Bean Animal drains not draining properly

[braid11]

I really need some help. I have been working on this for a looonnng time. Wife not so happy any more I finally tested my setup last night: big tank overflow onto kitchen floor.

My Bean Animal drain is not keeping up with my Hammerhead return pump, unless I throttle it back to a very very low rate. I overflowed it once when testing with tap water.

It’s a 72*30*24 glass display tank in the kitchen, and a similar size acrylic sump in the basement.

All lines are 1.5 “ flex PVC. They run down 14 feet to the basement sump, and run horizontally about 8-10 ft across a bedroom dropping about 8”, then into the basement shop/sump room where they run about 16.5 horizontal feet dropping about 6-7”, then a horizontal run of about 8 ft dropping 6 feet into the sump.

The gate valve on what is to be the main siphon is at the sump end of the drain. It is fully open. All ball valves are fully open.

The drains in the sump do not terminate under the water line, I guess I could try that. Surly that is not the problem.


All three drain lines together will not keep up with the pump, unless it's really dialed back to a slow flow. One by itself is supposed to drain the overflow at over 1000 GPH.

Is it the horizontal runs? That would mean a whole redesign of the basement, moving the sump across the sump room 15 feet.

Tom

[braid11]

Here is the return pump.

Can't seem to attach it.

Tom

[unclesalty]

My guess would be is that its your lines entering sump. They have to be just under the water level in your sump and they appear in pic to be above water level.

[braid11]

Yes, they are above the water level. I will have to retest with them below the level. I thought it did not matter.

Tom

[unclesalty]

Originally Posted by braid11

Yes, they are above the water level. I will have to retest with them below the level. I thought it did not matter.

Tom

Bean animal has no chance whatsoever of working if lines aren't under approx 1" or so. Don't go too far in either with them.

[unclesalty]

I am not sure about all the horizontal footage and total length of lines but definitely fix the lines in sump for starters.

[whatcaneyedo]

Is all of the plumbing 1.5" or just the flex hose? The PVC fittings in the first picture look really small but maybe thats just because everything else looks so big.

[Daimyo68]

Originally Posted by molotov

I'm tagging along.

I too am seting up a BeanAnimal. My spa-flex coming from my three bulkheads is only 1" as opposed to 1.5" so I'm hoping this will not be a problem for me. I'm also running all ball valves. No gate valves. I may have to really play with the ball valves to get everything in balance but will try it first with the ball valves. If it proves to difficult I may have to switch to a gate valve.

I used the true union ball valve on my last tank, and it was a pita. I went with gate valves this time on both the Siphon and Drain lines as they are much easier to fine tune.

On another note somewhat related to ball valves, I would recommend putting gutter guard around the elbows in the overflow if your distance between the bottom of the elbow and the glass is more than a 1/2". Snails and fish will go into the overflow on occasion. If the fish goes over and gets sucked in, they usually make it past the ball/gate valve. But most snails cannot pass it due to their shell. When this happens, you have to open the ball valve to let it past and then adjust it again. Having a gate valve makes it much easier to make the fast adjustment, whereas the gate valve can be time consuming and troublesome.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Beotch!

[Gripenfelter]

All of my Bean Animal drains are 6" below the water line. They work fine right now but every time the power goes out the water level bounces around for a while before it re-adjusts. I should probably shorten the pipes.

I have a Hammerhead as well working at 80% wide open in the basement. My issue was with the main siphon. It wouldn't start up and my open channel would become my main siphon making loud gurgling noises. The problem was with air being trapped inside the elbow in the overflow box of the main siphon. Drilled a tiny hole at the highest point of the elbow. No more issues.

[braid11]

Originally Posted by Gripenfelter

All of my Bean Animal drains are 6" below the water line. They work fine right now but every time the power goes out the water level bounces around for a while before it re-adjusts. I should probably shorten the pipes.

I have a Hammerhead as well working at 80% wide open in the basement. My issue was with the main siphon. It wouldn't start up and my open channel would become my main siphon making loud gurgling noises. The problem was with air being trapped inside the elbow in the overflow box of the main siphon. Drilled a tiny hole at the highest point of the elbow. No more issues.

Before throttling down, my Hammerhead sees probably max 17' head. That would be 3600 GPH, and even at 20' of head that is 3000 GPH. No wonder it overflowed the first time I tried it. I am at about 900 GPH now, so throttled down to 25-30% of max.

I think I can't get past 900 GPH because the air will not purge fast enough. My drains are about 3-4" under.

I only have about 1.25 inches from the top of the overflow box (about normal water level when all is balanced), until it flows out of the tank onto the floor. So not much time to fill the box, and purge. Maybe that is part of the problem.

Also, I read that when the drains are too deep in the sump, it takes longer to purge.

You are 6" under, and at 80% of full throttle, you must be flowing way more than 1000GPH. I know the system is supposed to be good to 2000GPH, but i can't get close to that.

So you drilled a hole in the elbow inside overflow box. You mean in the 90 elbow? Is it submerged when it's running? Because otherwise would't it suck in air and break the siphon?

Tom