Project External Glass Overflow

kheflw said:
I talked to the guy at Inter-American, Mitch I think. He's the guy that makes the Starphire tanks from Canada.
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I think that I have read things about this guy before on RC. Do a search. As I remember it was a bad experience but, I cannot recall for sure.
 
Thanks for this thread, I am planning a new tank and now plan to attach overflow boxes in the outside.

It seems to make more sense than paying for internal overflows that take up valuable display space
 
I'm going to be doing this external overflow design on my 37g
acrylic (36x15x16). Can you help me on how big the cutout
needs to be to support 1800gph. At this point im so worried that i'd rather just do a weir design, no teeth, to cut down on how long this hole has to be and to make sure the tank is still structurally safe. I only wanted the hole size to be 1" in heigh too. Can you help me out on how long i need to make the cutout. 1.5 feet? thanks
 
Shouse94, According to the calculator on the home page it needs to be 27" long. Why do you want to run that much water through the sump in the first place? You are guaranteed to have major microbubble problems by doing that. It is usually recommended to run 3x-5x the tank volume through the sump per hour. Then you can use closed loops or powerheads to get the rest of the circulation in the tank.
 
Look at the CPR design and copy it. Just mount it on the outside.

I made an overflow copying their design that does 800GPH. I have a 1200 GPH for my 72 but do not let it run that fast.
 
I think 1800gph running through a 37 would be great for sps. That is about 49x turnover. Pretty close to what I'm running through my 280. I just don't think it should all be going through the sump.
 
Travis said:
I think 1800gph running through a 37 would be great for sps. That is about 49x turnover. Pretty close to what I'm running through my 280. I just don't think it should all be going through the sump.
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That is not what I was saying. I have a 49x turnover including my refugium and powerheads.

He would have a 73x turnover with 3 maxi-jet 1200s. There is no proven benefit for that much turnover. The sump would be racing and not trap any of the detrius that you would like it to. Unless the sump is the same size or bigger than the tank I do not see any purpose.
 
i never said anything about powerheads, the 1800gph is being run through a Super squirt. It's cheaper for me to do 1 pump, both in the initial cost and savings on watts. I really want to run it through the sump if i can. My skimmer is going to be 700gph as it is so i really need that much at least going thorugh the sump, just makes sense to me to do it all. What size sump would u reccomend than if i dont want to get screwed over w/ microbubbles? thanks for all the replies
 
whew thats a read!- love the tanks- the overflows-the diy- and i really like the edgeless tops -looks real clean-good luck guys
 
Shouse94 said:
i never said anything about powerheads, the 1800gph is being run through a Super squirt. It's cheaper for me to do 1 pump, both in the initial cost and savings on watts. I really want to run it through the sump if i can. My skimmer is going to be 700gph as it is so i really need that much at least going thorugh the sump, just makes sense to me to do it all. What size sump would u reccomend than if i dont want to get screwed over w/ microbubbles? thanks for all the replies
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For that much turnover I am guessing you would need a 100+ gallon sump "at least". BTW, you don't want to run more gph through your sump than your skimmer can do. You want to try to match your skimmer gph to your sump turnover gph. That way you are processing almost all of the water going through the sump. Otherwise, it is worthless to have that much water going through the sump because it is not all getting processed. I would put the squirt on a closed loop and get a 700gph pump for the return.
 
Here's a comparison of the 2 options that seem to be the most popular. One is my current idea...saves money in both the initial cost and monthly wattage, but if it's not going to work it's not going to work. I definitely can't do anything bigger than a 55g sump and even than i may be limited to 30g, i can get the 30g for free, not the 55g. I will need both the Blueline (ran as CL to Supersquirt) and the Mag9.5 (sump) or i would need just a Dart w/ a good size sump. What do you think after seeing the specs? thanks
 

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Shouse94, it would probably be best if you started your own thread for this. Post a link here and I will follow you to your thread and help you there. This thread has gotten off topic. It is a great thread so I would like to see it stay on topic.
 
I'm doing this on my 29g tank and it seems like the bouncing caused little pieces to chip around the edge on the side that the drill comes out. Its not much. Just surface level chips like on ur windshield from road damage. I curved the cuts by laying the cone-tipped bit flat and rounded off all the cuts and covered most of the chips but some are left. I water tested it with a hose (btw it ran about half an inch above the bottom of the slot with a hose on full blast in it! must have been like...a lot of gph) and it was fine. What do you guys think of the stability? It will be in a garage anyways but i dont want to ruin any boxes or anything in there if it leaks.
 
I would run a bead of silicon over the cut just as a precaution. Also i would run it outside for a week or so. Thats what i did.
 
I just recently had some 'chips' like you were talking about when cutting a hole for a bulkhead in my 10g. Can't be too careful there, since it held water fine for a little while and then it cracked all the way across the back. Luckily my wife was there, and as I held the back panel in place she siphoned some water off. Didn't spill but about a gallon.
 
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