I wonder how I can make this work on an 8' long overflow?

What would be the problem? I connected 3 tanks together...150 gallons. All three pipes dump into my refugium.

My question would be where to locate the drains, how many drains. Would I do 4 main and 2 emergency or just 2 & 1?


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You only need 3.

At 5700 GPH my main siphon is 95% open. If I made it 100% open it would suck the overflow dry.

The way you set it is to set the main siphon so it is slightly slower than the flow of water entering the overflow.

Then you set the secondary open so it will suck up just enough to keep the water level from rising. If the water level rises to the point where it reaches the airline, the secondary also goes full siphon.

If for some reason the first two are clogged the emergency, which is never used, will go full siphon.

So really there are 2 fail safes. Anymore drains than this are overkill.

OH OK, that makes sense now and great explanation of how it works. What I had originally thought of doing was to put a drain at each end of the coast to coast and have the c -c split in half, 4' feeding each overflow but doing this i could just put it in the middle of the tank with maybe 1' between each hole.

I really like how this look and it sounds like it works well to. I want to be able to feed my skimmer, reactors and if needed my chiller off my overflows so they get as much of the yukie goodness they can.

You'd want all the drains going to one place. Or at least your main one. The other 2 will have a minimal amount of water going through them.

Doesn't matter where in the coast to coast overflow you put the drains. I would space them out as much as possible but you can also put them right beside one another.

All the drains will be going to one place, thinking of putting in a short 3" piece of pipe at the end of all the drains to collect in and then take off for my skimmer & reactors.

Thanks so much for the info!! What kind of flex pipe did you use? Was it fairly easy to work with?

I am really digging the drop off you have going :thumb:

Grizz.
This what I did its the bees knees. Not a sound to be heard. It's exactly what gripenfelter was explaining
http://www.beananimal.com/projects/s...ow-system.aspx

I would recommend not connecting all the drains together. The point of this fail safe system is that if one pipe gets clogged you still have 2 back ups. If you connect them all together and they clog at the point where you connected all of them together you will have a swimming pool in your house.

Moved over 75% of the rock from the other tank. Did some aquascaping. My apartment complex (caves on the drop off) for the fishes is starting to take shape.
http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l...h/0cc6ecb9.jpg
Half of a tower/bridge I'm building.


http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l...h/a44789a2.jpg
Looking length-wise into the tank.


http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l...h/891a7711.jpg
The apartment complex.


http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l...h/c0e034d6.jpg
Slowly getting there.

Still need a lot more rock for the drop off. I'll be transferring more over today and hopefully some fish today or tomorrow and finish aquascaping this weekend.

Then add sand.

The side panels should arrive in 2 weeks. Went with black aluminum. A buddy of mine races circle track and uses black aluminum for the body panels on their race car so he's going to snag me some pieces.