Plumbing intake for a two bulkhead overflow. PLEASE HELP

[KRJ]

Hi I’m starting my prep work for setting up a sump for my 150 gallon aquarium. My overflow box has two bulkheads in it. I have google many different things to try and figure out how to plumb it so it has little to any noise and possibly using one of the bulkheads for an emergency overflow. Where they are at a 90 degree angle on the tank wall I don’t believe a Durso pipe would work. I can’t seem to find anything that will fit my situation and tank. I am making a new overflow box to acomadate piping. I purchased it with the bulkheads and overflow box installed.

 

[theMeat]

For 2 pipe drain Google “herbie” plumbing design

 

[KRJ]

For 2 pipe drain Google “herbie” plumbing design

Thank you I definitely will. It’s my first tank that I will be plumbing a sump into.

 

[JoshH]

Is there an external box for this overflow? Or just the box in the picture?? Most slim boxes for overflows come with an external box for the actual plumbing and the two bulkheads in the overflow box are just to connect the two boxes together

 

[KRJ]

For 2 pipe drain Google “herbie” plumbing design

This shows that is comes from the bottom up. Mine are drilled into the tank wall. How would this work? Am I missing something?

 

[KRJ]

Is there an external box for this overflow? Or just the box in the picture?? Most slim boxes for overflows come with an external box for the actual plumbing and the two bulkheads in the overflow box are just to connect the two boxes together

Ahhh there’s wasn’t a second box unfortunately. I was wondering how the gentleman had it plumbed for his reef tank. I bought the tank with intention of going fresh water but now that I have a massive tank I want to go salt water with it. I was going to build a bigger box to acomadate piping into the aquarium if possible.

 

[JoshH]

You are missing an external acrylic box for your internal overflow to connect to like in these photos

 

[KRJ]

Is there a way to not have the external box and do it all inside the tank or is the external box a better option.

 

[JoshH]

Okay if you were going to build a larger box for inside your aquarium you can still plumb it to be dead silent, it just needs to be large enough to handle atleast 1 90° elbow this would protrude into the tank quite a few inches but it's totally doable and you can plumb it with a herbie style drain as mentioned above by @theMeat

Or you could just build a larger box for the outside of the aquarium and keep the internal box the way it is...

 

[KRJ]

The reason being I don’t want the box on the outside is so I can access it easier from the top for maintenance. So with the elbows I would have one pointing down to create a full siphon and then one pointing up for emergency overflow correct?

 

[JoshH]

Is there a way to not have the external box and do it all inside the tank or is the external box a better option.

As in have all the plumbing inside the tank? The external box would use much less space inside and outside the tank(keeping your tank as close to the wall as possible).

 

[KRJ]

This is true. I didn’t look at it that way. Thank you!

 

[KRJ]

If I keep the internal intake and make an external box for plumbing what would be the best way to keep fish out of the current internal intake since it has no weir.

 

[JoshH]

This is true. I didn’t look at it that way. Thank you!

No problem, if you build an external box have a good read on the three main different styles of draining methods, just Google Bean Animal, herbie(mentioned above) and Durso. Get familiar with the different styles of drains and choose one you feel is the best suited for you. Given you are building your own box I would say just go with a Bean animal as it has the most redundancies but the herbie works just as well (A Bean animal is basically a herbie with an extra drain for emergencies). In the external box you only need an elbow on the secondary drain, no elbows on the main siphon or the emergency if you go with the BA. Keeping your internal box I would just cut some egg crate to fit snuggly inside the top so you can pull it out for cleaning once in a while.

 

[theMeat]

Yeah, agreed...thinking you’re missing an external overflow, otherwise known as a ghost overflow. Measure the 2 hole diameters, and distance from the top, then post up findings. To make sure you get the right stuff.
Yeah, it takes a little room outside tank, but leaves a lot more room inside, and you can do bean animal plumbing

 

[ca1ore]

In the 'old' days when folks siliconed in their own coast to coast overflows it was typical to not have an external box. Required a larger internal skim bid to accommodate the plumbing, but perfectly feasible. Probably that's what the OP has. If you check out bean animals site, for example, most of his diagrams eschew an external box. The advantage of the newer ghost style units is a much smaller in tank profile.