Overflow advice
 

Hey fellow reefers

Need some input to help my buddy out with his 90 Gallon cube tank.
It's drilled in the center and he is building an overflow there , to ensure the ABS 8" pipe adhere's to the glass what is his best way of doing so ?

Thanks

Best way would be not to use plastic and build the overflow from glass like you're suppose to. If that's not an option all you can really do is silicone it and hope for the best, but I wouldn't recomend it.

Agreed, 3 pieces of glass will only run you about 30-40 bucks (depending on size and supplier) and will save you a bunch of problems. Remember to leave about an 1/8 inch between panes for silicone. dont want glass on glass.

Silicone doesn't stick to ABS very well. But if you scuff the mating surface with sandpaper, it will increase the "tooth" and the silicones grip. I am asuming he wants a nice round looking overflow in the middle of his tank? It is easy to build a box on the back wall out of glass too though. Silicone really sticks to glass well. Any glass shop will cut the pieces needed and they won't cost much at all.

big flood when the weak bond to the ABS lets go, use glass.

Ive siliconed ABS overflows in and no issues. on 22" water heights too. Heck, look at alot of corner Overflow tanks. Whats the overflow made of? ABS, and siliconed to the glass......


Also, only flood issue would possibly be on a power outage IF the silicone let go. But let me tell you, where I live, I get 10-12 outages a year, some for hrs at a time. Never one did my tank have an issue. If you have a standpipe style drain in the overflow you won't drain the whole tank anyways..

I've siliconed a piece of acrylic to the corner of my sump to hold my ATO but know I could easily pull it out by hand. If it was glass to glass be looking at a fight with razor blades. Also in the corner you have the support of the sides and bottom edges, this was described as sitting in the middle if the tank. Not saying it wouldn't work but there's better ways to do things.

What size bulkhead has he drilled for? does he have a sump return bulkhead near by also?

There are lots of ways to do this better and not what we are suppose to do, that's the easy way out, why don't we think about what we need to do and then figure it out, using and taking up space with a glass box in the middle of the tank is both wasteful and expensive, re-think the problem, make your mind work and come up with a better solution, and save money.

And who says were SUPPOSED to use a certain product anyways? Where would we be if no one broke from convention? Just because Joey and Billy use it, does it mean you have to too?

You could do this, this would be as safe as a church and save you a ton of real estate .

http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/...otions/of2.jpg


http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/...otions/ov1.jpg


http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/...ns/nov13-1.jpg


http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/...ns/nov13-3.jpg


http://i1008.photobucket.com/albums/...ns/nov13-4.jpg

Paul, I LIKE that!, Coming to the market soon by chance???

That's a cool idea, especially for a cube with the drain hole in the middle.

You don't get a safe bond with ABS to silicone. While I would never silicone plastics, the safest way to do it is to epoxy the ABS and bond the epoxy and glass tank together with silicone. Epoxy sticks to plastics, silicone sticks to epoxy.

Wow , thanks everyone and Paul wonderful idea , I am going to force my buddy to do that :P lol
Told him to look at this thread casue all you guys have great advice

Thanks

ahah I love how you're half arguing with urself ;)

Very cool. I see the threads on the side of the bulk head but how does it attach to the output inside the tube?

I don't see how I was arguing or contradicting myself. I said it doesnt stick to ABS Very Well Then I said I have used it with No issues.

Meaning, even though it does not stick as well to ABS as glass, I had NO ISSUES!! Meaning, in my overflow setup, it never exceeded the bond strength!

Where is the arguing with myself???

ahah I just found it kinda of amusing the way it came across to me b/c in my mind if something doesn't work very well then typically you should expect issues by the very definitions of the words.

I know you can make things work in less than ideal circumstances (sanding etc.) but I'd just prefer the ideal circumstances.

Not trying to start something just amusing how it was set up sounding like you were not really for it "not very well" but then it all of a sudden sounded like you became all for it "no issues" Like your first post was from one person and the next was from another... just how it sounded to me :)

But I do get what you're saying. It's not the best bond in the world but in your experience it seems to work very well for the application as you have had no issues.

Personally, I still wouldn't do it.

It's a secret :)

nothing wrong with building a square/rectangular box in the middle (see here).