Hey, I am looking at ways to re-do the overflow on my tank as at the moment it sticks out about 10" from the back wall and goes almost the full height of the tank. I want to reduce it to about 5" and only have it about 6" tall so it is not so in your face, but the problem is that my brace is 100mm wide. Thus it does not give much (any!) room to get your hands into the overflow.
So my idea is as follows:
Currently the brace is like this all the way against the back wall
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have a couple of options, one being cut the brace out completely, lower it, and turn it into a coast to coast overflow. The only problem with that is I will need to mask the sides where it meets the adjacent glass as my tank is 3 sides viewable.
On the plus side, it means the bracing is unaltered, just lowered.
The other option is not go a full coast to coasts, say keep it 6" from each end, enough to stick a wave maker in there.
This would mean making the brace as follows:
___________*********************_____________
****I_____________________________I
Ignore the ****'s, I had to had them as the post deletes the spaces I had in place.
As you can see, the brace would have to be in 3 pieces. The top two lines are in the original position for the brace, with the middle section cut out.
The new piece underneath would overlap by about 4", but be lower by 6". This allows the overflow box to be accessed, and then the bottom of the overflow acts as a brace also.
Glass is 12mm thick, 39" wide, and 30" tall if that helps.
Just after some reassurances that this will work, or really not a good idea.
This gives you an idea of what I want to get rid of. It will open up the tank a great deal, and hopefully not catch the eye like it does now. It also means switching over to a bean animal setup, and a few holes cut in the wall so I can get the pipes down the back of the tank, instead of the bottom. Had a hard time convincing the wife that she won't notice an access panel in the living area :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
So my idea is as follows:
Currently the brace is like this all the way against the back wall
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have a couple of options, one being cut the brace out completely, lower it, and turn it into a coast to coast overflow. The only problem with that is I will need to mask the sides where it meets the adjacent glass as my tank is 3 sides viewable.
On the plus side, it means the bracing is unaltered, just lowered.
The other option is not go a full coast to coasts, say keep it 6" from each end, enough to stick a wave maker in there.
This would mean making the brace as follows:
___________*********************_____________
****I_____________________________I
Ignore the ****'s, I had to had them as the post deletes the spaces I had in place.
As you can see, the brace would have to be in 3 pieces. The top two lines are in the original position for the brace, with the middle section cut out.
The new piece underneath would overlap by about 4", but be lower by 6". This allows the overflow box to be accessed, and then the bottom of the overflow acts as a brace also.
Glass is 12mm thick, 39" wide, and 30" tall if that helps.
Just after some reassurances that this will work, or really not a good idea.
This gives you an idea of what I want to get rid of. It will open up the tank a great deal, and hopefully not catch the eye like it does now. It also means switching over to a bean animal setup, and a few holes cut in the wall so I can get the pipes down the back of the tank, instead of the bottom. Had a hard time convincing the wife that she won't notice an access panel in the living area :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
