Drilling an established tank

[gem]

What is the best way to drill a plexi tank. I have to move my 46 gal in the near future to a new stand. When I'm ready to do it, I need to kind of reconfigure the plumbing to put the sump and fuge inside the stand. The way it's currently set up, the sump and refugium are off to the side of the tank. Kind of odd I know, but it worked for the time being so I could get the tank up. At the time, I didn't think I would get an actual real stand so soon.
The tank is plexi. Currently I have a cpr overflow on it with a mag 5 return. I was thinking today that when I put it on the new stand, would be a good time to drill it and plumb the tank and get rid of the PITA hob overflow. Only thing is...I haven't a clue what I'm doing. Anyone got a diagram of where to drill and how to plumb it? I don't want to over do it. I want to be sure my mag 5 can keep up with the outflow.
I'm also going to build a sump/fuge out of a 20 gal tank (I think) to eliminate the number of boxes of water connected to this tank. Currently I have a 10 gal sump, that runs gravity fed into a rubbermaid tub refugium, then the return back to the tank. I need to configure the new sump to hold an insump skimmer, a fuge chamber, and return chamber.
If anybody can help with pics or diagrams.....I would be ever so grateful. I'm just kind of in the stage of getting ideas on how I'm gonna do it. This project is probably about a month or so down the road.
TIA

 

[Doahh]

The best way is to empty it... but as it sounds it's not an option... talk to Steve (Funman1) about it

 

[gem]

I was pretty sure "empty" was kind of a given. What I'm asking is basically where the hole should go and how it should be plumbed.

 

[P.Kelly]

For reference, a standard wood type hole saw bit with center tap will work just fine on plexi. make sure you drill a tap hole first, otherwise the hole saw may skitter a bit on the plexi and leave some teeth marks.

 

[buzzbombtom]

drill in the corner on the bottom of the tank go to aqualife ask where to get the in tank overflow setup, buy black or clear apoxey and bam setup is good. cut a hole in the top corner for a return and you are in even better shape.

oh and the tap hole would only be a good idea on the return, after all who is going to see the bottom of the tank, teeth marks will be hidden and i am sure that the bottom of your tank is scratched to start with as there is a lot of sand and rock in there.

 

[gem]

Thanks Pete...I think I'm going to find someone who actually knows what they're doing to drill the tank for me.

Thomas - I'm not really planning to do a corner overflow. IMO that's going to up too much real estate in my tank.

I'm thinking more along the lines of a hole in each top corner on the back, feeding seperately into the sump. I talked to Matt @ AL today and he has something in mind. I just need to convince my self it will work.
I figure drilling and plumbing will probably take a few days....also gotta figure out what to do with my LS and corals during the process.

 

[SLOreefer]

hey gem, drilling and plumbing shouldnt take more than a day max. just make sure you have your sump and fuge ready to go, plan it out and have everything on hand. Spaflex pvc makes plumbing super easy! the top corners are the easy way to go, and then you can use a pvc elbow as your strainer instead of an overflow box to keep things simple. there are a number of methods to keep it quite and a single 1 inch should be close to right for the mag 5...it always nice to have a 2nd drain as a backup or to reduce flow going through just one hole and also helps keep things quite. Matt knows his stuff and should be able to point you in the rght direction..plumbing really is pretty easy and as long as you have the stuff ready to go you should be able to get it down, plumbed and running in a days time easily.

 

[buzzbombtom]

if you are going to do a top plumb why not drop the water level below that and drill with water in it. saves you the head ache of what to do with live stock.

 

[gem]

SLO - Thanks....that's what Matt described. I think what I need to do is figure out the sump and fuge first then make a list of the pvc etc. I need.
The thing about how long it'll take....if I have Matt do it for me, he wants to take it to his house and do it then bring it back. He mentioned a couple days.

Thomas - I have to tear the tank mostly all the way down anyway to put it on the new stand.