Pros/Cons of external (builtin) overflow

[Delphinus]

No, not against drilling... It's just that I've seen a few overflows where the glass was notched lower and the overflow was on the outside of the tank instead of the inside; and because the glass was notched there's no U-tube.

Deb's trig tank is setup this way .. it's really cool. With the box part being on the outside only, all the available tank volume is available to the display. Whereas in the traditional internal overflow you have to work around it.

[AJ_77]

mmm... dual external overflows...


"DEO"


dude!

[danny zubot]

I've seen Deb's in wall tank, its pretty cool.

[mr_alberta]

Have you ever considered using a fake back panel in your tank that acts as the overflow?

For example, the physical dimension of my tank is 30" deep, but the display area is only 24" deep. When looking at my tank from the front it looks like there is no overflow when in fact, what you see as the back wall of the tank is in fact the overflow. So my external overflow box is
(the height of the tank) x (length of the tank) x 6"W.

[Willow]

Originally Posted by newguy

Have you ever considered using a fake back panel in your tank that acts as the overflow?

For example, the physical dimension of my tank is 30" deep, but the display area is only 24" deep. When looking at my tank from the front it looks like there is no overflow when in fact, what you see as the back wall of the tank is in fact the overflow. So my external overflow box is
(the height of the tank) x (length of the tank) x 6"W.

its called coast to coast.

[Fish]

Tony,
I chose external for the reasons already mentioned. My tank is onl a 20h so I could not afford to give up any more real estate inside the tank. I would go with an external overflow regardless of tank size. Another advantage is that you can have more overflow area than you would with an internal. The "coast to coast" is a good idea. It would result in only the thinnest layer of surface water being skimmed off the top. No buildup and much more efficient for your protein skimmer. I think.

- Chad

[danny zubot]

I though Coast to Coast was notching out the entire back panel to drian into full length overflow box. Thus no sacrifice of tank size.