbulence in the overflow itself. So I "throttled" the wet side of the overflow by blocking (in this instance) 5 of the weir slots. The system went silent and after a year of use the material I used to block them might be of interest. I used Flex-Tape. I looked for any reason not to prior to trying it and didn't find anything negative. The tank is as healthy as Eden and the coralline forms on it at the same rate as the acrylic and glass making me think this stuff is inert with regard to its chemistry.

Cool product and might be really handy in emergency leaks.

The emergency drain faces straight down at 1/2" above sump level to minimize splash but make some noise, and the return dumps into a single 4" sock about 1/2" below sump level for silence.
I don’t think that will fix my problem since my issue is the water level in the back box. It barely covers the output and if I go any higher I’ll need to add salt on a continuous basis lol
 
I attatched 3 pics showing the raised emergency drain to stop the noise you refer to, the tape itself blocking the center 4 ports (thought it was 5...), and the overall water height to rim to top of weir relationship. Again this tank flows great with a 1050 GPH pump running at full speed through a 3/4 PVC hard return. There is a T close to the pump that necks down to 1/2" ID soft tubing that feeds a turbo twist UV unit that has the 1/2" soft coming out in its separate little return line to the tank. I use this little return line like a leafblower for cleaning....lol WORKS AWESOME!
 

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I should point out the upside down pill bottle has a small foam element in it and a hole in the bottom (now the top) and is simply a salt block for the creep that comes out of the vent/finger hole in the dry side lid. The little inside wet cover is made from some scrap and not part of eshopps kit.
 
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