Durso or Bean Animal - or even herbie?

[SiBi]

So, I've bought a secondhand tank which has a top to bottom overflow with four 32mm holes drilled in the bottom. One of them has a 25mm bulkhead and is plumbed into an outlet on the side of the overflow and is used as a drain. All glued-in plumbing there so I don't want to mess with that - I'll leave that as is. So for the other three holes, two have 32mm bulkheads and the other has a 25mm bulkhead. He had it set up as a durso as per diagram (top down view of tank - measurements in cm).

My dilemma is whether I leave it alone and set it up as he had it, or do I plumb it with over the top of the tank returns, swap out the old 25mm return bulkhead with a 32mm and set up a bean animal - or a herbie? The tank will be in the spare room but up against the wall of our bedroom and our bedhead is right up against that wall, so my priority for the set up is to be as quiet as possible. Having only previously had a tank without a sump, I'm new to the pros and cons of each of the possible ways of plumbing this so would love to know peoples experience with any of the setups and what the preferences are. Research seems to go with bean animal being the quietist but not as good as herbie for flow? And durso only really used if you only have two holes to play with?

 

[RocketEngineer]

Durso was first and used to quiet commercial “reef ready” tanks. Herbie pulled the return out of his “reef ready” overflow to give an emergency backup. BeanAnimal looked at what Herbie had done and wasn’t sold it fixed the concern so added a third, always dry drain.

If possible I recommend a BeanAnimal configuration. Having the dry backup ensures it won’t be clogged when needed means I don’t have to worry. If that isn’t an option, a Herbie setup is a decent option.

 

[thecitadel]

I use bean animal on my system and it's silent except for the top surface agitation which has nothing to do with the overflow. My 2 main Drains each have a Gate Valve, tuned so my overflow box is half full so I don't hear anything. Occasionally, I'll have to adjust the dial ever so slightly just to get it's sweet spot back, but that's rare. If I hear splashing, it's going through my emergency drain and I just open one of the Valves a bit. I love it.

 

[Boreas_SA]

Had Dursos, Herbie and Be an Animal before, the Be an Animal is by far the quietest, and also the least frustrating as you only have to dial it in once and then forget about it, struggled with the Herbie to keep it dialed in, had to adjust it every week or 2.

 

[mfinn]

I've used all 3 types of drains.
The durso on my tanks was the most finicky and the louder of the 3.
I currently have a herbie on my 66 gallon tank and it's pretty quiet. It does fall out of balance once in a while. I suspect maybe that's the return pump or the drain building up algae, but a quick turn of the drain valve fixes the issue.
My 240 has been set up with a bean animal design for about 10 years. Works great, no issues and is very quiet.

 

[SpursFan]

Herbie works just fine if setup properly so it really boils down to do you want two return lines or a 2nd backup drain?

I've rain Herbie's for decades(before hearing the term Herbie!) and see no need for a 3rd drain. All the redseas run this configuration with no issues. The only concern I would have is if youre pushing some crazy number through the siphon that a single non-siphon couldn't hand, even then it can easily be addressed via controller(shut return down if sump lvl drops to a certain point)