Quote:
Originally posted by phurst
Hey Marc, tank is looking nice. I wonder if you could give a little more detail or some closeups of how you have the drain set up. I have a 12 gallon JBJ nano on my desk at work, and since the back panel is plastic, I've been thinking of doing somthing similar to what you have done here and connecting it to a spare 10 gallon glass tank under my desk to act as a sump/fuge. I was just wondering about the logistics of it. Is there a reason one hole is lower than the other? How exactly is that black piece working as a drain? Is there a hole in the end? How are you making it surface skim? Do you think I'd be OK just letting water flow into a bulkhead, or would you recomend I have somthing similar to what you have on the in-tank side? The drain would be back in the filter compartment, so no worries about livestock getting sucked down it.
Thanks!
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Look closely at this picture:
The horizontal black drain pipe was cut carefully on a table saw to create an gap that is 3/8" to 1/2" wide. That was some risky work on my part, but I got lucky and didn't lose any flesh & blood.
There is a cap on the end. By not pumping too much water to the tank, the drain works well. When I open the valve in the plumbing (hidden in the closet), it raises the water level to high and the surface is not skimmed. Then again, the plumbing is new and maybe it will get better over the next couple of weeks. If it doesn't, I'll make some type of change.
The reason for the uneven holes was because I wanted to not see them when you view the tank from the side and front. So the lower one is kind of hiding under the upper drain. The trick to making that work is to glue the bottom fittings into the bulkhead and be sure to drill an anti siphon hole around the same height as the water level & drain line. This prevents too much water from exiting when the pump or power fails. Here's a picture of that fitting squirting out water during the fill up:
