Herbie Overflow Plumbing

Instead of durso or stockman standpipe, it's just a straight pvc pipe a few inches below the water line with a gate valve under your stand to control the water level. Then there is a secondary pipe set a little higher just incase the first one clogs. This setup flows huge amounts of water in comparison and is totally quiet. And with the secondary drain it's pretty safe. I've seen the main drain pipe drilled with a bunch of holes at the top so even if a snail covers the main opening, water will still get in through all the other holes. And then you have a return pvc pipe just like normal. The difference with this one is you need a total of THREE holes in your overflow instead of the standard two holes.

Here's a simple diagram of the drains.
Herbie1.jpg


And here's the original thread at reefcentral. Lots to read.
Reef Central Online Community - NEW plumbing method for an ULTRA QUIET REEF TANK!!!! LONG !!!!
 
While trying to combat my overflow's noise from the 20 feet drop, at one point, I did remove my U-Turn shape tubings in my Durso standpipe. The water went straight down to downstairs with just a valve in the middle. It was still very loud. It sounded like flushing a toilet. Not to mention the occasional bubbles and water splashes up from the pipe when I tried to adjust the valve.

I tried to use the valve to slow it down. It would have worked if when the sump is only few feet down, but I just couldn't get it to slow enough to have no noise, yet not flooding the main tank from the 2000-3000 gph of water pumping from the Quiet One 14000.
 
Ya, i don't know if anyone sending water down to a basement has used this type of overflow. I've only seen it done a few feet to the sump right below the tank.
 
Yea, I agree.

But with only a few feet down, I can use a valve or even making the tube with a loop can quiet down the overflow noise regardless of the type of standpipes though. That's what I did with my 72g with a Durso standpipe. Just making the tube a loop and it created a buffer zone to avoid the air and water noise.
 
My current durso is quiet. I don't hear anything. What I'm looking for is the extra flow. The standpipes are so restrictive.
 
I see.

My 125g is pre-drilled and as most people know, they stupidly only have 1" for the overflow and 3/4 for the returns. The only way to get it handle the 3000 gph that I have is to use force siphon all the time. The trick is to having the air vent hole having a air tube stuck into the standpipe. Hence, air won't start going in until the siphon already started. To adjust how fast the flow is, is to adjust how deep the air vent tube stuck in.

Since I have to make the durso standpipe myself, I've learn a lot about it by trying different combinations of water intake and the air intake configuration. It's been running for 12 hour so far and it's been dead quiet and 3000 gph!! :)
 
My current durso is quiet. I don't hear anything. What I'm looking for is the extra flow. The standpipes are so restrictive.

Yeah but this type of standpipe would also be restrictive. You have to partially close a valve to keep water going down too fast. So your pipe wouldnt be flowing its max flow rate.

Brian
 
That's surprising. :dunno:
Everything I've read so far on the Herbie method or BeanAnimal's Fail Safe (one extra pipe than Herbie) says it's dead silent and flows tons more water due to the full siphon (no air entering the main drain).

Here's the full article on BeanAnimal's website. Really good explanation and diagrams. Seems like a pretty good setup. I wouldn't have room for all 3 drains though.
http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx
 
Last edited:
Full siphon would give you the pulling weight of the water volume of the tubing all the weight to the sump. That's way too much for any pump that you would use to pump water on the tank. Air has to introduce to slow it down. Well, in his case, using a valve to slow it down.

With my current setup, it is doing siphon 100% of the time. I have to use the air tube insert to introduce air into the pipe to slow it down. With the "slow down", it is drawing 3000 gph!

Unless you use a gate valve, it's gonna be very hard to dial it to "just right" to get the full siphon all the time, yet not to worry about the tank getting over flow... Oh, wait.. That's the Fail Safe is for. lol. ok.

Anyway, with durso standpipe, you can have siphon 100% of the time as well. Just need to make sure the are enough water volume between the tank and the sump and use an air tube insert to control the flow.
 
Last edited:
Exactly, the durso can do the same thing (without the hole in the cap).
I put my finger over that hole and within seconds my tank started draining uber fast!

The herbie then takes this one step further and adds an emergency drain. Nice to have the back up in case the main drain fails. And the gate valve is used to hold the correct water level.

The Fail Safe overflow takes it even another step further and adds the third drain with the tube in the cap like you're describing.
 
With the air tube inserted into the stand pipe can already control the flow, I don't see the need of the valve though.
 
I had a noise problem and I built this. It greatly reduced the noise, did not affect the flow rate and by the design would be almost impossible to clog.

noisereducer3.jpg
 
on my 50gal i just had the bulkhead no pipes at all for the drain and it was not that loud but it did keep my overflow almost empty off all water i only had at most an in of water in there
 
Back
Top