Need help building an overflow in my 90

[reefskinner]

I am setting up a 90 gallon reef, and want to install a corner overflow and have a few questions. I am thinking of using a Quiet One pump with 5 feet of head through 1" pipe. I was planning on either a 1.0" or a 1.25" bulkhead fitting. I need to know should I use a single piece of glass placed at an angle, or should I use two pieces to construct a square. How large should it be, and how tall should it be. I know that the rate of flow will dictate the height. I don't want to have to worry about it overflowing the tank, but I don't want it to be so low I can see the water line, (although I can lower my hood to hide it).

Thanks in advance,
reefskinner

[geo]

I installed a single sheet of glass on my 75 and made it to tall. it is now a refugium. I would make the height about 1/2" lower than the bottom of the trim if I had it to do over.
Your 1" bulkhead will work fine.

[goby]

hey,

Just a few tips....

use black acrylic instead of glass. you will be much happier in the long run.

Make it in a square shape kinda like anb "L" so that two sides touch the side and back of the tank.

Cut grooves in the acrylic at the top to serve as a "filter" to keep your snails and such out of your overflow (found two astreas in one of my drains this weekend, really sucks)

when trying to determine the height.... cut 1" grooves that are the width of a good circular saw blade (1/4") and cut them every half inch. This will give you plenty of flow. Make the top of the overflow fit 1/4 - 1/2 inch below the top of the tank (For disaster recovery) and use LOTS of silicone to hold it in place.

Make sure to leak test it. A leak wont be too big of a deal when its running, but if you loose power, it will keep draining, and that really sucks!


if you cant get the acrylic, and you use glass, use some egg crate at the top of it maybe 1" strip of it at the top, to keep stuff from getting sucked into your sump. just silicone it to the glass.

good luck!

g
o
b
y


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It's all fun and games until someone looses and eye....
www.iag.net/~vigg (http://www.iag.net/~vigg)

[aLittletank]

I just did this this weekend :)

I made the bow style. I didn't cut the plexie glass low enough so my water levle is an 1/8 of an inch from overflowing on to the floor. :eek:

use the durso oveflow stsnd pipes I love mine (sooo quite)

Allen

[reefskinner]

I was concerned about trying to silicone plexi/acrylic to glass. I have seen the new bowed style on the AGA web site....looks pretty cool. Thanks everyone for the help.

reefskinner

[goby]

reefskinner,

I too was a little leary of siliconing the acrylic, but realized that this is how AGA and all the others do it as well, so why not? To be safe, I did a little modification to my overflow box to make it stick better. I installed a box on a 40 gallon, I had it drilled in the bottom, in the center of the tank against the back wall. My overflow box was 3 sided. I made it 6" wide, and 4" deep(front to back) to attach it to the glass, I cut 2 1" strips of acrylic and attached them to the 4" pieces at a 90 degree angle so it looked like a box with a 4" piece missing off of the back side. This gave me some great surface area to work with when attaching the box with silicone.

This might not make sense, let me konw and i will get a drawing posted for ya...

g
o
b
y


------------------
It's all fun and games until someone looses and eye....
www.iag.net/~vigg (http://www.iag.net/~vigg)