Dreambox Drains Noisier than Expected
 

I just installed a dreambox with a Herbie/Beananimal siphon style drain setup. The water falling into the drain section of the dreambox is a bit noisier than I was anticipating. It appears the water level within that section is below the output of the drain lines, so there is some splashing. Is there any way to dam up the water from that section to submerge the drains? Or is there another solution to quiet down the splashing?

I really assumed the drain ports would be long enough to be under the water level once up and running. Do you have any insight on this?

Thanks!

The intake lines in the dreambox should be below the water a couple inches if I am not mistaken. If you look at the level that the water spills into the sock compartment, and then stick a tape measure into the intake lines, you should see they are lower. My guess is your noise is coming from air inside the drain lines. You might need the use the gate valve to reduce the water flow or increase the pump speed but I’d be fairly certainly the nose isn’t coming from within the intake compartment but instead from within the lines which will likely require some tuning on the flow through the drain lines and perhaps a bit of time for the dreambox to settle in assuming you just started the system.

It’s definitely not air in the line. I have a gate valve dialed in and upon restart it does take a few seconds to purge the line, but then it is quieter. The noise is localized within the drain compartment of the sump. I did reach into the spare stub with my finger while it was running and I couldn’t feel any water. I can measure the pipe depth when I get back home after the holidays. Thanks for the quick response.

just stick a coupler and some more pipe on the drain to get it below the waterline. run it without a sock for a few minutes and see. i also put a union on so i can change the socks easier.

The dreambox setup doesn’t allow for access to the drain pipes as they’re contained within the first chamber.

Please inspect closely. Those pipes typically extend an inch or more under the water line. In fact, people that custom order Dreamboxes for Bean Animals typically have those lines cut shorter on the inside of the intake chamber so they only extend 1” below the water line which is less than what they typically build them with unless otherwise request.

I made it back from my trip and had time to confirm that the drain pipes are indeed just short of being submersed in the water column. The pipe stubs measure 3-1/2” total and are 2” into the wetside. I feel like another 3/4-1” would’ve submersed them enough to silence the drain. Bummer, as I went with the Red Dragon pumps with absolute silence in mind.

Which model dreambox is this? What model pumps are you running & at what speed? We’ve never had anybody complain about that issue and they cut the pipe length the same on all dreambox’s so I’m a bit perplexed. I’m wondering if it’s a case of the flow being too low to flood the intake chamber.

It is the Eco Nano D80-60 with a RD3 80w pump running at 34w.

I’m going to do a bit more investigating but I think this is a case of not enough flow going through the drainlines to fill the intake chamber. When you say the pipe stubs measure 3.5”, do you mean they are sticking out of the top of the Dreambox 3.5” and hang and extend an additional 2” below the top of the intake chamber?

What kind of display is this on? How many of the drainlines are you using? Can you tell me a bit of the return lines? Are you running one 1” all the way to the display? How high about the return pump are the return lines? How many elbows are used? Are you using barb fittings from the pump, PVC between the pump and tank etc. Any additional details would be helpful. Also, when was this Dreambox purchased and where did you purchase it from? Reseller, RE USA, RE Germany?

The stubs are 3-1/2" total, with 2" into the wetside and 1-1/4" on the dryside (1/4" not accounted for within the dream box top).

The display is 90 gal. The single return is hard plumbed 1" pvc all the way to the display. There are 4 elbows with 24" vertical and 40" horizontal head pressure. My rough calculations were about 1000gph of flow at the 34w setting.

The flow through the sump itself looks good, it definitely doesn't look choked or in need of more water flow. I know there is more room with the return pump, but I didn't want to have too much flow through in which the skimmer or heater didn't have enough contact time.

I ordered the dreambox directly from Germany back in March of 2017.

This sounds like a case of too little flow, to efficiently flood the intake chamber.

You’re running right at 8ft of Head, at 34w I’m guesstimating you’re running significantly less than 1,000gph. At 80w you’d be at around 1,400gph.

Can you see what happens when you increase flow to around 50-55w ?

I bumped it up to 55w and it just made the overflow box much noisier. I'm not sure it quieted the intake chamber much as the filter socks were slightly louder with the increase in flow. I'll keep tinkering and dialing things in to get it as quiet as I can.

As Marco noted, you have fairly high head loss and at 34w, the flow isn’t likely flooding the intake chamber. The increased flow should help raise the level in the intake compartment. We do offer sock silencers if you don’t already have them. As for the overflow box, I assume you have at least two drain lines going to the sump with one of the drains being higher than the other to act as an emergency drain. I would gate the primary drain down to raise the level in the overflow a bit. That will not only help reduce the waterfall effect but it will also help silence the draining so you get a full siphon going through the primary drain line.