Overflow Noise

[Tiger3147]

I am sure this issue has been talked nearly to death but i am haveing a problom with noise from my AGA overflow. I am useing the standard kit that connects to a 1 1/4 inch drain pipe.

The problom is i am getting so many air bubbles in the sump from the large drain pipe. This may be because of its large size. I can solve this by allowing the overflows chamber's water level to run nearly the same as the tanks but i imagine this is a very bad idea.

One other problom that the above shady soulution helps is the noise of the water comeing into the overflow chamber from the main tank falling and crashing below makeing a slight wateterfall noise.

So as far as what i have running again it is the standard mega flow kit with a 1 1/4 inch drain pipe connected and draining into the sump. the drainpipe goes about 3-4 inches under the water in the sump. I may just have imposible standards with the setup i curently have but any advice would be apreciated.

[Scuba_Steve]

sorry, dont have web sites to link to, but research durso stand pipe, gurgle buster (what i use), and stalman standpipe (spelling?). My gurgle buster stopped all noise coming from the tank, and only cost me about $5

[Danfish]

I had the excat same problem and it was a very simple fix once I diagnosed it.

I bet you have a hose running from the bottom of the tank to your sump. And I bet it goes in a little loop, such that it drops down, then comes back up to flow into the sump.

I also bet if you were to raise the lower part of that loop such that the water never has to flow back up, it will stop the surging and waterfall noise. Will probably stop the gurgling also.

I'll go take a pic of mine and show you what I mean.

[Tiger3147]

na its ridgid pvc. a straight drop from the bottom of the tank =/.

[Scuba_Steve]

you said you dont want the water level in the overflow to be almost as high as the tank water level right? Im pretty sure it is the norm to allow this to happen. My level is about 1 inch lower than the tank, and i was still getting gurgling without the gurgle buster.

[Spectre2006]

I was experimenting with sumps and overflows for my 125. I had a rubber made trash can directly under my overflow siphon outlets. The sound of the water hitting the sump water was tremendous. It sounded like a large waterfall in the basement. I did this because my yellow clown gobies and yellow watchman gobies kept on going to the overflows. So I removed the prefilters and reveresed the tubes so the tube extend out from the bottom. My fish would get sent instantly into the sump instead of hanging out in the box with the prefilter undergoing a ton of drag.

In the process, I ended up creating a large skimmer. The force of the water hitting the water in the sump instantly foamed up the organics and they ended up getting splashed to the walls of the can and drying on it to some extant. The water quality seemed to improve. But the sound was just way too loud to continue with that setup. Since a home theatre system would be in the basement

[Tiger3147]

not that i dont want to but it just seems dangerous. not to mention that would be alot to drain into the sump in the event of a power failure. i would almost certainly have to alter my sump to hold it =/.

[Danfish]

Got me then :D

You're not alone tho, I've been battling flushing/surging noises and microbubbles since setting it up this time around.
The fact I need to get rid of my bioballs and sponge/filter pads makes it that much worse.

[andyjd]

Put two 90 bends at the end of the drain, the last one pointing down should be half submerged

[Scuba_Steve]

no worries about a power failure, because the stand pipe wont allow the water to drain past its height. If my power went out my overflow would drop maybe 1 inch at most.

[Tiger3147]

huh... so the outlet half submerged ?

[Danfish]

this is a picture of a standpipe (white thing on the right), when the power goes out, the water will only drop to the bottom of the bend in the pipe (about 1-2" from the surface).

http://www.stickycricket.com/aquarium/equipment%20pages/aquarium-Images/7.jpg

Image swiped from http://www.stickycricket.com/aquarium/equipment/
(not mine)

[dela]

I was going to post about the same topic.. Almost the same situation...

I've got a tank on the 1st floor and the sump in the basement. The Oceanic overflow is dissapointingly noisy.

Even the supply is noisy with the little anti-siphon hole.

[Tiger3147]

yea the newer AGA kits ( i assume thats what i have) use this concept i was just scared to operate with the water that high but if no one has had a problom with it then that may just be a soulution. or part of it atleast.

[andyjd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7497883#post7497883 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tiger3147
huh... so the outlet half submerged ?

Correct

[rdnyva]

Just set up an AGA 180 with megaflow. So what's the pros and cons of having the standpipe high or low inside the oveflow. I know it controls the height of the water inside the overflow but what are the benefits if any. Does it have any effect onl the flushing/gurgling noise when it dumps water into the sump? That's the problem I have in addition to it creating micro bubbles. If I adjust the height of the standpipe can I tweak the sump noise/bubbles?

[dela]

Hmmm.. I didn't think about adjusting the height of the overflow. It might help... But the supply spray will still be quite noisy. I was thinking of sticking an airline tube into that thing to quiet it down. Then make sure the end of the airline tube is submerged within the overflow. that would at least fix one source of noise.. (although it's white noise, so by fixing that sound, it might make the return noise more noticeable!)