Almost had a disaster last night

SuperPro · Jun 29, 2012

A little background, I bought a DSA Neo 105 and cut out the overflow and drilled it for a GH 1500gph overflow. This left me with 4 holes in the bottom so I installed 2 3/4" and 2 1" bulkheads and put ball valves on them so if I needed to add anything I could later. I was filling the tank and I was about 3" from the top when I noticed one of the 3/4" bulkheads was dripping water slightly. For some dumb reason I decided to grab the ball valve to give it a twist to see if I could snug it up. I only turned it about an 1/8" and the bulkhead snapped off. The only thing left was the ball valve with the bottom of the bulkhead with the nut attached. I was having to hold the nut up as tight to the tank as I could to keep water from pouring out. After calling my neighbor and brother with one hand on the phone and the other holding what was left of the bulkhead I had help on the way. Now water is leaking out this whole time but I was able to stop the tank from completely draing on the floor. I was in the stand holding this thing while Tex and my brother are trying to get the water out of the tank as fast as possible. 45 minutes later the tank was drained enough for me to let go of the pipe. I built my stand so that if water spills it can hold about 30g. Luckily there was very little water on the carpet and I mean very little. Soaked it up with a towel and it's dry today.

So I was using ABS BH but after this was over I grabbed 2 more and pulled on them and they snapped off too. This has got me very worried. I'm going to order the schedule 80 BH from BRS in 1/2" and 3/4", hole size is very close to sch40 3/4" and 1". Is this going to be safe or should I put the overflow back in? Any suggestions on another method?

mixer911 · Jun 29, 2012

Man that's crazy.... I only use schedule 80 Bulkheads after having a ABS one fail on me with one of my old tanks. Luckily it was in one of my overflows, but it was still a PITA to work on. I would definately upgrade those to SCH 80, they are larger diameter like you are saying, so in your case it should work to downsize like you are saying. I think with them you should be OK. I would also maybe consider putting a cap on them inside the tank as well. It would really suck if someone accidently opened the valve and drained the whole tank.

SuperPro · Jun 29, 2012

I was going to add the caps after I got it running, figured it would put less stress on the valves. I've never had a bh snap off like these did. Regardless I'm getting the sch80 ones but it has me nervous about having holes in the bottom. Glad it happened before any livestock was in the tank!