need help with noisy pipes please

[lastlight]

Both pipes are gravity fed and 1 inch bulkheads and pipes. I'm barely putting any water into these and they seem to gurgle a lot as is. I'd like to have a bit more water drain through them and silently.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/build/noisy.jpg

Green pipe is a bulkhead to a 90 and straight down into my sump. blue one makes a right turn in a 90 and then wraps around my skimmer before a 90 down into my sump. Both drain ends are submerged.

It seems with only a trickle entering my fuge (blue line), the water level will still climb to the top of the bulkhead and then every few minutes it will pull a vortex of air from the surface and drop before slowly rising again.

So what will help me here? The flow is so slight as it is I know 1" can handle far more than I'm feeding these drains. Have the ends not submerged? Drill a hole in the tops of the bulkhead 90s to let some air in? I think the air-tightness of the drains may be my problem but I'm unsure.

Thanks!

[banditpowdercoat]

You need to make it a Durso style drain. A open bulkhead like that(the green one) will allways fill up till it makes a siphon, then gurgle. Where the 90 is, put a T, with the top of the T capped and drill a little hole(1/32-1/16 Or best, a Adjustable shutoff) to regulate the air coming in so that is cancels the siphon. Doesnt seem like much, how your draining from the fuge to the sump, but its in essence exactly the same as tank to sump, and can make just as much noise

PS, Just drilling a hole in the 90 will work too, If you add a tube to it to make sure it comes above the waterline. Just drilling a hole, chances are water will flow out the hole, instead of air entering

[Ron99]

With 2 drains make it a Herbie. I had only one 1.5" bulkhead to work with and as a Durso nothing I did made it quiet. I came up with a Herbie type attachment for it and it is now virtually silent.

[lastlight]

Access is really tight in there. Be tough to do any cutting/mods at this point. I tried a few holes in the fuge drain and gave up when it did nothing. At this point have the outputs of each half above and below the sump surface and that seems to have stopped the periodic gurgling. Now i just hear minor splashing but it's still too noisy I think.

For the fuge i might hunt around for a 1" valve and make it herbie. For the water change tank I only have the 1 drain. Poor planning on my part but I assumed it'd be safe since that tank only gets filtered water. Hmmm...

[fkshiu]

The reef nerd in me just wanted to complement you on that lovely Sched 80 plumbing. You didn't skimp at all.

[Lance]

The reef nerd in me just wanted to complement you on that lovely Sched 80 plumbing. You didn't skimp at all.




Yeah, I was admiring that as well. I cheaped out and went with schedule 40, which is thick enough but schedule 80 is like the cadillac of pipe. :lol:

[banditpowdercoat]

But isn't Sched 80 acctually Smaller ID than Sched 40? I have pipes of different sched's and they all have the same OD, but the thicker sidewalls acctually mean less flow

[lastlight]

I'm sure it means a lot less flow. But when I 'pop the hood' it makes me happy hehe.

I've reduced flow for now in both tanks so that full siphons can't form. I'm sure I don't need much in either. The water-change tank simply needs to run inline and provide me with 20 gallons to change out weekly that's got the same chemistry as the rest of the tank. The pods in the fuge certainly don't need more than a trickle either I'm guessing.

What I might also do later is use a few inches of flex hose on each outlet into the sump so the water enters more smoothly.

[Dez]

Hey Brett, this is what I did with my skimmer:

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt88/des_sublime/IMG_0894.jpg?t=1249454968

It's a beckett, so high flow. Did the trick for me. I had it with just a 90 before but it was noisy and the skimmer instructions said not to submerse the drain, but I don't like salt creep so this is what I did. The valve just allows you to make it quiet. I cut and added a T. You should have room to do that. Just have to guy fine a sched 80 "T" and a grey John Guest fitting, or a red one so that everything matches. :) Since it's in the sump, I didn't even glue anything.


Hope this helps.

[lastlight]

That is very slick!

I'm going to leave things as they are unless I discover I need more flow in both tanks which I doubt I will. If that's the case I'll shell-out for some more sch80 and try and fit a saw in there somehow. Trust me I'd like to but I'd ALSO like to get salt water in here sometime soon haha.

Thanks!

[Dez]

Aw man, Brett. Don't tell me you plumbed your whole tank using saw. PVC cutters are one of the best things that ever got invented. Just go in there and snip - and it's cut. They are under $20 too. Well.....by the time saltwater is in there it all becomes "white" noise anyway. Get some salt in there!

[lastlight]

Haha I use a hacksaw. Can these do sch80 by hand? If so I may NEED them!

[Dez]

Haha I use a hacksaw. Can these do sch80 by hand? If so I may NEED them!

Yeah, they cut through like butter. They aren't meant for 1 1/2" pipe but I use them anyway. Just gotta get the initial cut, then rotate about 1/8 to 1/4 turn, and then through like butter. I could not imagine hacksawing everything. The pvc cutters give a clean cut without any burrs as well.

Des

[fkshiu]

+1 for PVC cutters. They're regularly on sale at Princess Auto.