drilling a tank that is set up and running

[hmt321]

A 2.25" hole centered 5" below the top of the tank worked well for my 1.5" bulkhead fittings. I drilled 3 holes in the back of my 125 gal display tank in the lobby of my wife's PT practice lobby. one for the drip overflow, one to supply the 3 canister filters, and one for a return from the canisters.

i use a 1.5" street 90, and then cut a short piece of pipe to get the desired water level for my overflow (its about 2" long). My water level is approximately 1/2" from the plastic brace.

I like to use slip bulkheads. I was leary of permanently gluing my overflows and return where it fit into the bulkhead. It did have a very slight drip on the return, so i smeared the pipe with Vaseline and it has been drip free since installation, about a year.

 

[Egon]

sounds like the way i will do it... any pictures???

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208917&page=43

You can kind of see what I'm talking about on the 5th pic. I have two over flows going to the ghetto home depot buckets, lol, it works! sort of embarrassing though. The holes are about 1 foot below the surface, you can see how I ran the plumbing up the back of the tank to set the water level in the tank. That took a little fidgeting to get the water at the level I needed in the tank, when I turned the pump on, the water level went up! (learning moment). I did all the plumbing first with out gluing it, so I was able to "adjust" cut 1/2 inch off here and there to get the level exactly where I wanted it. I had many learning moments LOL. I did all this with the fish in the tank. My original set up with the two canister filters under the tank just wasn't cutting it. I needed the extra filtration.

 

[chesterthehero]

http://glass-holes.com/ is a good place for bulkheads and strainers.. every order ships with free candy which is a major selling point..