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Durso Standpipes?


Bruce

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I was thinking of installing a durso standpipe in my new tank and was wondering if I had to construct it how it's done on the site or can I do it a bit different and it'll still work. On the site at the base it has all these extras like bushings and stuff and I was wondering if I could just push it into the bulkhead (the PVC pipe)?

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2139/dursostandpipe2cc.png

Bruce

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The simple answer is yes you can do it, I did it on mine. Probably doesn't work quite as well as the full blown example but it does reduce your air noise quite a bit.

P.S. the top of the water should not cover the top of the durso pipe.

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I made my own durso for my old marine tank and the reason you don't make it so that the standpipe just sits in the bulkhead is so that if the seal breaks it doesn't drain the whole overflow to possibly overflow your sump. I made mine so I could separate each section (I didn't glue it just in case something got caught in it) and then screwed the standpipe onto the bulkhead with some plumbing tape around the thread. I modified mine too. The durso is meant to make things quiet but my tank was a 3x2x2 and the stand stood a good three feet off the ground which meant that by the time it got to the bottom it had roughly 5ft of drop which caused extra suction and made it sound like a dunny flushing 24/7 lol. So whilst complaining about it one day when my non-fish-person aunty was visiting she said why don't you add an 'S' bend. So I went out and bought a couple of 90 degree corners and added a couple of 90 degree turns to the stand pipe and connected it up and it made a huge difference to the noise level because the water wasn't going down in a straight line. I had the room in the overflow to add it though and you may not have that extra room. The rest of the durso was almost the same. I also stepped the diametre of the standpipe down at the bulkhead from about 40mm to about 25mm. This also helped to quieten it down a bit because there was a large volume of water going into the 40mm section trying to empty through a 25mm hole so there was some back up in the standpipe (though not enough to to be a problem).

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5ft of drop???? wow your stand must have been almost 3ft high!

Yeah forgot to mention mine can't go directly into the bulkhead as mine has a screw in conncetion.

Also mine has the modification of the input pipe before the 90 degree bend being about a foot long. This helped in reducing noise further although I'm not 100% percent why it is. Still has all the same benefits of the regular stand pipe though.

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Yeah the stand was 3ft high as well - I wanted the tank to be at a comfy level to stand in front to look at it.

The durso I made was something like this:

user posted image

I forget now if it had that many turns but it is something like that (Baz saw it once maybe he can remember ???). Each corner piece is connected with a small amount of pipe so that each corner sat flush against the other. The small bit of pipe was glued to one of the corner sections only so I could take each section apart but have a bit of support too. The only other bit that was glued was the threaded section at the bottom with that small amount of joining pipe so to clean it I just lifted off the bendy bit and unscrewed the final reducing section. You get the gist of it anyway.

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I dont remember how many bends you had, but I do remember wishing I'd done mine the same way.

Yours was always more quiet than mine wink2.gif

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oh yeah - nearly forgot - the diametre of the intake of mine was about 40mm and that is plenty big enough for a fish who was 'shooting the overflow' to get sucked into. I ended up putting a 'cage' around it to stop this. It reduced down to about 25mm at the bulkhead and if the fish got sucked down it would go easily through the 40mm sections but would get stuck in the 25mm section and overflow the tank or pump the sump dry and burn out the sump pump (which is why when I do it again I'm going to pump up to the top instead of down below the tank). I had gutter guard around the edge of the overflow but there was always one stupid fish that managed to get over/past it somehow.

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I have an image in my head of the gibby sucking onto the glass, taking a deep breath and throwing itself upwards and sucking onto the glass again and suction-cupping its way up and over the overflow along the side glass smile.gif Good thing they are big fish. Worst he could get is a big hicky on its belly from getting stuck over the intake lol

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I just put a 50mm tube of PVC over the 25mm Poly standpipe - shuts them up cheaper & with even less work than a durso.

Just cut the base end at a 45deg angle & it'll draw detritus from the tank/weir chamber floor up. No siphon action at all either as I don't even fit an end cap. You can, it'll be quieter still, just drill a 5-10mm hole to break the siphon.

It's similar to the stockman mod except longer as my tanks don't have weirs, just internal standpipes.

Actually, I don't use any of them anymore as the hood on my display tank makes it quiet enough & the other tanks are downstairs

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Nah, they're from America and would take a while to get here. Plus I don't mind doing it and its cheaper for me to do it myself.

Bruce

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