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GUZZLING noise made by Overflow Box

2564 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  kingdave
hey guys, my over flow box just started making this gorging or gushing sound. It comes from the down pipe exiting the box that is on the outside of the tank. It seeems that the water in the box will raise an inch and then when it gets high enough it rushes down into the tubing making this noise. I have two overflow boxes that connect too only 1 pipe that goes into the top of the wet/dry.

I think it could be that the water flow is too high for only 1 pipe into the filter and the water is creating some kind of suction.

Has anyone else had this problem??
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Just about everyone has this problem. Overflows are noisy. Look into a durso standpipe or "stockman" mod of you're using a hang on type. Another trick is to put a length of airline tubing down the drain to try and tune out the noise. It can work, but it's hard to get it just right and it can interfere with draining rates. Best bet is the durso/stockman approach.
fishyfishyfishy said:
Just about everyone has this problem. Overflows are noisy. Look into a durso standpipe or "stockman" mod of you're using a hang on type. Another trick is to put a length of airline tubing down the drain to try and tune out the noise. It can work, but it's hard to get it just right and it can interfere with draining rates. Best bet is the durso/stockman approach.
I'll second that.

The reason the noise is created because the air that is trying to escape the drain pipe leading to the wet/dry is contacted by the draining water and this creates a vortex. Once the air gets passed the draining water the water rapidly takes the place of where the air used to be thus creating the gurgling/flushing sound.

The way to remedy this is to angle the drain pipe slightly so that the air escapes freely over the top of the draining water doing this removes the vortex that is created by having the drain pipe being 100% vertical. Or you can do like they said and insert a length of tubing to break up the vortex by letting the air escape through the airline tubing.

If you need any more help let us know.
I made myself a durso standpipe inside the outer part of the overflow box and everything is pretty quiet now. The challenge was to fit the durso inside the limited confines of the box. I ended up cutting down the legs of the tee and elbows of the fittings as short as possible to make the durso as compact as possible. I'll try to get some photos of my setup to show you.
I put a bio ball on top of the pipe, and it silence my gurgle. But i still wanted my sponge, so i shoved the bioball inside the sponge, and put it back on the pipe, it worked for me. It has been there for about a week, silent as can be.
Just be careful with methods that can introduce variables to your drains. Airline tubing down the drain can seem to work fine until deposits build up inside of it and all of a sudden your overflow no longer drains properly. Sponges/bio-balls can work as well, but be careful as they get dirty and begin to clog as that will begin to affect noise and drain rates as well.

One of the great things about the durso/stockman that I prefer is that there are no variables with its operation. Nothing to clog and nothing to interfere with its operation.

With any noise solution, I suggest marking the water level on the sump without any "fixes" so you know your true operating level. Then watch it carefully with whatever solution you may have found. You might find that the level starts to drift up and down indicating a problem with the fix. A true fix should not interfere with the water level. Good idea to power down as well and make sure it finds the same level (when you power up) with and without the fix as well.
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f u z z said:
I put a bio ball on top of the pipe, and it silence my gurgle. But i still wanted my sponge, so i shoved the bioball inside the sponge, and put it back on the pipe, it worked for me. It has been there for about a week, silent as can be.
fuzz, I know this is "off topic" but your avatar is really distracting :D
A plumbers loop in your return hose will fix it,and no flux in our sump as Fishy said.
And best of all it's free.
gunn55 said:
A plumbers loop in your return hose will fix it,and no flux in our sump as Fishy said.
And best of all it's free.
Do you mean something like an "s trap"?
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