any reason why it wouldnt work?

[grmanrocks]

so i want to add a wet-dry filter/sump to my 100 gallon, and was lookin at overflow boxes and price wise they r ridiculus!!! so i was thinking about running it in series with my rena filstar canister, just putting the canister's output into the sump and pumping it back to the tank? or mabe theres cheap plans of like a ovc overflow box lyin around on here somewhere?

 

[Phixer]

Your return pump would have to be closely matched to your canisters output otherwise if the rtn pump craps out on you it will flood because the canister is still trying to fill it. If the canister craps out the rtn pump will suck the sump dry and burn up.

Have you thought about drilling ports into the back of your tank and making a closed loop system? This way if your single rtn pump craps out on you, your sump wont over flow because the water level in the tank wont be high enough for the water to flow through the drilled ports into the sump. Hope this makes sense.

I think you can DIY this fairly inexpensive, problem can be drilling glass.

 

[canucksfan1]

u can build a diy overflow out of pvc and it required no drilling just do a search for
DIY overflow

 

[Dr Joe]

u can build a diy overflow out of pvc and it required no drilling just do a search for
DIY overflow

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15733

Dr Joe

.

 

[Oddball]

You can also buy a 600gph overflow box on ebay for under $30 new. I've bought used rigs for $5. The deals are out there if you look for them.

 

[Pburstrom]

I added a small refugium/sump combo to my 75 gallon reef without an overflow, maybe this could work for you. I found a used acrylic tank a the local flea market (my favorite fish "store"!) drilled two 3/4" holes, siliconed two barbed fitting for tubing, then located the tank slightly higher than the main tank. I used a power head from the main tank to pump in to the refugium (had the protein skimmer in there) and used the two tubes as a gravity fed return. The location of the two holes is important, they must be high enough that if the power head quits the tubes will lower the level enough to pull air and stop the refugium from overfilling the main tank. The purpose of two returns is the probability one will eventually be blocked (locate on the same plain or one slightly higher) The redundency of this worked great for 1 1/2 years until the main filter failed and crashed my tank (I always setup a backup filter now.) The main benefit I found from this setup was the ENORMOUS amount of copepods returned to the main tank with out running through a pump and being masticated. Filled with macro algae and an unbelievable number of copepods the tank was as much fun to watch as the main tank. You could easily do this with freshwater plants, some inexpensive lighting and possible some rapidly breeding shrimp such as cherries. The added "free" food in the form of the baby shrimp is a plus and the plants make for a nice natural filter. Just a thought.

 

[Euge]

I added a small refugium/sump combo to my 75 gallon reef without an overflow, maybe this could work for you. I found a used acrylic tank a the local flea market (my favorite fish "store"!) drilled two 3/4" holes, siliconed two barbed fitting for tubing, then located the tank slightly higher than the main tank. I used a power head from the main tank to pump in to the refugium (had the protein skimmer in there) and used the two tubes as a gravity fed return. The location of the two holes is important, they must be high enough that if the power head quits the tubes will lower the level enough to pull air and stop the refugium from overfilling the main tank. The purpose of two returns is the probability one will eventually be blocked (locate on the same plain or one slightly higher) The redundency of this worked great for 1 1/2 years until the main filter failed and crashed my tank (I always setup a backup filter now.) The main benefit I found from this setup was the ENORMOUS amount of copepods returned to the main tank with out running through a pump and being masticated. Filled with macro algae and an unbelievable number of copepods the tank was as much fun to watch as the main tank. You could easily do this with freshwater plants, some inexpensive lighting and possible some rapidly breeding shrimp such as cherries. The added "free" food in the form of the baby shrimp is a plus and the plants make for a nice natural filter. Just a thought.

that sounds interesting. do you think you can post some pics?

sorry for hijackin your thread grmanrocks.

 

[Pburstrom]

Sorry tank crashed, I canabilized everything. Main tank is for puffers, refugium went to a feeder tank.

 

[Max Power]

yeah that sounds liek a good idea.

 

[TEL]

Never use a canister to fill a sump, I thought about it once and realised even if i had the pipe just below the surface so if the power went out it would not overflow the sump when the power comes back on the canister would suck air and not restart. Drilling a tank is not as hard as people think the guy that did mine came over with a class cutter on a battery drill a sprayed water on the glass and in notime it was done and cost less than $50.00 australian and is garented to restart every time as long as the sump pump dose.