DIY overflow very cheap with pvc. Anyone ever done this? link in description

[Killeriguana]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHYna...eature=related

Looks to me like it would be easy, effiecient, and super cheap! Would this be worth doing? does anyone have a similar set up to this or have any reasons that it could not work?
THank you

[RocketEngineer]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...4&pp=25&page=2

[hebygb]

I am not saying anything here that isnt said or discussed in the thread that RoketEngineer posted, but I will say here anyway because some wont follow his link. In short, yes it works. However there are some best practices that should not be overlooked. One is surface skimming. The larger the area of the prefilter the more area of the surface that is being skimmed. The second is potential for blockage increases when you have a single small drain in which any thing can crawl, swim, or float into.

There are ways to mitigate these and other concerns, but just so you take caution.

[bmkj02]

I made one a few years back for my aquapod 24g and it is 100x better then an overflow box and its still running. Just make sure you dont use a smaller drain. I ran a 3/4" drain on mine. Wish I would of gone with a 1" drain

[Muddy35]

I made one of these and have been running it for 3 months now on a red sea tank. I have tested it probably a couple hundreds times and it works like a charm!
I made mine out of 1" pvc and modified it with a "T" about 6inches below the water line and added another surface drain to prevent blockage ect... I do have noise issues and am still working to quiet them down. My return is a mag7 and this has now probems keeping up with it. Lemme know if you have ay questions..

[Killeriguana]

thanks for your help everyone! i think i will defeinintly do it and try to go by the plans in the link rocketman posted but i was thinking that just one drain instead of two would be ok and i was wanting to use a canister filter as the return pump (water in tube in the sump and the water out tube in the tank) Also I have a 55 gallon tank with a tunze 9010 skimmer, the canister filter, some xenia and polyps with a picasso trigger, tomato clowns, and lunar wrasse. ANd i have a 29 gallon with just a marineland HOB filter and an 18 inch snowflake eel by itself. I have a 25 gal and a 10 gal tank that i am not using (possible sumps) and was wondering if i should connect the tanks on to the same sump or make a sump for each of them. The only thing that i would be afraid of is that the massive waste that the snowflake eel produces will effect the stability of my main tank (55 gal that i am starting to add some trigger safe corals too.) All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Also i have about 60 pounds of live rock total and about 50 pounds sand in 55 and 30 pounds in the 29
Thank you

[kenjr]

I just built one . im useing a 1 inch overflow and im getting 650 gallons an hour out of it . tested it buy timeing how long it took to fill my skimmer section of my sump (19gallons) . i also made a full length strainer for it with 1 1/4 pvc pipe , reducer,union and a cap drilled full of holes slid down over the 1 inch pipe so nothing can claug it (so i hope). its been 2 months running . a bunch of tests, two power outages and hasen't failed to restart yet.

[supernovabjt]

I ran one on my 20l for about a year. I had no issues, and it restarted every time.

[Killeriguana]

thanks kenjr and supernovabit. the pics helped alot too. looks simple and gave me a better concept of what to do. I am getting the supplies tomorow and will try to get it setup this weekend on my 55. If it works, i will either tie my 30 into the same one or possibly just make another one to prevent my eels massive wasted from clogging up my future 55 gal reef.
THanks for your time!

[daytek]

You could try this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnWpQEkeatE

[WildFoxMedia]

Figured it was worth chiming in...

I just built one for my 29 - Took about 10 minutes to cut and snug fit together for testing. After a little adjusting it worked like a champ. I still need to get a check valve for the top, but I was able to start it by putting my hand over the end that goes to the sump and sucking on the tall vent tube.

Maybe someone who understands the design a bit more can throw in there 2 cents. Does the height of certain elements matter? For instance, should the T be above or below the U shape that is inside the tank? Is there any "best" setup for the U shape inside of the tank (Another 90 on top of it, having the tub near the waterline, having it just be whereever, etc?)

[Soultwater]

What I like to do is get the small rigid airline like you see in under gravel filters and use a small piece of this at the top of the U tube where air would get trapped and seal it wit epoxy. You can bend the airline tube if you dip the tub in a cup of boiling water for a few seconds then you can bend it into a 90 angle. I would attach a silicone rubber airline to this and feed the free end into the suction side of a powerhead in my tank. You can use another piece of rigid airline and seal it with epoxy on the powerhead if you like. I should not you do not seal the whole suction side of the powerhead.

What this will do is start a siphon and keeps a continuous siphon going clearing air pockets from forming.

If anyone has a clue what I’m babbling about can you please post a diagram??

[Muddy35]

Soulwater
Why would you modify something like this adding in a weak point that could fail and prevent the system from working?
This setup works extremely well as set up and except for maybe modifying the surface skim piece of it theres no reason to add in a siphon start... I understand trying to make it better but with about 3 yrs on this through the various threads and not one instance of it failing to hold a siphon when properly built, I would leave it alone and not add in a point where the siphon could and will eventually fail.

Wild fox- the "T" on the outside of the tank MUST be higher than the "U" inside the tank or you never keep the siphon when power goes out. The "T" idealy should be 2"inches above the "U".

As far as priming and starting it- stick a powerhead on the end of it and leave until the siphon starts- no need for trying to suck water through it to start it. Specially if your doing this with 1" diameter pvc.

[WildFoxMedia]

Muddy35 - Thanks for the info. Looking at the first picture that kenjr posted - it is incorrect in that picture since the U inside the tank is higher then the T outside the tank, right?

[Killeriguana]

I didnt think so and kenjr has had it running for a while so it must work although i am no expert on this.

[WildFoxMedia]

Most of the pictures ive seen show the U inside the tank being higher, granted, not by much, then the T on the outside.

[kenjr]

These are the plans i started with . Then i saw that people were calling these (old plans) . the new mods made them like i got mine now. I made three diffrent lengths on the outside T, and the one im useing worked best for me . It's the one i could get my return pump to match to best. It keeps a constent water level in my sump,and i never lost siphon.


http://forums.saltwaterfish.com/vb/s...d.php?t=288154

http://forums.saltwaterfish.com/vb/s...d.php?t=297623

[WildFoxMedia]

It looks like the original plans for all of those show the U tube inside the tank below the T - However, all of the new plans show the U tube inside the tank having a shorter tube coming over the top which makes it higher then the T.

In any case, I set mine up similar to yours where the inside U is above the T and in the limited testing I did, it works fine.

[Muddy35]

It may be that the "U" inside the tank may not matter where it is. Heres my thoughts on this however.
If the U inside the tank is higher than the T outside the tank then you run the risk of the siphon pulling all the water out of the tube when the aquarium water no longer flows into it. The U needs to be lower than the outside T to create a point where the water level inside the tubes are lower than the T so as not to siphon out all the water and create a breaking point where the water level will sit, and NOT siphon out..
Hopefully I have not confused anyone.
There are alot of different designs out there, some being posted by ppl that have not fully tested their versions and are in for sad disappointment the day it fails. Some versions will work 50/50 ad some will work 99%. There are always factors involved with everything that can make something fail and if we limit those factors by utilizing the best design then we are less apt to be disappointed later.

The original design came off a South African web site yrs ago. The design was tested through and through and in all cases the intake HAD to be ower the the T to work correctly. The "U" with the extension to the surface is just an extension of the original design. If we take that out of the equation then in every instance where the "U" or intake was above the T it lead to failure at some point.

Just my FYI.. As with everything in this hobby theres always room for improvement. But there are certain things that due to physics just arent going to change.

[Muddy35]

Kenjr- I looked through the links and I see what your pointing out as far as the U in the tank being higher, I also noticed all the other changes needed to make that version work and stil see a large number of posts where the siphon is breaking after a power loss.. Just my 2 cents.. The more we complicate something the more likely it is to fail.
It looks like the majority of the mods came from trying to make the setup quieter. While I agree its not the quietest my simple fix to the noise was to set a Smaller 1/2" t right on top of the intake lettin water fall through it and creating less space in the center of the overflow that can pull air through it.

I do agree with the other posts. ITs a DIY and open to modify anyway you want. But why complicate it if its less efficent?

[WildFoxMedia]

Muddy35 - Thank you for the post. In the limited testing I did on a version I built I had no issue with noise aside from the noise of the water falling from 3' into a 5 gallon bucket.

I will modify my design to make the internal U tube lower then the T.

Something else that seems slightly strange to me is the placement of the extension tube coming off of the internal U tube. That top of the extension should be roughly where you would want the water level to be if there was a power outage correct?

[Muddy35]

correct. Keep in mind that anything else lower than that.. ie a return line.. will also siphon down to its level.

[WildFoxMedia]

I didnt even think about that - The return line will back siphon?

Quick Edit: So pretty much, internal U tube as low as you can go, or at least low enough for the T to be above it - Then the extension tube off the internal U tube to where you want the water level. If I were to put a strainer over the extension tube, would I put it so the very tip/end of the strainer would be where the water level is, or the "bottom" of the strainer where it connects to the PVC extension tube?

[Muddy35]

Yes the return will siphon back into the sump if its below the water line and the intake to the overflow. If it is below the intake it will continue to siphon until theres a break in the siphon. Some ppl actually drill a small hole in the return line just below the water line to break siphon in the event of a pwr loss.
Yes set the T above the U. I try to put 2inches between the bottom of the T and the top of the U. You can also raise the T on the outside of the tank as well but the higher you raise it the slower the flow through the pipes and the more likely air will accumulate inside the pipe and cause a siphon loss. I would set it so the U sets as close to the bottom of the tank as possible and the T sits 2" higher on the outside of the tank.
As far as the strainer- the top of the strainer needs to be set where you want the water level in your tank.

[kenjr]

Originally Posted by Muddy35

Kenjr- I looked through the links and I see what your pointing out as far as the U in the tank being higher, I also noticed all the other changes needed to make that version work and stil see a large number of posts where the siphon is breaking after a power loss.. Just my 2 cents.. The more we complicate something the more likely it is to fail.
It looks like the majority of the mods came from trying to make the setup quieter. While I agree its not the quietest my simple fix to the noise was to set a Smaller 1/2" t right on top of the intake lettin water fall through it and creating less space in the center of the overflow that can pull air through it.

I do agree with the other posts. ITs a DIY and open to modify anyway you want. But why complicate it if its less efficent?

muddy35 - As I am totally new at this, I would have to agree with you. the main reason for me trying the different mods was to make the overflow more quiet. and I was successful . 100% quiet . pure flow into my sump and no air is being sucked into(through) my overflow , I don’t even hear the water flow through the pipes. In my sump, the inlet line is submerged(no splashing sound) .Its everything I expected from this project. if it does loose siphon , and I hope it never does, I took measures to protect myself from a flood. My sump will accommodate all the water from my display to the level that my strainers at . and the return section of my sump can empty into my display without overflowing. I don’t want to give anyone bad advice ,that is why I posted the original plans and links I followed. and let them know what experiences I had so far. I do and always will listen to any advice given because I don’t have enough experience of my own. this is how I (we ) learn. and im thankful for it .

Ken