My First DIY

[matasw]

Want to start converting my 90 FW to 90 reef by christmas. I'm no handy man. I've got many people that can help locally however none of them really have any reef knowledge. So i've got to figure everything out then they can help I drew my first sketchup diagram of what i had in mind (my sketchup skills are rough at best). This is my general idea. Two things i'm really not sure about...

For the overflow can I just drill and run a pipe right down into the sump? I've heard bad things about HOB and dont want to lose the real estate in the tank. If i put some type of filter sock to keep the debris out and made the pipe big enough to handle the flow would this work? This is the part in the top right of my diagram.

For the return, I want to have it split which I beleive is common. On the left side of the tank I want the return water to exit near the top of the tank, then on the right side I want it to exit on the bottom of the tank. I've always seen all returns release water at the top. Is there a reason I can't do it on the bottom to help spread out the water flow?

The sketchup link is:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...700b5b412c9e4d

Below is the screenshot for anybody who doesn't want to downlaod my model.

[Keelay]

SketchUp rules!

I will make two comments/suggestions:

1) The dual return issue can be done, many people do it, but what it looks like you are trying to do with it is satisfy the (10x-20x)flow requirements of your reef thank with a return only. I don't recommend this route.

You don't need this much flow through the sump. It's requirements are significantly lower. It takes significantly more power ($$$) to push the water from the sump to the display than if you were to just push the water around in the display (no head). And finally the long drop of the drain line will generate more noise and more bubbles the more flow you shove down it. Those battles can be won, but there a more economical way to do it.

A better route is to use a closed loop or a stream pump like a seio, tunze stream, or the DIY maxi stream mod. For closed loop check out melev's HOB design: http://www.melevsreef.com/closedloop.html

Don't get me wrong, It can be done, I think it's cheaper and quieter to do it another way.

2) I agree HOB overflows are scary and ugly! Don't use one. But there is good reason for having an internal overflow box of some sort. The reason is surface skimming. The organic scum in your water has a tendency to rise to the surface and form a thin later on the very top of your water. This layer is the best stuff to send down to the skimmer to clean. Making an overflow pretty is a creative art, but you are in the right place. RC's DIY have created some marvels. If only search would work for us lowly cheapskates!

But having the box creates a perimiter that the water must flow over. The larger the perimeter the thinner the layer. You see where I'm going right. The box must be big enough to have significant perimeter.

Gool luck and keep on sketching!!

[Flobajob]

There may be a problem if you split the return where one exit gets all the flow and the other gets hardly any. What I mean is that if the head pressure is a lot more for one exit than the other, the exit with less head pressure will get nearly all the flow from the pump, whilst you will get very little water movement from the second exit (I think). That's why you want to keep the two return exits at the same height.