Horizontal overflow (aka Calfo or coast-to-coast)

[dave]

I picked up an undrilled 60gl cube and am thinking about using a horizontal overflow.

See this link for a description of it...
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>

Has anyone here ever built one?

 

[bobz]

Pretty cool idea! thanks for sharing it. Let me know how it goes.
Bob

 

[glxtrix]

Never built one, I've seen them however. I hope to put one in my next tank.

 

[johnr2604]

I have seen them before and actually talked to Anthony Calfo about them while I was helping him unload books out of his truck at MACNA. They look like they will provide great surface skimming. My only concern would be getting shadowing along the back if you dont do it externally.

 

[kwl1763]

Do it externally. I had my tank built with an external 6 ft long on the back of my 10ft tank and love it!

 

[jgoal55]

johnr2604;229536 wrote: I have seen them before and actually talked to Anthony Calfo about them while I was helping him unload books out of his truck at MACNA. They look like they will provide great surface skimming. My only concern would be getting shadowing along the back if you dont do it externally.

Any reason why you couldn't extend the overflow box all the way down the back wall? That would solve your shadowing issue. Also, how far from the back wall does that overflow box extend?

 

[johnr2604]

Jgoal55;229589 wrote: Any reason why you couldn't extend the overflow box all the way down the back wall? That would solve your shadowing issue. Also, how far from the back wall does that overflow box extend?

If you extended the depth of the tank then it would take up alot of Display room. Other than that I dont see why you couldn't do that. I would guess you need about 3-4 inches to allow room for the plumbing such as removing/installing bulkheads and elbows. The best option is to have an external one but the tank has to be made for that.

 

[lorenk]

johnr2604;229594 wrote: If you extended the depth of the tank then it would take up alot of Display room. Other than that I dont see why you couldn't do that. I would guess you need about 3-4 inches to allow room for the plumbing such as removing/installing bulkheads and elbows. The best option is to have an external one but the tank has to be made for that.

Think about the all-in-ones...there is some interesting things you could do in the back if you could afford to sacrifice 4" of depth. I wouldn't do it on a long tank, but for some of the short/fat ones like a 120g it might be okay. I think Cameron posted a concept picture once.

 

[derek_s]

I dont think shadowing would be a problem at all if you aquascape like most people do by making a rock pile type setup. The far rear of the tank doesnt recieve high intensity light anyways unless your reflectors are high off the water. I know with my T5's the rocks on top back get lower light. It's not until you get 8" or so away from the back that it gets really intense. But that all has to do with my bulb arrangement (10k vs blue+)

 

[johnr2604]

corvettecris;229638 wrote: I dont think shadowing would be a problem at all if you aquascape like most people do by making a rock pile type setup. The far rear of the tank doesnt recieve high intensity light anyways unless your reflectors are high off the water. I know with my T5's the rocks on top back get lower light. It's not until you get 8" or so away from the back that it gets really intense. But that all has to do with my bulb arrangement (10k vs blue+)

If you brought the rock up to the very bottom of the overflow all the way across then You are right. The one thing I regret doing in my 30 cube is going with a short overflow box. If you look at my build on that tank I have shadowing under it. It could be overcome but that is the only disadvantage that I see on them. Other than that I think they are awsome.

 

[mojo]

I think it's a good idea, although not a new one. I do laugh at the "100% failsafe design" - nothing in this hobby is 100% failure proof. I've had plenty of floods to prove it...

 

[dave]

johnr2604;229536 wrote: I have seen them before and actually talked to Anthony Calfo about them while I was helping him unload books out of his truck at MACNA. They look like they will provide great surface skimming. My only concern would be getting shadowing along the back if you dont do it externally.

John - I agree so my intent is to make it as narrow as I can.

 

[dave]

dawgdude;229535 wrote: UGH! Are you gonna make me start my build thread early? I just put one on my 125. Ill run snap a pic of it and post it.

Dude - Give us details!!! Did you make it out of glass or acrylic? Does it extend the entire length? What size ore the buckheads and piping? I need ANSWERS...I want to build this weekend!

 

[johnr2604]

Dave;229749 wrote: John - I agree so my intent is to make it as narrow as I can.

Just throwing that out there so keep it in mind when you build it. Unlike the old Pontiac slogan narrower is better.

 

[dave]

johnr2604;229752 wrote: Just throwing that out there so keep it in mind when you build it. Unlike the old Pontiac slogan narrower is better.

For the rock I'm thinking something in an arch that goes up almost to the water line with lots of flat spots along the way for corals.

 

[dave]

dawgdude;229761 wrote: Dave, Its made from two pieces of acrylic and spans 4 of the 6 ft of the 125. One piece is bent on each end to form sides and teeth are cut in the top of that one. Then the other piece is the bottom piece of the overflow. It is dual 1" bulkheads with external dursos.

Ok...in my mind then your setup is not a Calfo because it has dual dursos. I think the Calfo feature I'm really interested in is that one of the pipes is running at full siphon while the other is a durso tuned to handle just a small amount of water that clings to the side of the pipe with no noise.

What got me started on this is that our 55gl is in my sons bedroom with a CPR overflow box. I have tuned it the best I can and while it doesn't "gurgle" it is a far cry from quite.

So, if I can get the 60gl with a Calfo to be noise free we'll go back and mod the 55gl too.

 

[dave]

Thanks Mr. Bean,
As an update...the tank is drilled, the black acrylic has arrived along with black elbows. All I need to do is put it together!!!

I'll start a build thread this week!

 

[cgill311]

BeanAnimal;251530 wrote:

Sure it is not a new idea, open channel (spillway) assisted siphons, underflow dams and similar concepts have been used for hundreds of years. Though that is not YOUR point. You are appear to be one of those guys that wants to be marginalize any idea that was not your own. You beat me and my design up in two sentances without saying anything meaningful about it.

Sure nothing is 100% fail-safe from EVERY frame of reference. But if you took your foot out of your mouth long enough to read and understand the design, you would find that it IS fail-safe for any reasonable single OR multiple point failure that you can throw at it. Adding any more fail-safe features is rather pointless due to the simple concept of diminishing returns.

Before you go postal, calm down. He wasn't attacking you at all. He's a really nice, generous guy that has done loads of work for this club. You like this fine webpage you're posting on? Guess who created it? Anyways, Chris has tons of experience in this hobby. You might want to listen to what he has to say.

 

[mojo]

BeanAnimal;251530 wrote:

I said that it was a good design. But it builds on existing ideas - multiple standpipes to handle the flow, and a third open pipe for emergencies.

Nothing in this hobby is 100% fail-safe. Hardly anything in the world is 100% fail-safe. Can you give a full guarantee that the seals around the bulkheads will never, ever leak? That the pipes will never leak? That the seams in the acrylic or glass will never weaken? That three fish will fall into the overflow at the same time and over up each of your three drains? No- there's always a minute chance that something</em> will happen.

Is it failsafe for all practical purposes? Absolutely. Is it 100% failsafe</em>? Nope - no complex system ever is. Even the search engine Google, who has literally hundreds of thousands of comptuers over dozens of geographic locations, doesn't have 100% uptime. Is your design 99.999% failsafe? Probably. I'm just saying that no complex system is 100% failsafe - you simply can't gaurantee that.

Again, is 99.999% enough for our systems? Absolutely. As an engineer, surely you can recognize the difference.


Lastly, I did have this idea and it's implemented in my current tank, starting in April of 2005, seven months before you did - I just used a full-height design. http://www.chrishorne.com/gallery/250Setup/P1010035">Here's a picture</a> of the bottom of my overflow. 5 holes- one for the majority of the flow, [IMG]http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckhorne/2047978404/sizes/o/in/set-72157600766390112/">controlled by a gate valve</a>, one for the durso, and a 2" higher than the rest for an emergency. The last two are for a return and future use. I didn't write up a specific web page about it, but it's practically the same design. And it's not 100% failsafe, either. :)


Kudos to you for writing up a web page about the design - very nicely done. :yay:

 

[mojo]

Those failure modes have nothing to do with the operation or failure of the overflow functionality. They are other system failures that can certainly be catastrophic.

My apologies, then. I assumed that your design used bulkheads or some other mechanical means to move water from the overflow to the pipes.

If we negate all the parts that make up the system, then sure, we can agree that "water flowing downhill" is 100% failsafe.

I never said it was. I said I came up with a design that is 100% silent and fail-safe for just about any type of failure or group of failures that could be imagined.</em> I make sure to keep the context of the intended use and fathomable failures that occur in our hobby.

100% silent, too? As in 0 dB? Hmm... I don't think I'll touch this one!