Herby vs Durso

[Madreefer]

I'm confused as i've never seen a herby drain in action and have only ran a durso. It has never let me down and I really dont like changing something that is'nt broken. Is it strictly a noise thing? My sump is in the basement so I dont hear anything anyways. Im thinking if I still stay with the herby which is my plan for my new tank I will need to have 6 holes drilled. I dont want to have my returns run up the back and over the top since it will be eurobraced. If I go durso I only need 4 holes drilled. I'd appreciate some feedback on this please and thank you.

[reefwars]

I'm confused as i've never seen a herby drain in action and have only ran a durso. It has never let me down and I really dont like changing something that is'nt broken. Is it strictly a noise thing? My sump is in the basement so I dont hear anything anyways. Im thinking if I still stay with the herby which is my plan for my new tank I will need to have 6 holes drilled. I dont want to have my returns run up the back and over the top since it will be eurobraced. If I go durso I only need 4 holes drilled. I'd appreciate some feedback on this please and thank you.

with a far drop like that i would go for the herbie , it allows you to lock all air out of the lines , so would be quieter and less bubbles and agitation from air at the drain exit.

i happen to know where your getting your tank built and can help with design if you like , im sure the other fella wouldnt mind at all if i made you a drawing as im sure he will want one anyways:)

cheers buddy cant wait to see the new build its nice to have a fresh start after so many years:)

[Madreefer]

I was hoping you would reply:lol:
I did a little speed reading and it seems guys have some issues with the herby not working right when the return pump is shut off. I do all my water changes in the sump with of course the return shut off. I'm not really in to any hassles especially if power goes out. Is herby drain fail proof?

[mrhasan]

I was hoping you would reply:lol:
I did a little speed reading and it seems guys have some issues with the herby not working right when the return pump is shut off. I do all my water changes in the sump with of course the return shut off. I'm not really in to any hassles especially if power goes out. Is herby drain fail proof?

What kind of problem? I run herbie on my tank and I always do water change from the sump by turning off the return and turning it back on after the change and it takes around a minute or so for the overflow to get back to its old settings. The trick that I found to work for me is to have a small trickle down the emergency drain; otherwise, you might have to adjust the herbie's level from time to time which is a bit annoying.

[Wheelman76]

+1 , slight trickle down the emergency tube does the trick.

[Madreefer]

What kind of problem?

Kind of what you just posted. I hate having to fiddle with things if I think it's all set. So setting the gate valve has nothing to do with sump volume or is it just for the tank? I have my pump throttled back quite a bit and like the water in the sump to stay ther a little longer so it's skimmed better. The more I open up the flow on pump the faster the water is out of the sump. Make sense? So tweaking both will be a PIA There's times i'm sent to go work out of province and don't need the stress while away and well, my wife just likes to look at he tank and feed the fish. I wish I could see one of these systems in operation. I like how waynemah has drilled his eurobrace for his returns. I might go that route. Looks clean.

[IanWR]

I am by no means an expert, but thought I would share my experience with the herbie. I found that if your return is adjusted so you get a smooth flow over your overflow it is quite easy to adjust the gate valve to give you a nearly silent tank. I have the sump under the tank, with the tank in the living room. The loudest noise is the hum of the skimmer, second loudest there return pump (a speedwave), and finally there is an slight water trickle noise as the water flows into the filter socks. The drain itself is silent. As the others have mentioned I have it set so a very small trickle goes into the second drain. This makes sense to me as either the main drain is adjusted absolutely perfectly so the level never changes, or the level in the overflow slowly rises or falls. If you set it so it slowly falls, you will get a lot of noise once you get the water spout. If it slowly rises, the second drain takes the very slight trickle quietly as it pours right down the inside of the pipe. I can turn the return off and not once had to readjust the gate once the return pump is started.

So the advantages I have found are silence, ease of operation, and no bubbles in the sump.

- Ian

[sphelps]

If you do run herbie keep in mind you'll need two separate drain lines all the way to the basement sump. You can't at any point tee the primary into the back up.

[Proteus]

I run a herbie. It's set and forget. Never had a issue with levels

[The Guy]

I run a herbie. It's set and forget. Never had a issue with levels
+1 me too. :biggrin: with a trickle down the emergency

[Madreefer]

If you do run herbie keep in mind you'll need two separate drain lines all the way to the basement sump. You can't at any point tee the primary into the back up.

The emergency drains should be ok if they are joined in to one before they hit the sump though eh?

[monocus]

the other option you have is a stockman.all my tanks have stockmans and they are all silent

[sphelps]

The emergency drains should be ok if they are joined in to one before they hit the sump though eh?

Yes if you have two or more emergencies, they can be tied together. Same if you have two or more primary drains, they can also be tied together in fact it's best if the primary drains all connect into one gate valve. You just can't connect the primary & emergency/back up drains together simply because you'll get an echo noise up the emergency drains which can be pretty noisy.

[cwatkins]

My herbie is mostly silent.

I just changed to a DC return pump and Herbie, so now the remaining noise is from the Skimmer and the MP40's. Not much else I can do to quieten it down.

I try not to have a slight trickle. I can usually keep it just below the top of the emergency. Although it does fluctuate as my sock filter gets dirty.

[Madreefer]

My herbie is mostly silent.

I just changed to a DC return pump and Herbie, so now the remaining noise is from the Skimmer and the MP40's. Not much else I can do to quieten it down.

I try not to have a slight trickle. I can usually keep it just below the top of the emergency. Although it does fluctuate as my sock filter gets dirty.

Yea all my equipment is in my basement so I dont hear anything other than my MP40s. I'll be running 4 of the MP40s on my new build, so i'd imagine it's going to drown out any other sounds. I've decided to go with the herbys and run 4 drains and only teeing together the emergency drains.
Thanks to all for the input and keep it coming:biggrin:

[sphelps]

Yea all my equipment is in my basement so I dont hear anything other than my MP40s. I'll be running 4 of the MP40s on my new build, so i'd imagine it's going to drown out any other sounds. I've decided to go with the herbys and run 4 drains and only teeing together the emergency drains.
Thanks to all for the input and keep it coming:biggrin:

Just to note, if your new tank has two separate overflows you'll need to tee the primary drains into a single gate valve for control. While the overall water flow rate will be constant the flow rate to each overflow will vary, especially with any kind of wave, so if you use two separate gate valves you will be constantly fighting to tune them properly.

[Madreefer]

It'll be a coast to coast internal overflow.

[brizzo]

Is it strictly a noise thing?

Full siphon drain (herbie) is able to drain higher gph as it is not sucking air into the drain pipe

[mark]

Herbie now but when I first setup up tank was using dual Dursos with basement sump. Worked perfect for about 5 years before I changed. Would say Herbie is slight more maintenance as every few months I need to open gate valve to clear snails, something never had to do with Dursos.

Only reason I changed was I had a long horizontal run under room used as a office and could hear gurgling in lines when house was quiet (running 1000gph). Herbie did stop the noise heard in the room.

Unless you feel like playing, would say just keep Dursos, as I found really no difference in sound at display or sump (both were/are silent).

[BC564]

I run a Durso....but I dont have a choice as I have 1 return and 1 over flow. I dont think I would change anyways.

[spit.fire]

Herbie now but when I first setup up tank was using dual Dursos with basement sump. Worked perfect for about 5 years before I changed. Would say Herbie is slight more maintenance as every few months I need to open gate valve to clear snails, something never had to do with Dursos.

Only reason I changed was I had a long horizontal run under room used as a office and could hear gurgling in lines when house was quiet (running 1000gph). Herbie did stop the noise heard in the room.

Unless you feel like playing, would say just keep Dursos, as I found really no difference in sound at display or sump (both were/are silent).

A strainer on the main drain would solve that problem

[Madreefer]

Soooo just out of curiosity, who sells those Durso kits?

[Doug]

Soooo just out of curiosity, who sells those Durso kits?


Rich did at one time on RC. He has his own webpage or had. Cant say or not if he still does. Easy to build. I have built dozens and never a problem.

[asylumdown]

Just to note, if your new tank has two separate overflows you'll need to tee the primary drains into a single gate valve for control. While the overall water flow rate will be constant the flow rate to each overflow will vary, especially with any kind of wave, so if you use two separate gate valves you will be constantly fighting to tune them properly.

gack! Have you done this yourself? This is exactly how I had my tank set up and it was a constant never ending nightmare. I finally converted back to a durso with all the micro bubbles, noise, and salt creep that I hate because I couldn't deal with the herbies anymore. The levels in my overflow boxes would randomly drift over the course of the day, sometimes with one emptying half way creating a splashing water fall, while the other would fill completely. This was true whether I set the levels with a single gate valve downstream of where they connected, or two gate valves upstream of where they connected. It was the most unstable overflow system I've ever seen. Further to that, I'm not sure if this is a Herbie issue or them being plumbed together, but they were INCREDIBLY sensitive to water level changes in the return chamber of the sump. If I had it throttled just the teeny tiniest bit too much, the return chamber level would fall, and my ATO would kick in (it's a powerful pump that moves a ton of water as it comes from the basement). Then the level would reset below the ATO sensor, causing the ATO to fill the return chamber again. This happened very slowly over the course of 3 days once until suddenly water started pouring down my emergency drain and the SG of my tank had fallen to 1.022

I'd never in a million years run a Herbie with dual overflows plumbed in to a single outlet again. Maybe it's just me and I'm a dolt and set it up wrong and you've had a different experience, but that was easily the biggest error I feel I made with this tank.

[Doug]

http://www.dursostandpipes.com/

[Madreefer]

Not herby or durso , but an interesting read

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/hydraulics-for-the-aquarist.aspx

http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx

[chi]

I did the bean animal. Pretty easy. Did it on my Ada 60p tank.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[sphelps]

gack! Have you done this yourself? This is exactly how I had my tank set up and it was a constant never ending nightmare. I finally converted back to a durso with all the micro bubbles, noise, and salt creep that I hate because I couldn't deal with the herbies anymore. The levels in my overflow boxes would randomly drift over the course of the day, sometimes with one emptying half way creating a splashing water fall, while the other would fill completely. This was true whether I set the levels with a single gate valve downstream of where they connected, or two gate valves upstream of where they connected. It was the most unstable overflow system I've ever seen. Further to that, I'm not sure if this is a Herbie issue or them being plumbed together, but they were INCREDIBLY sensitive to water level changes in the return chamber of the sump. If I had it throttled just the teeny tiniest bit too much, the return chamber level would fall, and my ATO would kick in (it's a powerful pump that moves a ton of water as it comes from the basement). Then the level would reset below the ATO sensor, causing the ATO to fill the return chamber again. This happened very slowly over the course of 3 days once until suddenly water started pouring down my emergency drain and the SG of my tank had fallen to 1.022

I'd never in a million years run a Herbie with dual overflows plumbed in to a single outlet again. Maybe it's just me and I'm a dolt and set it up wrong and you've had a different experience, but that was easily the biggest error I feel I made with this tank.

Yeap had a customers tank setup this way back in the day. You need riser tubes in the overflow boxes and back ups in each one as well. If there was a slight imbalance the water level could only drop to the top of the riser tube and would correct itself quickly after hitting that. I was only there briefly every month or so and never saw a problem, rarely had to touch the gate valve. They did mention a brief slurp sound from time to time but nothing constant so it all seemed fine to me. I assure you trying to maintain separate gate valves on each would prove much more challenging.
If you do find a constant imbalance it would be due to more pipe friction from one overflow. This can result from smaller pipe sizes with higher flow rates (high velocity) making one side more restrictive quite easily, especially if it has a longer run or more fittings before the gate valve. You could easily fix it with an additional valve on that line but still connecting both lines to a single valve. The extra valve would just allow to add more restriction to the less restrictive side helping the sides self balance easier.
It's not a perfect system by a long shot but a herbie on a dual overflow has challenges you have to be willing to accept. Still better than Dursos IMO.

[Madreefer]

Ok so I'm prepping the plumbing for my new tank.
The emergency drains for my Herby. How high should they be in relation to the teeth on my coast to coast overflow? Top of the high part of the teeth or half way up the teeth? Sorry for the stupid question but I've only ran with Dursos? Pics to compare would be great
My overflow is 29" deep. Was thinking on 16" height for main drains.

[spit.fire]

Ok so I'm prepping the plumbing for my new tank.
The emergency drains for my Herby. How high should they be in relation to the teeth on my coast to coast overflow? Top of the high part of the teeth or half way up the teeth? Sorry for the stupid question but I've only ran with Dursos? Pics to compare would be great
My overflow is 29" deep. Was thinking on 16" height for main drains.

I think it's more of a personal preference thing, the higher you go the quieter it will be but lower will give better surface skimming IMO

I go half way down from the teeth but what I would suggest is to not glue the standpipe in and try a few different heights to see what works best. (I never glue my standpipes)

[mark]

Depends if you want drain dry or wet. Lowered mine slightly from this picture to have drain a little wet. No teeth on the overflow but 2 high of the egg-crating. Top of emer standpipe is about even with water level of display.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h316/das75/BAKCUP.jpg

For main was running without standpipe and didn't effect level in overflow (controlled by gate valve). Have standpipe now only to lessen the amount of water draining back to sump.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h316/das75/MAIN.jpg

[Madreefer]

Hey thanks guys. When you say loud is that in the actual display or in the sump? I'm just curious as it doesn't matter if it's the sump as that's in my basement.

[BlueTang<3]

My herbie drain is silent it actually requires tweaking the odd time or after water changes I find, I hear basically nothing in the sump see either.