Laura's Diy Projects

[bordercollie05]

I've been investigating the PVC overflows some more and I think I'm gonna at least build one and see how it works. It seems like the easiest way to do this without drilling my tank. (and cheapest too!).

I've been looking at a lot of marine overflows, etc and there are sooo many versions of the overflow! Its really amazing.

My new question, is that I'm not sure of the best pump to use for my set up (as a return). I've got a 20H as my display tank and I'm using a ten gallon for the sump. The sump probably won't hold more than 6-7 gallons at a time with the way I've built it (unless the power goes out...in which case it'll probably fill up.) Anyway, I'd like to put all of this in a cabinet at some point. I've been thinking that the bottom of the tank would be about 36" high. Plus the tank is about 17" high. That puts me at about 4.5 feet to get the water in the tank.

I've been reading about flow rate in the marine threads that discuss pumps, but I don't know how important that is in freshwater. If I understand correctly, flow rate is the flow the pump would put out after head is taken into account right? Do I need to worry about this or should I just get a pump capable of 6' head (assuming it can't do the max all the time...)?


Thanks!

Laura

 

[piper]

Laura good effort but those lights do not look like IP65 or IP64 (min) rated. Unless you cover the bootom of the hood with some clear plastic I would personally remove them. A few splashs form the fish and you could have a nice electrical fire or your hands. Unless the existing hood protects them

Just my advise.

 

[Arachnidzone]

Hi Laura and all. I purchaced a load of ex-aquarium tanks, all were drilled. Some in the bases and some in the backs. Loads of various pvc piping came with it so had loads of oportunity to experiment.

2 pumps would not work as you could never get the 2 to pump at exactly the same rate. Either too much would go down or too much would go up and one or the other would overfolow.

1 returm pump is all thats needed and especially with a hole in the back (or side) of the tank overflow in a powerout is impossible. The return pump causes the overflow to overflow so an outage just stops the entire system. The overflow would continue for a few minutes slowly reducing to a trickle and this DEFINITELY has to be planned for when you set up the levels in your sump. When you first fill the sump take it an inch or 2 below the top of the sump tank and make a line so that if extra filter medium is added to the sump, or extra water/fish/decoration etc added to the main tank the power-off lever must not be greater than this. Basically with the power off you have the surface area of the tank multiplied by the diameter of the overflow pipe used which will all flood into the sump.

I like drilled backs or sides for overflows as in a long powerout you can only ever loose water down to the level of the bottom of the hole. With bottom drilled tanks if your seal isnt 100% around the hole, or within the various pipe connections within the tank, the slightest tiny little leak can drain much more water out over time meaning overflow of the sump or drips on your floor.

Thats my opinion but im an experimenter/designer/adaptor not an expert. But an expert usually advises the expert way which is more costly, less fool-proof and much much lower margins for error. I try and devise easy, cheap, effective.

Hope it helps!

Oh and lighting wise if you do change for safety reasons i would just for for the usual flourescent tube behind glass/plastic. Still low wattage and low heat. Or if you can get them theres some great waterproof LEDs etc which are made from LED companies now. I use some in my high-humidity snake enclosures no problems. LEDs are much lower wattage than even the best CF energy saver, less fragile, cheaper, low voltage so safer. Possibly (Or usually) require a little more work but once finished its worth while!

 

[Arachnidzone]

Oh and if you go sump dont forget to add a wet/dry section as its so easy to integrate you may as well.

A very cheap D.I.Y. version can be as simple as a tall bucket, cut a load of holes around the bottom and fill it with bio balls up to about 4 inch from top. Put another bucket inside the first ontop of the bio balls and cut loads of small holes in the bottom of this one which will diffuse the water over the surface of the filer media underneath as well as catching all the splashes.

Look for different items to use instead of a bucket of construct a glass or actrlic one if you have the cash.

 

[bordercollie05]

Laura good effort but those lights do not look like IP65 or IP64 (min) rated. Unless you cover the bootom of the hood with some clear plastic I would personally remove them. A few splashs form the fish and you could have a nice electrical fire or your hands. Unless the existing hood protects them

Just my advise.

Thanks, but this has already been discussed earlier up. They're on a plastic cover that came with my former light. I would never put uncovered lights over a fish tank.....

Eventually the plastic cover will be replaced with something a bit nicer looking .

 

[bordercollie05]

I like drilled backs or sides for overflows as in a long powerout you can only ever loose water down to the level of the bottom of the hole. With bottom drilled tanks if your seal isnt 100% around the hole, or within the various pipe connections within the tank, the slightest tiny little leak can drain much more water out over time meaning overflow of the sump or drips on your floor.

Oh and lighting wise if you do change for safety reasons i would just for for the usual flourescent tube behind glass/plastic. Still low wattage and low heat. Or if you can get them theres some great waterproof LEDs etc which are made from LED companies now. I use some in my high-humidity snake enclosures no problems. LEDs are much lower wattage than even the best CF energy saver, less fragile, cheaper, low voltage so safer. Possibly (Or usually) require a little more work but once finished its worth while!

Hi, thanks for your response. The more I read, the more I would prefer a drilled tank. However, I've already got my tank . Do you have any experience with drilling yourself?

For now I'm going to try to use a pvc overflow, I've got the stuff, just haven't put it together yet. The only thing I'm unsure of about this version is how it restarts when power comes back on. But the threads I've read swear by it, so I'm just gonna experiment a bit.

Also, I chose the lights I've got for their fairly high light output compared to wattage and space. From what I've read, watts are just an adaptation for easy measuring when it comes to planted tanks. (i.e. 2 watts per gallon is on the low end of medium light...) Really the important thing to consider is lumens per area. This is comprable to the "density" of light in your tank. Another important factor is color temperature, which tells the range of color you'll get out of the light. In planted tanks, we want this to be at least 1600K.

It would be interesting to know a bit more about LED's. I'm not sure of their color temp or lumen output, etc. I also am not sure if anyone else has ever used them for a planted tank, but it would be very interesting to hear about.

Laura

Oh and if you go sump dont forget to add a wet/dry section as its so easy to integrate you may as well.

A very cheap D.I.Y. version can be as simple as a tall bucket, cut a load of holes around the bottom and fill it with bio balls up to about 4 inch from top. Put another bucket inside the first ontop of the bio balls and cut loads of small holes in the bottom of this one which will diffuse the water over the surface of the filer media underneath as well as catching all the splashes.

Look for different items to use instead of a bucket of construct a glass or actrlic one if you have the cash.

Thanks for the tips. I've already built my sump and it does contain a wet/dry portion. I built it inside a ten gallon tank using some plexiglass. I'll get pictures up sometime in the near future.

I have seen the design for the bucket version, and was very close to trying that instead. Maybe that will be my next homemade filter

Laura

 

[Arachnidzone]

Laura, Good that you have most of it completed. In future also consider having a sump (inapropriatly titles in this instance) above the main tank. I have a 24"x8"x8" filter tank above my 6ftx18"x18" tank. It currently houses a large softshell turtle whos quite messy so an external filters the water out, through a load of alpha grog and sponge, then into the filter tank with more alphagrog, bio balls and sponge, then falls back into the main tank. 1 main bonus is if the drain blocks the water would still overflow over the sides of the filtertank into the main tank below as this tnak is suspended above the main tank.

Possibly harder to hide the 'loft-tank' then it is to hide a sump but sometimes not. Worth a consideration in the future.

Look forward to more photos...

 

[bordercollie05]

Laura, Good that you have most of it completed. In future also consider having a sump (inapropriatly titles in this instance) above the main tank. I have a 24"x8"x8" filter tank above my 6ftx18"x18" tank. It currently houses a large softshell turtle whos quite messy so an external filters the water out, through a load of alpha grog and sponge, then into the filter tank with more alphagrog, bio balls and sponge, then falls back into the main tank. 1 main bonus is if the drain blocks the water would still overflow over the sides of the filtertank into the main tank below as this tnak is suspended above the main tank.

Possibly harder to hide the 'loft-tank' then it is to hide a sump but sometimes not. Worth a consideration in the future.

Look forward to more photos...

That would be really cool. Would you mind posting a picture of yours? I'll definitely give it a shot next time around.

 

[Arachnidzone]

That would be really cool. Would you mind posting a picture of yours? I'll definitely give it a shot next time around.

I will see if i can do a photo, all a mess at the moment at our house as selling everything to emigrate so tidiness is not practical. This tank of mine in particular has all sorts of spares, bits etc strewn on top...

Here is an old pic of the above-sump at its original purpose which was to house the Solf shell turtle (Tallulah) when it was young. There was a tank full of tropicals underneath at the time, one the turtle got bigger i swapped things round and she went into the 6ft below and then the top bit became the sump...

Its silica sand if your wondering. Left overs from my marine days! You can just about see the overflow on the left hidden by the fake roots.

 

[bordercollie05]

That's really interesting, I'll have to try it out sometime. Good luck with your move, I've been reading your thread about th custom tank . Looks cool!

Laura

 

[bordercollie05]

Just a little update and a few new questions.

I've got the PVC overflow built, like this: http/www.3reef.com/forums/attachments/i-...erflowmydry.jpg

Thats not mine, but that's what mine looks like. My problem is that I'm only getting just a tiny trickle of water to come through. The siphon will prime itself in the event of a power outage, I tested that a few times. However, my pump is much much faster than the siphon....any suggestions?

I don't know if it matters but I used 3/4" PVC.

I'll post pictures in the next day or two.

Thanks for any help!

Laura

 

[andywg]

1 returm pump is all thats needed and especially with a hole in the back (or side) of the tank overflow in a powerout is impossible. The return pump causes the overflow to overflow so an outage just stops the entire system. The overflow would continue for a few minutes slowly reducing to a trickle and this DEFINITELY has to be planned for when you set up the levels in your sump. When you first fill the sump take it an inch or 2 below the top of the sump tank and make a line so that if extra filter medium is added to the sump, or extra water/fish/decoration etc added to the main tank the power-off lever must not be greater than this. Basically with the power off you have the surface area of the tank multiplied by the diameter of the overflow pipe used which will all flood into the sump.

Or, if you just want to do it really simply: Put all the media in the sump. Fill up the display tank (slowly at the end) until it just starts to overflow. Once it starts to overflow start filling the sump all the way up. This is now the levels the system will return to with the return pump off. Now just fire up the return pump, wait an hour and mark a line on the sump, this then gives you a top up marker.

I like drilled backs or sides for overflows as in a long powerout you can only ever loose water down to the level of the bottom of the hole. With bottom drilled tanks if your seal isnt 100% around the hole, or within the various pipe connections within the tank, the slightest tiny little leak can drain much more water out over time meaning overflow of the sump or drips on your floor.

In my experience, side and back drilled tanks are less easy to get silent than bottom drilled tanks and take up less room around the tank, that is why I prefer bottom drilled.

Hi, thanks for your response. The more I read, the more I would prefer a drilled tank. However, I've already got my tank . Do you have any experience with drilling yourself?

I have drilled numerous holes in many tanks without any real problems. Just buy the right bits from ebay (about £5 delivered) and take it slow. There's at least one picture thread (by me) and a video thread on how to drill a tank.

Thats not mine, but that's what mine looks like. My problem is that I'm only getting just a tiny trickle of water to come through. The siphon will prime itself in the event of a power outage, I tested that a few times. However, my pump is much much faster than the siphon....any suggestions?

I don't know if it matters but I used 3/4" PVC.

That is very small pipework. I always have at least 25mm pipe (which is about 1") and for any decent sized tank this will go up to 32 or 40mm. If your pipework is 3/4" I would wager it is too small to handle the return pump.

 

[bordercollie05]

Thats not mine, but that's what mine looks like. My problem is that I'm only getting just a tiny trickle of water to come through. The siphon will prime itself in the event of a power outage, I tested that a few times. However, my pump is much much faster than the siphon....any suggestions?

I don't know if it matters but I used 3/4" PVC.

That is very small pipework. I always have at least 25mm pipe (which is about 1") and for any decent sized tank this will go up to 32 or 40mm. If your pipework is 3/4" I would wager it is too small to handle the return pump.

Thanks andywg,

I could understand the pvc being too small, but I don't understand why such a small stream comes out of the pipe. Is the stream of water coming out always that much smaller than the diameter of the pvc? I can definitely try the 1" if you think it will fix my problem. Thanks again for all of your input!

Laura