Plumbing an overflow

[Drennon]

Hello all,

I recently picked up a used 75g bottom drilled with corner overflow box.

This will be my first tank with an overflow and sump. I would gladly take any pointers as to best practice for installing bulkheads to avoid making mistakes ahead of time and keeping the overflow quiet.

The two holes are slightly different sizes, I assume that the larger one will be the overflow and the smaller one will be the return?

Thanks,

 

[Crabs McJones]

Hello all,

I recently picked up a used 75g bottom drilled with corner overflow box.

This will be my first tank with an overflow and sump. I would gladly take any pointers as to best practice for installing bulkheads to avoid making mistakes ahead of time and keeping the overflow quiet.

The two holes are slightly different sizes, I assume that the larger one will be the overflow and the smaller one will be the return?

Thanks,

From what I can tell, the tank is drilled for a drain and a return. What I would personally do, is use both of those holes as drains and set the tank up Herbie style with a primary siphon and an emergency overflow. Then drill the back of the tank on the opposite side for the return just double check that the back glass is not tempered. running the tank Herbie style ensures that if the primary clogs or backs up for whatever reason the emergency takes over. In using it the way its currently designed, you only have a single drain. If it fails your tank will overflow.

 

[Drennon]

Okay that makes sense.

There is a notch where the previous return was (I assume). If I understand correctly this becomes redundant if I run the return seperately? In which case I should attempt to plug it?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Okay that makes sense.

There is a notch where the previous return was (I assume). If I understand correctly this becomes redundant if I run the return seperately? In which case I should attempt to plug it?

I would just leave it. The water will just fall through it like the rest of the weir teeth

 

[Ariel V Rosa]

Okay that makes sense.

There is a notch where the previous return was (I assume). If I understand correctly this becomes redundant if I run the return seperately? In which case I should attempt to plug it?

Grab a strip of abs... yoi can biy it at any local hobby store, and glue it to.thw hole shut, problem solved and you wont be loosing any wildlife to thsi notch that way.

 

[Ron Reefman]

And although Carb Mcjones is 100% right about using both existing holes for a drain and an emergency drain, rather than drilling the back of the tank for a return, you could just do it over the back glass. You can see how I did it in my build thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ron-reefmans-50g-cube.409412/#post-4856266