Hole Placement?!?!

[Marine_Envy]

I'm still in the planning stages for my 5x2x2 low iron glass tank. I've been searching the forums for hole placement theory and am still very confused.

My thought was to have an overflow approx 18" wide and 6" deep shaped like |_______| Inside I was thinking of putting both returns and drains. I've seen tanks with the returns coming from what appears to be the top of the canopy. (Very clean looking) As opposed to coming from the middle through the rock and very visible or from the rear corners.

Is this feasible? I would think that if you we're going with either 1" or 1.5" holes, you would be limited to maybe five or six in an 18" span? Also, I wanted to run my electrical down one hole to hide my cables for my lights etc.. I was thinking about grey CPVC flex tubing to run through a bulkhead to have a clean look.

Any help would be really appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Pyrrhus]

sounds as though you want to supply all your water motion with your return pump, this is a very bad idea, usually will lead to micro-bubbles and lots of unnecessary noise.

I would recommend using a sequence dart for a closed loop on a tank of that size and would even consider running 2 if this is a SPS dedicated tank. It would be okay to plumb a manifold above the tank for the CL returns, and returning the sump at the level of the overflow teeth will keep too much water from back-siphoning into the sump.

If you can give us some more info on what exactly you are trying to achieve with this tank, livestock intended to be kept, equipment, etc. we can give better advice.

There is much much more to plumbing a tank cleanly than where to have the holes drilled.

 

[Marine_Envy]

I'm planning a reef with SPS and fish with maybe LPS depending on lighting.

My main desire is high water turnover (at least 10X) and good flow in the tank. I was also reading about skimmers that can have a drain fed directly into them for maximum skimming. (I think it was a mod, not sure yet).

Ideally as I said before, I can meet all of these goals with a minimum of plumbing distractions in the tank. I.e., I don't want any powerheads in my tank, I'd like to keep everything underneath.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Pyrrhus]

with that type of setup, I would recommend 2 Darts on a CL and an Eheim return pump, maybe a 1262. This would be the most efficient setup without using powerheads and would give about 44x turnover which is very reasonable for a SPS tank. Some would say to go with even more flow than that.

Since you were asking about hole placement, I would have one 1.25" drain and one 1" return from sump (will let pump run more efficiently than 3/4").

For the CL running a manifold above the tank with at least 10 3/4" outlets would work well, but I would also recommend some returns lower in the tank as well to keep detritus from settling. On the 165 that I am working on right now, I'm planning on running a PVC manifold in the tank with rock stacked and stitched on it as well as one above the tank.

For the above tank manifold you would need at least 2 2" intakes in the tank and would probably want to run a 2" B/H to hide the return plumbing inside the overflow box, you could reduce to 1.5" above the tank at a tee and 1" or 3/4" at each outlet into the tank.

HTH