Calfo - coast to coast overflow

[FutureInterest]

So... I'm in the design phase of a new tank. I'm wondering what you experienced reefers think about a coast to coast overflow. Does anyone here run one? Any opinions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[hhv00586]

I built one for my 150g and think its great. It skims the entire surface and does not consume a large footprint

The drain system is almost silent

One mistake I have is that as the overflow is only 6" deep, my automatic water changing system I built into the sump can only remove water upto the overflow teeth.

If I was doing it again I would add another hole/bulkhead near the bottom of the tank with a valve so I could easily siphon of more water automatically for cleaning

 

[crew]

I love the idea of a coast-to-coast.

As far as drainage - are you thinking herbie? bean-animal? or something more traditional? I'm running the herbie method and there are definitely pros and cons. It's whisper quiet, which is nice, but it's certainly more complex than a traditional setup and probably riskier too.

 

[FutureInterest]

I'm really digging the bean animal overflow. It looks like the way to go. I'm not sure how large the plumbing needs to be though. The tank I'm thinking about right now will be 130 x 25 x 24. Not sure if that'll be the final build size but it'll be around that volume. Any thoughts on how wide the plumbing should be?

 

[crew]

depends on what you want in terms of turnover, really. Because you are running full siphon, you are moving much more water than a typical drain system. I'm running two, 1" drains and they are both about 2/3 open using ball valves. My emergency is 1.5" with no ball valves and it can handle a full blockage of the two main drains.

 

[FutureInterest]

Aye. Good point. I'll have to do some more research on recommended turnover rates before I can solve what pipe size to use. Thanks .

Thanks hhv for the suggestion on water changes. I hadn't fully considered that.

 

[enderg60]

One of the things I wish I had done ordering my current tank was a coast to coast external overflow with a bean animal drain setup (basically what crew posted)

I have dual overflows now with the bean drain and it works great but cant handle squat for flow (might be pushing 600 gph through my 300g tank right now and that sucks.)

 

[crew]

EnderG60;1058792 wrote: I have dual overflows now with the bean drain and it works great but cant handle squat for flow (might be pushing 600 gph through my 300g tank right now and that sucks.)

I'm running dual overflows too. Are the drains your bottleneck? Two, 1" drains at full siphon will push 1200 GPH each if they are fully open.

 

[crew]

Here is a calculator I found on the beananimal site. According to this, I was pretty low on my estimates as my two drains, fully open, would run about 5,000 GPH.

 

[hhv00586]

This is exactly my setup

http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx">http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx</a>

I run three 1.5" drains, one being the emergency and I control the flow rate from the valves
I have had no issues so far and once I got the flow tuned to match my return capacity it has run great

 

[ralph atl]

FutureInterest;1058758 wrote: So... I'm in the design phase of a new tank. I'm wondering what you experienced reefers think about a coast to coast overflow. Does anyone here run one? Any opinions?

Thanks in advance.

I have one, and I love it!

 

[grouper therapy]

EnderG60;1058792 wrote: One of the things I wish I had done ordering my current tank was a coast to coast external overflow with a bean animal drain setup (basically what crew posted)

I have dual overflows now with the bean drain and it works great but cant handle squat for flow (might be pushing 600 gph through my 300g tank right now and that sucks.)

Lower the full siphon tube in the overflow. The lower from the above water line the greater the pressure. Make sure the sump can handle the overflow box volume.

 

[enderg60]

Crew;1058804 wrote: I'm running dual overflows too. Are the drains your bottleneck? Two, 1" drains at full siphon will push 1200 GPH each if they are fully open.

grouper therapy;1058930 wrote: Lower the full siphon tube in the overflow. The lower from the above water line the greater the pressure. Make sure the sump can handle the overflow box volume.

Its a problem that seems to be exclusive to the marine land deep dimensions tanks and is two separate issues. First, the open area between the teeth of the overflow are very restrictive. They will not handle more than about 1200 gph before you start to overflow the tank. I would remove the teeth but I dont want critters getting into the overflow.

Secondly if I run more flow than the tank fills so the center braces are in the water which makes 2/3 of the tank surface trapped between them so I get slime on the surface and it looks like crap. :mad2: Just bad design really.

Basically the only way to fix it is to modify the overflows, which would require a breakdown to do and at this point if I was going to do that Id replace the tank.

I just make up for the lack of turnover with the closed loop, hasnt really been an issue for the system just annoys me.

 

[Adam]

I just got a tank. It's an undrilled 220 and I'm going to use a 125 for the sump. My plan is to put weir in that is a 45 degree black or smoked piece of glass going c2c. This will drain into an external box.

I'm going to start a thread soon asking if anyone near Duluth would be will to come over and go over my plan with me before I break out the drill and silicone

 

[spike]

Jin,

Been a long time since I last saw you post. Great to see you are back around. You still into wrasses?
I was over to your place more than a few times years ago. Unbelievable tank, still one of my all time favorites.

 

[seth the wine guy]

You are welcome to come see mine. Depending on where you are in Suwanee, you may be close to me. My major regret is not doing the C2C on the exterior. A six inch box on a 24" wide tank sucks. It essentially eats 25% of your real estate.

I saw your thinking of an in wall. I'm doing an in wall of a sort for my next build. I've spent exhaustive hours in the plans. I might be able to talk you through what I'm doing and why since I learned a lot of lessons with this tank that I set up about 5 years ago.

I've changed/upgraded much of the equipment, but the pictures might help you envision things better. My next build will appear over the next year.

 

[FutureInterest]

Wow nice! I think you've just raised the bar with that bar tank...

PM sent. Thanks!