drilled tanks safely able to suck off bottom?

[kdog]

I am interested in drillind a 125gal. I was wondering if anyone has developed a DIY for removing water off the bottom of a tank and still have the over flow stop in a power failure?

My idea was to drill the bottom for two one inch bulk heads. Then run a stand pipe up to stop at the lowest desired water level. Just a verticle one inch pipe! Then over that slide a two inch which exceeds or meets the maximum level of the tank. This pipe would have a strainer available from aqaria pet store fastened to it at or near the bottom. The strainer would allow water to rise up the two inch pipe and fall down onto the one inch to the sump. I'm sure this has been done BUT does it work. It just makes more sense to me to take some of the solids off the bottom. The second whole in the tank would skim the top as most overflow systems on here do.

To fasten the two inch to the one inch to the two inch a small plastic dowell or threaded rod can be passed through and glued to hold the one inch centred in the two inch.

 

[dayak]

what kinda tank u drilling?
i dont know about glass but for arcylic its easy all u got to do is get circular saw for ur desired size.
mask the desired spot with blue tape from home depot that painters use and go drill that tank u anywhere u wanted. just easy as:
1. find the desired location
2. get a beer any brand you want a bottle or a case
3.tape that spot with blue masking tape
4.drill that hole with circular saw
5. grab another cold one
6. inspect how well u done it
7. get another beer
8. open that perfectly made hole by tearing off that blue masking
9. admire what u did, dont forget to have another beer
10. ask your wife or to haul back ur tank into the house.

should only take an hour or less depands on how much u consume ur beer
4.

 

[kdog]

I'm drilling a glass tank but the drilling is the least of my worries! Trying to get over flows working the way I want them to is th issue! I'm hoping my system will work. I did the math on a 2 inch PVC with a 1 inch inside and the cross sectional area remaining in the 2 inch is greater then that of a one inch so I should get enough gravity fed flow through it. Just wondering if anyone has tried it and if not whats the draw back?

 

[nfored]

Just my thoughts

Drill at the top where you want the water to stop draining in an outage. then put bulkhead here and use a 90 and extend down to the bottom of the tank; and drill a hole one the end of the 90. This is the safest for several reasons:

1. in a power outage the water will stop draining at the location of the hole on the 90.
2. in the rare event of bulkhead failure you only loss a small amount of water compared to the whole tank.
3. if you ever decided to us a drip system this drain could be converted to a drip overflow.

I have done this exact setup on my tank. While I used my as a water changing drain, it would have also worked as a drain for a filter.

 

[kdog]

Thanks nfored might have to do that. there is so much info on this forum it just takes for ever to sift through the threads.

Keep them comin

 

[Arthur]

Drill at the top where you want the water to stop draining in an outage. then put bulkhead here and use a 90 and extend down to the bottom of the tank; and drill a hole one the end of the 90.

I do this and just run a T instead of a 90, much quieter than drilling a hole in a 90

 

[cc247]

if your drilling the bottom of that 125 glass make sure it's not tempered glass or it will destroy your tank

 

[kdog]

I chickened out went with chomper style DIY over flows