tank design

rhwimmers

Premium Member
I have a 125 (5') tank I am getting ready to setup and it has a 55g sump under it. I am thinking of drilling it myself with one of those glass-holes kits. I am having a hard time deciding if I should go with one big return pump in the sump to power the whole thing or that plus another powerhead in the main tank for augmenting the main return. The 125 already has PVC around the top edge with "powerheads" at each corner, so I could run that off of the return pump or the powerhead. Just trying to figure out how much flow, how to get the flow, what size holes I need to drill, and most importantly how to make things failsafe where if I loose power the sump wont overflow etc. Also, quiet is going to be important as its in my tv room. I AM going LED for lighting so heat shouldnt be as big of a deal (thinking in water return vs external). How do I figure out how far down to drill on my main tank, then in my sump, do I want it plumbed directly into the tank (drill it as well), or just let the water pour into the sump etc..
TIA! Cant wait to get back in it!
 
Drilling a tank is not that hard but you first need to contact the the company that made the tank and find out if it is made with tempered glass or not because you cont drill throu tempered. after you find out if you can i would get an overflow box made and then attach it to the tank with (2) 1 1/2" bulk heads. The holes should be drilled with an 2 3/8" glass hole saw and then you dont need to drill the sump just hard plumb the overflow box going into the top of the sump. and then you can drill the return hole in the tank and put another bulkhead in there depending on what size pump u decide to go with, i wold go with a mag 7 to a mag 9 and u can put that right into the sump and hard plumb that to the return bulkhead. If the power goes out there is a pvc check valve that you can put on the return plumbing right after the pump so the water will not flow back into the sump just the water that will go down the overflow and just dont fill up the sump all the way and there will be no threat of overflowing the sump. it is not really as hard as it sounds i did it to my 150g tank.
 
Do you know what you plan on keeping in the tank?

Knowing and planning for livestock seems to make equipment ideas easier.

Just my 2 cents
 
Just your average reef tank...Good mixture of softies/lps/sps, maybe a clam or two, oh and some fish too!
I know I can drill the sides of the tank, just not the bottom unfortunately.
 
Im looking at the glass-holes overflows as I don't want a hang on type and cant drill the bottom. Why get one of these vs just drilling holes and putting in a bulkhead with cone type filter to stop fish from getting sucked down? I'm sure there are reasons?
 
The reason for not having just hole in tank is if power goes out then your sump could over flow. With overflows you have less water volume and it allows less water to end up in the sump.
 
Is that the only benefit? If the holes are drilled at the very top it would only be 2-3" of water, right? I'm sure there is a way to calculate how many gallons that would be, but if sump is large enough then not having a large overflow eating up real estate would be nice!?
 
Yes it is really nice that is why i got a tank that wasnt drilled and drilled it myself and the overflow box i built is only 12" x 6" it is small and doesent take up both all of both corners like most large predrilled tank. but i would get and overflow box it would look alot better then just a hole.
 
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