nice herbie but if you ever run out of power i hope your sump is very big i find your main drain pipe is way 2 low 2" below surface would be plenty very pretty tank too dude
@@higorac1 his main drain is not to low his box is to long I think it so you can add sponge or carbon if he lower the secondary pipe it will drop the water level in the box but the sound of water will become louder.
Wow I haven’t been on this channel in forever… First of all, thank you for watching and commenting. This tank has been long gone but yes, my sump was 100 gallons so there was never an issue with overflowing. Also, the only water that would overflow would be from the top of the emergency standpipe down to the main drain which was probably between 3 to 5 gallons. You just have to figure out what works best for your system. It’s preference really. You can put all sorts of different emergency check valves and things like that but my safety was just having an oversized sump so I knew even if it overflowed it wouldn’t be a big deal. The worst thing that would happen would be my scimmer overflowing and making a mess in my sump, in which case I would just drain all the water out of my sump and fill it up with fresh salt water and that would pretty much be my water change. Thanks again
quick question about this set up. your primary overflow and emergency over, can you put an elbow from your main to the emergency and still serve the same purpose. i don't have the luxury of having enough holes drilled in my tank.
sorry I am late and I hope you get this.If I get what you are saying right you want the E drain to be connected to the primary overflow. The answer is NO you cannot as the E pipe would allow air hence the main would never have what is called a full siphon. They have to be separate.
Great video, thanks. One question - Your primary overflow looks very low down. If you switch off your return pump won't the level in the tank drop that low also? I'm guessing your sump would also overflow in that instance as well? Am I missing something?
If your return lines either have a check valve or are set up to where they will lose the siphon as soon as you unplug or lose power to your return pump, The water level in your tank shit on them drop as low as the teeth on your overflow box. If you don't have valve on your return lines or it's not set up to use the siphon, your water level will drop as low as you have your return lines in the water.
+Charles Wilkinson The primary overflow sits inside the overflow box. The only water that will drain in a power outage would be the water in the overflow box, which is very little. The aquarium water itself will only drain down to the teeth at the top of the overflow box, and then stop "overflowing" into the box.
I'm not an expert at all that flow stuff. In my opinion I don't think flow from the return pump matters as much if you have good powerheads in the tank. As far as the size of the pipes, the main drain is 1 inch and the emergency overflow is either an inch and a quarter or inch and a half.
I'm a newbie here and have had my tank set up with the Herbie Overflow for a few months now. Let me tell you it has been super frustrating trying to fine tune the drain so that I only have a trickle getting into the emergency pipe. SO, my question is, if I ever to find the balance what on earth do I do when I am doing a water change? It seems like the process of fine tuning would start all over (which has taken weeks for me...) Any thoughts?
April Schutt It's not a herbie if you have a trickle in the emergency. It's an emergency because it's only used in an emergency. Problems arise when you restrict the drain or return in any way...filter socks or plumbing reactors after your return. You should never have to adjust anything once dialed in unless something is clogging the drain.
+April Schutt Shut off your return pump when doing your water change. Change water out of the main tank (siphoning up the crap while you do). Fill it back up with water, turn on the pump again. Never had to mess with the valve you set up on the herbie drain.
The main drain is 1" and the emergency is 1 3/4" I believe. As for flow, I'm not exactly sure. All I can say is that my WaveLine DC 12000, which claims an output of 3170GPH, is cranked to 100%.
+RedDelPaPa The primary overflow sits inside the overflow box. The only water that will drain in a power outage would be the water in the overflow box, which is very little. The aquarium water itself will only drain down to the teeth at the top of the overflow box, and then stop "overflowing" into the box. This is the point of an overflow box. It's sealed along the bottom and sides to the aquarium. The only way for aquarium water IN is to overflow at the top teeth.
+D rB ok. Yes I'm dumb. lol So if you replace that lousy ball valve with a quality gate valve, you can get that herbie tuned perfectly. allowing the E drain to stay dry and of course, dead silent. There are several inches of wiggle room because as the level in the overflow tower increases, the herbie siphon will drain more water from the increased pressure. So it will come to a balance. Allowing you to fine tune with a gate valve to the point where your e drain stays dry.
The reason is the siphon works via gravity so you have more water pushing down so it starts the siphon quicker. Also keeping it like mid-level in your box stops air from being sucked in. It also keeps any large floating items from being sucked into that main overflow blocking it. You can place it all the way at the bottom but it'll drain more water into the sump (which you don't want) on a power outage.
Appreciate the video but I had to turn up the volume because of the soft speaking voice, then I get loud clanging and banging in the background.... my ears hurt now lol
