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My shadow is the loudest overflow I have ever heard. The only way I found to silence it is to replace it, which is what I am doing.
Good luck
Good luck
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Does it matter much if my gate valves were placed high as opposed to being as low to the sump as possible?
I’ve been running a Shadow overflow on a 180 gallon tank, with a vectra L1 full speed for a year now, and it is super quiet no problems with it at all.
Anyone second this opinion? To make this change, I'll have to drain nearly 500 gallons of water and then get people over again to try move the tank away from the wall to work on it. I'll have to order new schedule 80 unions from Synergy Reef so that I can lower the gate valves. That's a lot of work.If the siphon is oversized, having the gate valve high can cause problems. Air can de-gas from the water with the negative pressure just below the gate valve, and build up in the siphon, causing noise and instability. I think it is better to have the gate valve low so there is less negative pressure and it is more difficult for air to accumulate.
. I agree with this. You can leave the old valves in place. That is a lot of elevation difference and having two 1" siphon makes it worse. I do suspect that air is backing into your siphon, maybe all the way up to the u-bend such that it is just an internal overflow. I don't think there is anyhing inherent in the Synergy overflow that would make it noisy.Not sure on that one Waterlife. But could maybe test it with another gate valve dry fitted to the bottom of the pipe and the top valve opened right up.
If all goes well just glue it in and rock on.
Do you think you can help me figure out what I'm doing wrong? Like now for instance, there's a constant trading off, an ebb n flow if you will, between the primary drain and the second drain. The water level in the overflow raises up and then down constantly. Each time it does that, it trades the water back and forth between the two drains. And only one overflow does it for some reason. Both sides appear to be identical. And there's so much gurgling and what sounds like a lot of doves cooing. That sound seems to be coming through the hole of the primary U-tube.
I’ve been running a Shadow overflow on a 180 gallon tank, with a vectra L1 full speed for a year now, and it is super quiet no problems with it at all.
I have the latest version. Very happy with it. Tank is about 120 gallons and running an RD3 50w return pump. Guessing at around 850 gph real time. The tank is drilled so that the very top side of the internal box cover sits a quarter inch or so below the tank top edge. Just did it that way so a net cover will sit about flush with the top of the rimless glass top edge.
With this return flow the water level sits 1 1/4" from the top of the tank. Just right for me. Don't get any water coming out with general maintenance if i'm no too careless. The 1" gate valve that I used for the full syphon - which is the only one that I could source in Australia - has like an internal bend in it and is a bit restrictive. Even at wide open I have to tune the syphon by very slightly restricting my return flow at a ball valve. If it had a more straight through flow I'm sure of course it would handle more flow.
It's dead silent with the water level in the rear section at about half way up.
Did have a few months wait on it. And still waiting on a small fish safe overflow slot thing. But other than that am very happy. Nice low profile inside the DT and great build quality.
Excited to get my 16" Shadow Overflow plumbed into my new build. Couple of questions:
1, does the secondary drain need to terminate under water like the primary? I know the emergency should be left short so splashing alerts to something wrong.
2, my tank is eurobraced so has a pretty wide lip around the top edge. Does the front cover of the overflow come off for cleaning? I have tried to gently remove it but don't want to break it. If it does come off to enable cleaning it's going to be pretty tight to get down in there and clean.
3, I have watched the install video and tried to read the template. I must be having a brain fart because I cannot figure out quite where I'm supposed to position the template. I want the water level in the tank to be as high as possible, this tank has no banding around it to hide the water line. Instead its covered by some upper cabinet doors that overhang the front face of the tank approx 1":
Thank you for the informative and very fast reply!
So the secondary drain has water coming through it, needs to be underwater. I only have 1 input on my sump to run the main drain through the filter sock. Can the secondary dump into the skimmer chamber or return chamber? I'm thinking skimmer would be better than return for obvious reasons but that will be tight.
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