Overflow suctions problems..

[asrnj77]

Hi, I know several other people have similar problems but here are mine...
So my 75 gallon goes into a hang on overflow which has two U pipes that suck the water to the back where it is then sent into the wet/dry to skimmer to UV back into tank...the problem is that the U pipes keep losing suction...I can't imagine that my water is evaporating that quickly...I am adding maybe a half gallon a day to the sump....any ideas??? Can I get a new overflow system? It doesn't seem that all fish waste is going to be handled by the overflow (when I have fish in there) right now its just cycling...

 

[coachklm]

lower the inner box to reduce the air bubbles produced from overflow causeing lose of suction.

 

[asrnj77]

Does anybody have experience with the continous siphon overflow boxes? Those look a lot better than the U tube set up...The only thing is that everyone I have seen has only one hose hook up at the bottom and my wet/dry has two hoses going into it....can I get away with one hose?

 

[ams153]

i have a overflow thats similar it has two hoses and two U-tubes and i was having the same problem as you at first! and all i did to fix it is decide to use only one U-tube.. with two it was just pulling too much water out of the box and they were losing suction.. which there not supposed to do. try that and lowering the box as far down as you can and see what happens!

 

[squidd]

Air is building up in U Tube and cutting off siphon, because the flow is too SLOW to pull bubbles thru..
Try running with one U Tube...
Or get a bigger return pump...

 

[asrnj77]

Yeah thanks...I believe the pump was only a 900 and it wasn't pulling hard enough...I got one of those continous overflows with an attached pump..hopefully that does the trick....I hate having to suck that water up.......

 

[bojik]

You could try changing the overflows to ones that have an air

[hr]
on top for a powerhead to suck the air out of them. Also in a power failure it helps to restart them. The LFS I help out at all the time has that style on his custom 125. Not had any problems with them realy in 10 years. Also he doesn't seem to get many bubbles out the bottom of the over flow pipes either. (just noticed you changed them) Hope that fix works for you

 

[hurt]

What Squidd said...your flows aren't matched.

 

[asrnj77]

So I just got the overflow with he powerhead attachment...the powerhead has an attachment and it blows water out the front and the tube to the overflow is on the side. The problem is that it doesn't appear to be sucking up any water. When I stick my finger over the part blowing out water it puts some water in the overflow but not enough to create suction...what am I doing wrong here? Also I noticed that my hose was leaking from the bottom of the overflow. I guess I am going to need new PVC or new rubber washers...it was a two hose setup that I have converted to one. Is it possible that the one hose just hanging there is breaking the suction cycle? Do I just cap it? Thanks again

 

[bojik]

Originally Posted by asrnj77
So I just got the overflow with he powerhead attachment...the powerhead has an attachment and it blows water out the front and the tube to the overflow is on the side. The problem is that it doesn't appear to be sucking up any water. When I stick my finger over the part blowing out water it puts some water in the overflow but not enough to create suction...what am I doing wrong here? Also I noticed that my hose was leaking from the bottom of the overflow. I guess I am going to need new PVC or new rubber washers...it was a two hose setup that I have converted to one. Is it possible that the one hose just hanging there is breaking the suction cycle? Do I just cap it? Thanks again
Most of thime (at least on overlows like that i've tinkered with/seen) the power head is to help clear the air out of the HOB overflow. And the hose is probably adding to the problem yea fix that first.