Loud drain and pipe size issue

J

jmurray551

Premium member
I bought a used 90 gallon rr tank with the Mega Overflow. The previous owner had glued a 1-1/4" barb fitting onto the overflow pipe. I have attached a flexible 1-1/4 pipe from my LFS to that barb and ran it into my sump. My problem is that there is way too much air/ turbulence getting into and coming out of that drain. I have tried to find another 1-1/4" barb and a reducer to get from 1-1/4" to 1" and them plumb with PVC to try to quiet it down. I cannot find any barbs or reducer that will work.

Any ideas?

I have already backed off my DC return pump as much as I can. I have even integrated a valve off of the return line that I put back in my sump to reduce the return flow. I have a lot of bubbles in my drain and my office sounds like I'm in bathroom with the gurgling/ flushing sound.
 
can you turn the return pipe into another drain and turn the whole thing into a herbie system? that's what I did to my tank. I just ran the return pipe from the pump to go up behind my tank and into the tank.
 
I thought of that but I don't have the clearance on the back of the tank and I a really trying to keep everything self contained. Nor external pipes. Its an OCD thing with me. I think I can reduce the noise if I can get the the pipe reduced to 1". Just can't find the plumbing components to get it done. I will try the 1/4" tubing. There is one on the drain now, its just not pushed into the drain. How far should it go down?
 
jmurray551 said:
I thought of that but I don't have the clearance on the back of the tank and I a really trying to keep everything self contained. Nor external pipes. Its an OCD thing with me. I think I can reduce the noise if I can get the the pipe reduced to 1". Just can't find the plumbing components to get it done. I will try the 1/4" tubing. There is one on the drain now, its just not pushed into the drain. How far should it go down?
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Try an HGB drain style. (Hofer Gurgle Buster, I believe). Very easy DIY build, even if you are not very handy. I have these running on my tanks with an emergency backup drain but if you keep the air tube below tank level, it will act as an emergency siphon if it does start to clog. I always prefer another emergency drain though (which is why most people like Herbie, too).
 
jmurray551 said:
I thought of that but I don't have the clearance on the back of the tank and I a really trying to keep everything self contained. Nor external pipes. Its an OCD thing with me. I think I can reduce the noise if I can get the the pipe reduced to 1". Just can't find the plumbing components to get it done. I will try the 1/4" tubing. There is one on the drain now, its just not pushed into the drain. How far should it go down?
Click to expand...
a properly connected, behind the back of the tank, hard pvc pipe is much safer than a durso setup with only one drain.
 
I couldn't sleep last night, at which point I hallucinate, and for whatever reason this time it was about plumbing. So the crazy idea that came to me was you could do a herbie setup by running another pipe inside the main drain pipe. Run a flexible hose through it or something else small. Then at the top, glue the flexible hose so the inlet is 2-3 inches higher than the inlet of the main pipe, you can cut off a piece if that's too high. The point is to not allow the main drain to suck in any air. Then under the tank, drill a hole in the drain, to allow the new hose out, and seal off the rest of the drain with a valve so you can control the height.
 
I apologize for keeping you up at night. Its kept me up too. Thats an interesting idea. Have you seen it done before? I think what you're saying is the emergency overflow of a herbie is actually inside of the drain but a couple inches higher? I'll have to think about how best to plumb that.
 
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