# Bean animal overflow and Barr's wet/dry filtration...I am confused.



## chenboyu (Nov 17, 2013)

Bean animal overflow design, why is two intake hose face down?








can it be simplify to this:








the bean animal design sound good, but he didn't explain it quite well, at least to newbies like me, I just want to know if it can be explain graphically or verbally simplify instead of going thru an essay like article.

----------------------

I also interested in Tom's home made filtration, but I also confuse when I saw it:








Barr's wet/dry filter, it looks like a canister to me... seems everything is "wet", where is the dry part? and it is seal, isn't a canister seal also? what is the benefit of doing this beside the surface skimming? oh also I know water splashing down can get some o2 and co2 mix... but why call it wet dry when it is all wet?
I found this to look more like a dry and wet section, vertically dry then wet.... is it good enough? Tom, please help me on this topic, wash my brain out of this dilemma...








What is the optimal wet dry filtration design?


----------



## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

Bean animals web site explains every thing.( yes it is long) in a nut shell, the 3rd pipe is an emergency pipe just in case the other 2 clog. reality, is the 1st pipe(the one with the valve) is enough to run the system, the 2nd is there to handle some addional flow when the 1st clogs( more often then you think) and still keep things realativly silent. As long as you keep your piping overized, you can get rid of the 3rd pipe. i don't recomend it on larger systems with lots of flow, but smaller systems you will be fine. how the system works works is pretty simple. the 1st pipe has a vavle on it. You close the valve so that the pipe is always full. no falling water, no noise. the second pipe has a hole drilled in the top with a line that is under the water. It stops the gurgling that happens with a durso pipe( what it really is) this is more of a secondary pipe. the 3rd pipe is the emergency pipe, its designed to make nosie so you know its time to clean the pipes.


----------



## kiddjam (Dec 3, 2011)

Tab, hi, i want to know if it is a siphon, will it break siphon like water level low, and not auto start it self??


----------



## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

If its thru a bulk head, it will auto start, if not no. if you have to go over the top, the only "full proof" overflow is lifereef. Still has to be primed, but its the only one that will restart with out a lift pump.


----------



## Kerry (Sep 5, 2013)

I felt this could use a little more input and clarification to help the OP get a better understanding of this system. I put a BeanAnimal drain system on my tank and believe I understand the whys and functions of it fairly well and hope this helps.

1. the first pipe on the BeanAnimal design is a siphon that you regulate so that all the water except a trickle goes down the siphon hose. This keeps it quiet. When this pipe first begins to drain water after turning on the return pump, it will take several seconds to purge the air out of the pipe and turn into a full flow siphon. It will be noisy while it is purging and will become dead silent when siphoning. At this point, the siphon will rapidly drain the water until it drops the level low enough for air to once again enter the drain which will start the air sucking/air purging until it becomes a siphon again. To stop the cycle of air sucking to purge to siphon, you must control the flow rate in the siphon drain with a gate or ball valve at the end of the drain pipe (just above the water line of the sump with the ends of all 3 drains submerged in the water of the sump is ideal). Adjust it so that the siphon drains 90-95% of the flow from your return pump allowing just a trickle to go down the second pipe.

2. The trickle going down the second pipe is also silent because the water flows on the sides of the pipe instead of falling through the center which traps air...which is what causes noise, and, slows the flow of the water. The second pipe's inlet must be higher than the siphon tube's inlet, and, it has the hose on top that is designed turn the second pipe into a second siphon in case the water level rises too high. This is an emergency feature to handle a sudden influx of water that the first siphon cannot handle, such as when the pumps first start up after a shut down. A full siphon will drain significantly faster than a non-siphon so the open-pipe-to-siphon feature of the second pipe is a safety feature to flush a lot of water fast before it can cause a flood.

3. The third pipe is the emergency failsafe. It must be higher than the other two and is the last chance to save your floors. On a low flow system this may not be so critical, but, the higher the flow rate from your return pump _in relation to _the diameter of your drains, the more important having this failsafe is. At start-up, your tank can fill up very rapidly when it is turned on, especially if using a high flow pump, and it can overwhelm the capacity of the first drain while it is purging and not yet at full siphon capacity. This excess flow should then be handled by the second pipe which will suck air until the water level rises above the airline coming from the top of the second pipe, thus cutting off the air and turning it into a faster draining second siphon. In case if there is a blockage in one of the first two pipes, your tank could overflow at this point if you didn't have an emergency drain. The emergency drain is for peace of mind. :hail::hail::hail: (I've had a tank flood before...I will not have anything but a BeanAnimal style drain again!):hail:


----------

