Herby vs Durso

[Madreefer]

I was hoping you would reply
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]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

I was hoping you would reply
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.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

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]

Originally Posted by Proteus

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

+1 me too. with a trickle down the emergency

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

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.