Ok guys. Looking for advice. I'm getting back into the reef game after a few years off.... I'm starting small with a 20 gallon display due to lack of space. The tank will be drilled and this is where my question comes into play. Do u think (1) 1" bulkhead will suffice or should I use (2) in case the first becomes clogged, in which the second can act as an emergency drain to help ensure no flooding will occur? I'm building my own acrylic overflow because I can get materials for free... any advice and opinions are welcomed... thanks in advance.
Bulkhead question
- Thread starter Bio540
- Start date
If you can do a bottom drain I would with a corner or center overflow. Alongside your regular drain have another drain just like it but a little higher so that whatever got into the first one wont get into the second one. Now for snails theyll always be an issue and the height difference will not help with them but with debris and such or rogue fish it may. Also if you have the space you could have a stealthy return, where you drill a 3rd hole in the bottom and have it come up inside your overflow box and then you can use some loc-line to get your return over the overflow. I have a 90 gallon with a corner overflow and a return just like that and I wish I had an emergency overflow because last week I had a turbo snail make its way down my drain pipe and stop the flow so much that it only trickled down the tube. Also another thing you could do is make teeth on the top of the drain pipe and put gutter guard on top and epoxy or glue it on and that way if the gutter guard gets clogged up you still have flow on the sides for emergency. Let us know how this works out!!
I visited my LFS to pick up my bulkheads yesterday and the store owner basically told me I'm an idiot and wasting my time by putting a sump on a 20 gallon tank. She thinks even if I add a 10 gallon sump I can only keep 1 fish and will never be able to keep water parameters under control. I struggle to believe that, however.
Greybeard
New member
With 1 bulkhead, you have to do some sort of 'Durso' style drain. They work fine, but can be noisy. 2 bulkheads will allow you to do a 'Herbie' type drain, which is quieter than a durso, but take a bit of tweaking from time to time. 3 holes will let you do a 'bananimal' system, which is as quiet as a herby, with redundancy.
If I were going to be drilling my own tank today, I'd probably go with a Glass Holes kit. Nice design, everything you need, reasonable pricing...
I'm converting my Durso to a Herbie in my reef ready cube this weekend... don't like the noise.
As for the LFS that said you're an idiot... Spend your money somewhere else. There are dozens of reasons why you would want a sump under a 20g tank. I'm quite sure, if you go to the nano sections of this forum, that you'll find folks with much smaller tanks, and sumps. If nothing else, it allows you to use in-sump skimmers, get the equipment out of your display tank, use an ATO to keep salinity and water level stable, add macro algae for nutrient reduction, the list could go for pages.
1 fish? Well... if you want a puffer or a lionfish, then yeah, you should probably stay with 1 fish. I once had a 20g tank (10g sump) with over a dozen seahorses in it. Had a lot of fun with that one. Keep with smaller fish, good biologic filtration, and you should be able to support a nice variety.
If I were going to be drilling my own tank today, I'd probably go with a Glass Holes kit. Nice design, everything you need, reasonable pricing...
I'm converting my Durso to a Herbie in my reef ready cube this weekend... don't like the noise.
As for the LFS that said you're an idiot... Spend your money somewhere else. There are dozens of reasons why you would want a sump under a 20g tank. I'm quite sure, if you go to the nano sections of this forum, that you'll find folks with much smaller tanks, and sumps. If nothing else, it allows you to use in-sump skimmers, get the equipment out of your display tank, use an ATO to keep salinity and water level stable, add macro algae for nutrient reduction, the list could go for pages.
1 fish? Well... if you want a puffer or a lionfish, then yeah, you should probably stay with 1 fish. I once had a 20g tank (10g sump) with over a dozen seahorses in it. Had a lot of fun with that one. Keep with smaller fish, good biologic filtration, and you should be able to support a nice variety.
I planned on doing the durso style pipe because I had luck with that style on my 75g reef. But I will research the others u mentioned. I told her I had a 10 sump with fuge and skimmer and she still said it wouldn't change much for me.... then she wanted $9 a lb for live rock. Between those 2 statements I've decided to take my business to online stores.
