Silent and Failsafe Overflow System

[kameleon23]

Hey, all:

Has anyone done BeanAnimal's design painted black at the street elbows in the CoasttoCoast overflow box? The back of my tank is painted black (on the outside of the glass), and it seems like the PVC Elbows affixed to bulkheads would look better blending in with the black background, by being black, rather than sticking out as their natural PVC-white.

I painted the back glass of my tank black, and used a smoked glass like gweston mentioned. Works great and is barely noticable. I used clear glass for the bottom of the overflow to allow light to pass thru in order to help prevent shadowing as well. HTH

 

[gweston]

I painted the back glass of my tank black, and used a smoked glass like gweston mentioned. Works great and is barely noticable. I used clear glass for the bottom of the overflow to allow light to pass thru in order to help prevent shadowing as well. HTH

Darn great idea about the clear glass on the bottom of the weir... alas I am not doing such a thing (class already cut). But I am going with a super thin weir that flows out to a box (external) on the back where the elbows are. So any shadowing should be very minimal.

 

[Pprice01]

How thin is your internal overflow? I will have to have the plumbing inside the overflow (inside the tank) and am looking for ideas to keep this space as narrow as possible.

 

[gweston]

My plumbing isn't internal in the weir. My weir is about 48"x6"x2". It flows into the thin weir, and out through rear holes into an external box large enough for the three elbows. So the weir width is 2" minus a bit for the glass thickness.

But.. my build is still a work in progress. I have all the parts, glass, etc. I need to drill and assemble still. I have a 6' tank. The weir is 4'. I'll have a 1' section on each side with a return drilled in. I thought about a coast to coast but I didn't want plumbing overhanging the lip of the tank.

 

[stormrider27]

Bean, is there any reason why I can't run my plumbing through the wall behind my tank prior to tying into the sana-tees and going vertical? I really don't have the space to allow 6" between the back of my tank and the wall it sits against plus, my sump will be located behind that wall in another room so the pipes will have to go through the wall either way.

Thanks!
Mark

P.S. If it would be benificial I could angle the pipe from the bulkheads prior to going through the wall and intersecting with the verticle plumbing.

 

[Pprice01]

If I use bean's setup exactly as outlined on page 1, how tall and deep will the overflow have to be to accommodate the plumbing?

 

[Pprice01]

For those of you running the external overflow boxes, are you purchasing the tanks drilled and with the boxes in place or are you adding the boxes DIY?

If you are purchasing them already drilled and with the overflow attached, may I ask where you are buying them from, the size of the tank, and most importantly, what you are paying for them?

If you are DIY'ing the overflow, please insert a link to your build thread or some photos.

Thanks.

Paul

 

[kameleon23]

How thin is your internal overflow? I will have to have the plumbing inside the overflow (inside the tank) and am looking for ideas to keep this space as narrow as possible.

My overflow is about 4 1/4'' wide. Gives me enough room to remove elbows and clean inside if and when i need to.

 

[Pprice01]

Thanks kameleon23 - How deep is it?

 

[kameleon23]

Thanks kameleon23 - How deep is it?

4 1/2'' tall

 

[chimmike]

Question. I have my return pump dialed back to about half. The flow out of the outlets in the DT seems to be low.

1" setup all around. Water level seems high to me, but the durso drain isn't flowing much out at all, the majority is the siphon (which is fully open). Should I dial back the siphon and allow more through the durso? Or think it'd be safe to open up the return flow a little more?

 

[chimmike]

you know what? NVM, I answered my own question. On my brief trial run, siphon hadn't even been started yet on the main siphon. I just did a full scale test of more than 20 seconds, and WOW that siphon flows! I've got it cut to about 75% and I still have little flow out of the durso. Guess I can turn the pump up!

 

[SkyReef]

Krylon Fusion is certainly fine to use and safe for the tank. Just make sure that the paint fully cures before it touches water and you are good to go.

I am building an overflow myself. My internal overflow box is being built with 'smoke' colored glass. While not black, it is darker than a clear glass so will help obscure things behind it. If you let coralline grow on the glass, it will obscure everything eventually anyway. But if you are more into the clean black background look, then Krylon will certainly help.

Thanks, GWeston. Very helpful.

 

[SkyReef]

I painted the back glass of my tank black, and used a smoked glass like gweston mentioned. Works great and is barely noticable. I used clear glass for the bottom of the overflow to allow light to pass thru in order to help prevent shadowing as well. HTH

Thanks, Kameleon. That was helpful. Nice photo, nice setup.

 

[SkyReef]

In the Overflow Box: How much of Downturn do you Need?

In the Overflow Box: How much of Downturn do you Need?

For my tiny 29-gallon Nano Cube, I drilled my bulkhead holes. No problems. However, measurement-wise, the bulkheads sit kind of low for my tank, following the specs used by BeanAnimal: the horizontal center for the 1" bulkheads is 4.25" from the top of the trim. Hence, I am trying to shorten up the down-turn of the street elbows in the overflow box--otherwise the box will be unnecessarily deep: 6 inches! That's too deep for such a small tank that will host a live reef. My goal was to have the overflow box be no deeper than 5 inches. I can cut off 3/4" from the down-turn of the street elbows, to give me 1/4" clearance for the bottom of the overflow box. Under such a scenario, the overflow box would be somewhat deep, 5-1/4", as opposed to my desired 5". However, that would be better than 6" deep.

Here's the question though: under this method, only the top of the street elbow would sweep downward, the bottom of the street elbow would be level with the bottom of the horizontal pipe connected to the "down turn." While the incoming water would still "feed" into the elbow from a vertical position--i.e., from a downturn angle (not a horizontal opening), it would be a very short "downturn." Would this shortness work, provided that the inlet is parallel to the water (i.e., the inlet is in a vertical position), not perpendicular to the water (i.e., the inlet is not in a horizontal position)?

If this won't work, what is the shortest "stubbing" of the downturn I can have? Here are some pictures of what I propose. Thanks for your reply.

In this first image, the shortest street elbow is on the left. The middle elbow would be cut to the same, height. The left elbow would be the siphon standpipe. The center would be the open channel standpipe. The right elbow could be kept at that same height, if appropriate, or it could be cut down to the same size as the left and middle elbows. Notice the height differential between the stock elbow (the middle channel) and the short elbow (the left channel.)

More angles.

Here's how short it would be:

http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac35/SkyReef/115.jpg
http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac35/SkyReef/116.jpg
http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac35/SkyReef/117.jpg

Compare how much would be cropped:

 

[SkyReef]

For my tiny 29-gallon Nano Cube, I drilled my bulkhead holes. No problems. However, measurement-wise, the bulkheads sit kind of low for my tank, following the specs used by BeanAnimal: the horizontal center for the 1" bulkheads is 4.25" from the top of the trim. Hence, I am trying to shorten up the down-turn of the street elbows in the overflow box--otherwise the box will be unnecessarily deep: 6 inches! That's too deep for such a small tank that will host a live reef. My goal was to have the overflow box be no deeper than 5 inches. I can cut off 3/4" from the down-turn of the street elbows, to give me 1/4" clearance for the bottom of the overflow box. Under such a scenario, the overflow box would be somewhat deep, 5-1/4", as opposed to my desired 5". However, that would be better than 6" deep.

Here's the question though: under this method, only the top of the street elbow would sweep downward, the bottom of the street elbow would be level with the bottom of the horizontal pipe connected to the "down turn." While the incoming water would still "feed" into the elbow from a vertical position--i.e., from a downturn angle (not a horizontal opening), it would be a very short "downturn." Would this shortness work, provided that the inlet is parallel to the water (i.e., the inlet is in a vertical position), not perpendicular to the water (i.e., the inlet is not in a horizontal position)?

If this won't work, what is the shortest "stubbing" of the downturn I can have? Here are some pictures of what I propose. Thanks for your reply.

In this first image, the shortest street elbow is on the left. The middle elbow would be cut to the same, height. The left elbow would be the siphon standpipe. The center would be the open channel standpipe. The right elbow could be kept at that same height, if appropriate, or it could be cut down to the same size as the left and middle elbows. Notice the height differential between the stock elbow (the middle channel) and the short elbow (the left channel.)

More angles.

Here's how short it would be:

http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac35/SkyReef/115.jpg
http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac35/SkyReef/116.jpg
http://i883.photobucket.com/albums/ac35/SkyReef/117.jpg

Compare how much would be cropped:

After further measurement and reevalution. I don't think there is cause for alarm here, with the regular-sized elbows. I'm going to go with it, as is, with little or no cutting of the downturn elbow. A five-inch clearance from the top of the water is still possible with the stock elbows unmodified. (My previous post's calculation of a six-inch clearance was estimated in error, as it measured to the top of the trim, not the top of the water line.) My erroneous post was made under the mistaken belief that I should be measuring from the top of the trim. But previously, I wasn't measuring from the top of the trim, but from the top of the water, which will lie below the top of the trim. So I was worried for nothing. Sorry to bother y'all with my post made in error. It should all work out just fine, without grinding the elbow down 3/4".

I'll post pictures of the finished product. Thanks.

 

[sctoutkast]

BeanAnimal and followers I think this is one of the best type of overflow systems I have seen! Anyway my question is this, I know that the drains have to drain into the sump and they can't be far down in the sump which is how it creates a full siphon (with minimal noise). This simple concept is what causes my problem. I would like to use this type of system on one of my freshwater tanks. The problem is that on my freshwater system I do not have a protein skimmer in which to filter my water. My system relies on pads and poly fill which is why the problem arises that the water coming from the drain would have to flow threw a number of filter pads (poly, coarse pad, fine polishing pad, then matrix). The way I have the sump set up is the water flows through the very top of the sump and flows through a number of bio-media, I was curious as to see how I would implement this type of system into freshwater tank. I know that I would have to modify the sump to accommodate this type of drain system. What do you guys think, diagrams would help greatly.:thumbsup: Thanks in advance, Justin

 

[ToLearn]

You can't obtain a silent overflow if the overflow falls on pads and drops down. What is it you like about this system you would like to use would be question one. Do you need to get more water to move out of the tank? Do you really need that much flow between the display and the sump for your set up?

 

[TheFishMan65]

Could you over flow into a shallow pan of some sort. Just enough to cover the end of the tub.

 

[sctoutkast]

You can't obtain a silent overflow if the overflow falls on pads and drops down. What is it you like about this system you would like to use would be question one. Do you need to get more water to move out of the tank? Do you really need that much flow between the display and the sump for your set up?

ToLearn I know I can't have the water draining over the pads that filter my system, they have to be under the water volume in the sump to maintain a full siphon. Yes I love the system because it allows me to upgrade this current tank later down the round to another saltwater setup, and yes I like to have flow in the sump so consequently I will have better water movement in the tank that is cleaner. Main reason would be primarily to convert over to saltwater in the months to come.

Could you over flow into a shallow pan of some sort. Just enough to cover the end of the tub.

TheFishMan65, I think your idea will work, I'm thinking about using a 10 gallon that will be drilled on the side which will then drain over the different type of media, I most likely will need a power head in that tank so that the left over food and waste will pass out of this tank into the next filter process. Thanks for the advice TheFishMan65 that way I can easily remove the 10 gallon and update the plumbing so that it can be converted into saltwater.:thumbsup:

Anyone else like to chime in, still looking for other ideas?