Coast to Coast Overflow Advice Please!!

[GoldFinger]

Hey Guys I have a customs tank being built 84"x30"x28" and was going to use 2 fluval FX6's but have been swayed by almost everyone to do a sump. I'm planning on having an Arowana and possibly discus and a ray. My thought is to do a coast to coast overflow with the bean animal method. Here are my questions:
1) where can I find an overflow box this length and how do I properly size it?
2) would you recommend I have the glass company make me an internal or external one out of glass? (I have the room)
3) would it be cool to do one in the middle maybe 6 feet long leaving 6 inches on ether side to put the returns in rather than drilling through the back and front of the overflow?
4) should I just buy a dog
Thanks so much guys!

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

I like idea number 3 but can't really give any advice because I don't have any experience with them.

 

[robham777]

I will have to defer to others with actual experience with a ctc set up, but one thing you may want to consider first is bulkhead placement if you have not already. Tanks drilled from the back will require additional space behind the tank for plumbing while bottom drilled tanks can be virtually flush to the wall. Depending on the layout of the area you are setting it up in this may or may not make a difference.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

Honestly, before we get into choosing a type of overflow for you, we should really get some more information from you about the tank. The main thing I'm thinking of is noise.

Is the tank going to be located in a part of the house that noise will regularly be heard? Basically, is noise something you're concerned about? I would urge you to think hard about this because you might not think running water is a big deal now, but if you set it up and have running water noise, it might get to you within a few days/weeks/months.

I originally had my tank setup thinking that the noise was no big deal. I had a straight three drains that were not setup as siphons and just surface skimmed. My returns also had a siphon break that was above the water pointing down into it. It wasn't deafening loud or anything, but within a day it was clear that the noise coming from it was not going to work with it being in one of the main rooms of the house. I then had to setup a dual herbie drain with emergency overflow and that got rid of all of the water noise. Then, you could hear the hum of my pumps, which were regular AC pond pumps. Over the next few days it became apparent that the hum was getting annoying and I set out in search of new pumps. I settled on the Jebao DCP 8000's, which I only need to run at about 60%. These were silent and that was the last change I had to make to have my aquarium complete silent.

I mention this story to share my experience and explain that you can save yourself some headaches if you consider all of these things before you set it up for the first time.

 

[GoldFinger]

Honestly, before we get into choosing a type of overflow for you, we should really get some more information from you about the tank. The main thing I'm thinking of is noise.

Is the tank going to be located in a part of the house that noise will regularly be heard? Basically, is noise something you're concerned about? I would urge you to think hard about this because you might not think running water is a big deal now, but if you set it up and have running water noise, it might get to you within a few days/weeks/months.

I originally had my tank setup thinking that the noise was no big deal. I had a straight three drains that were not setup as siphons and just surface skimmed. My returns also had a siphon break that was above the water pointing down into it. It wasn't deafening loud or anything, but within a day it was clear that the noise coming from it was not going to work with it being in one of the main rooms of the house. I then had to setup a dual herbie drain with emergency overflow and that got rid of all of the water noise. Then, you could hear the hum of my pumps, which were regular AC pond pumps. Over the next few days it became apparent that the hum was getting annoying and I set out in search of new pumps. I settled on the Jebao DCP 8000's, which I only need to run at about 60%. These were silent and that was the last change I had to make to have my aquarium complete silent.

I mention this story to share my experience and explain that you can save yourself some headaches if you consider all of these things before you set it up for the first time.

From what I gather herbie drains and bean animal are just as quiet with BA adding an extra emergency drain. From the diagrams I have seen it looks like a herbie drain needs to be deeper than a BA in order to stay quiet and not vortex, correct? This is why I would do BA to keep my overflow slightly shallower in size. Noise is definitely something I'd like to keep at a minimum and space is not an issue as I have the tank set up so the back of it is in a storage room with a laundry tub next to the tank and a hub in the floor to tie in the sump emergency overflow.

 

[GoldFinger]

From what I gather herbie drains and bean animal are just as quiet with BA adding an extra emergency drain. From the diagrams I have seen it looks like a herbie drain needs to be deeper than a BA in order to stay quiet and not vortex, correct? This is why I would do BA to keep my overflow slightly shallower in size. Noise is definitely something I'd like to keep at a minimum and space is not an issue as I have the tank set up so the back of it is in a storage room with a laundry tub next to the tank and a hub in the floor to tie in the sump emergency overflow.

Essentially I have room and available funds, within reason, to do whatever works best. Let me be your test monkey guys I'm here to build whatever you guys wished you had after making mistakes or learning new methods!

 

[DN328]

Gold, as mentioned by Travis, I'd step one more step back. Will your tank be viewed from the common one side in the front and two sides?

Im no expert, but learned alot having mine built about 3 years ago.

If the cutom tank builders are legit, I would just provide them inputs to what design you want based on research and information here. They typically will use acrylic or polycarbonate for the ctc/overflow. Some do you tinted glass too. You care how close the tank sits to a wall? If you have the option i prefer all plumbing below tank rather than behind. Best is in another room, but that's a different story.

We'll deal with equipment later once you get the basic design. Again, I dont think you'll go wrong with BA or Herbie. I have Herbie drain and returns running through the internal overflow and it's silent. It sits in my living room.

Also ctc isn't the only design, you could just have dual overflow. I had to go with an overflow front to back on one end because of peninsula.

Ask away ;-)

 

[DN328]

We posted at the same time so ignore some of my questions you answered.

 

[GoldFinger]

Gold, as mentioned by Travis, I'd step one more step back. Will your tank be viewed from the common one side in the front and two sides?

Im no expert, but learned alot having mine built about 3 years ago.

If the cutom tank builders are legit, I would just provide them inputs to what design you want based on research and information here. They typically will use acrylic or polycarbonate for the ctc/overflow. Some do you tinted glass too. You care how close the tank sits to a wall? If you have the option i prefer all plumbing below tank rather than behind. Best is in another room, but that's a different story.

We'll deal with equipment later once you get the basic design. Again, I dont think you'll go wrong with BA or Herbie. I have Herbie drain and returns running through the internal overflow and it's silent. It sits in my living room.

Also ctc isn't the only design, you could just have dual overflow. I had to go with an overflow front to back on one end because of peninsula.

Ask away ;-)

I have unlimited room below and behind the tank. The tank will only be viewed from the front and halfway on either side. I like the surface skimming feature of longer overflows/ctc and prefer not to have tank space taken from duel overflows if possible. CtC are longer but higher up and obviously at the back of the tank making them less intrusive in my rookie opinion. Again not sure if herbie can work in a shallow CtC.

 

[Woefulrelic]

I'd look into wider depth if you wanna do rays and aro. Especially if you lose some width to the C2C. Glass is also cut in 8ft sheets so going to 8ft length could be more ideal. You will have to remove the door and hinges to get that inside unless you have double doors or something of that nature, 24" tall seems more reliable for moving these things to me. If you're getting a custom tank you should size it to your long term goals, especially if your gonna be dropping a couple gs on new. 96"x48"x24" tall would be my goal if financially feasible, even a silver aro would end up looking like a busted biscuit can full size in a 30".