Has any one tried or thought of this.

[wild bill]

Just got to thinking about over flows and wondered has anyone ever had the entire back of their tank as over flow wall. The thought was build the box on the back of the tank to look like a water fall in the back ground. So has any one tried this or know if it would even work.

 

[dmopar74]

Basically a coast to coast overflow

 

[Oddball]

I have a 275 where the entire right side is an overflow. I's really loud. I can only imagine an entire-back overflow would be even louder.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; On Clinton Highway north of Knoxville TN is a fish shop. One of their saltwater setups has the sort of arrangment you describe. From memory I believe it has three shallow acryllic sections with two such waterfalls that step down from the upper to the lowest.

What is it that you want to know about this type of setup? I ordered some SAFE and will likely pick it up soon. It has been in operation for a few years so it must work. I asked one day what happens when the power goes off as it looked to me like it might overflow. The manager says not.

 

[bbortko]

The lef5 side of my 240 is this way with herbie style drains, it's dead silent.

 

[boldtogether]

I have seen this design many times. The key, is placing the "catch basin" as close to the water fall as possible to avoid the splash....raising the water level inside the catch basin using valves will also take that splash away.
When I build my ultimate, it will most certainly have a coast to coast overflow...

 

[wild bill]

I never thought about the sump over filling in a power outage. Although the water from the tank could only drain until it reaches the over flow rim. It wouldn't be any more I guess than a box would allow just happen faster. Would the splash be that bad if the back side was as high as the tank rim. As the splash would all be in the box so to speak evaporationwould probably be a problem I guess.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; Stopped by an area fish store. here are some photos. This is a shallow acrylic setup with two tiers and a sump below. The manager says it does not overflow if the power goes off as the sump has extra capacity.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; The same fish shop has a different three tiered setup. This one does not have a sump, so the lowest tank has to be kept with some freeboard to prevent an overflow if the power goes out.

 

[DN328]

I never thought about the sump over filling in a power outage. Although the water from the tank could only drain until it reaches the over flow rim. It wouldn't be any more I guess than a box would allow just happen faster. Would the splash be that bad if the back side was as high as the tank rim. As the splash would all be in the box so to speak evaporationwould probably be a problem I guess.

If power went out, or, your return pump stopped working, there's at least two things to consider; If you have drain pipes in the coast to coast (or any overflow for that matter) the water will drain to the sump until 1) the water from the tank will continue to flow into the overflow until it reaches to the overflow teethe/wall 2) water in the overflow will drain to the sump to the point of the lowest drain pipe in the overflow itself.

The other consideration is that if you have any return pipe/loc-line into the tank, you need to ensure there's no back flow back to your sump when the pump is off. That's addressed by check-valve and/or breaking the siphon typically by drilling a hole the appropriate location on the return line/pipe.

I think this would apply to most overflows, and not necessary to a coast to coast. HTH.

EDIT: For splashing, I wouldn't think the actual height between overflow and tank would matter as much as the water level between your tank and your overflow. BTW, I'm assuming you are referring to external overflow across the back, but this would apply to internal as well.