Is Overflow necessary in My case?

[grem89]

I have a 55 gallon tank for a red ear slider about 1 1/2 inches. I made a sump using a 5 gallon bucket, and then cut about 5 inches off the bottoms of 4 more buckets with holes cut throughout them and used these as the baskets to hold my filter media. I have a 300 gph pond pump situated at the bottom of the bucket. I then have a hole cut in the middle of each basket to allow for the output tube from the pump to pump the water back up to the tank. It works great but here's my question, since it is a turtle tank i dont have the water level filled all the way to the top of the tank but rather about 4 or 5 inches from the top. When the sump completely empties into the tank the tank does not overflow (or come close to overflowing as a matter of fact) so therefor i do not have to incorporate an overflow into my sump system? Is this correct?
Thanks alot!

 

[mdb_talon]

Having trouble picturing where the bucket is. The risk of overflow on power failures for diy sumps is not usually on the tank itself, but on the sump. If I am picturing your design correctly (bucket is lower than the tank and gravity fed with water) then you could have a flooding problem in the sump if power fails and water keeps going into sump but not pumped out. That depends on how the water is getting to your sump.

 

[grem89]

yes the sump is gravity fed with the pump pumping water back into the tank

 

[mdb_talon]

Then I would definetely envision this as being a flood risk with a power outage because I am doubting your bucket has enough extra capacity. Basically you need to measure how many gallons will flow out of your tank when power goes out and make sure you have that much excess capacity in sump.

 

[JK47]

I have a 55 gallon tank for a red ear slider about 1 1/2 inches. I made a sump using a 5 gallon bucket, and then cut about 5 inches off the bottoms of 4 more buckets with holes cut throughout them and used these as the baskets to hold my filter media. I have a 300 gph pond pump situated at the bottom of the bucket. I then have a hole cut in the middle of each basket to allow for the output tube from the pump to pump the water back up to the tank. It works great but here's my question, since it is a turtle tank i dont have the water level filled all the way to the top of the tank but rather about 4 or 5 inches from the top. When the sump completely empties into the tank the tank does not overflow (or come close to overflowing as a matter of fact) so therefor i do not have to incorporate an overflow into my sump system? Is this correct?
Thanks alot!

It is a flood risk as mentioned to only use syphon. I tried a couple of different PCV overflows and since the water level is so low (9" on mine) and could never get the flow right. Useless overflows do fly well arcoss the yard though! I am drilling my tank this weekend and using bulkheads for the instead of the PVC overflow. and would recomend the same thing if possible.

Is your tank acrylic or glass?

 

[mdb_talon]

It is a flood risk as mentioned to only use syphon. I tried a couple of different PCV overflows and since the water level is so low (9" on mine) and could never get the flow right. Useless overflows do fly well arcoss the yard though! I am drilling my tank this weekend and using bulkheads for the instead of the PVC overflow. and would recomend the same thing if possible.

Is your tank acrylic or glass?

Whether it is bulkheads or overflow there is still a flooding risk. In either case there is a certain level the tanks will keep drain to (the bottom of the overflow or bulkhead or whatever). If your sump is not big enough to hold all the water until it reaches that point you will flood if the pump stops working for power or any other reason.

Obviously this is not the case if you have a airtight closed loop like a canister filter or something.

 

[canucksfan1]

if u want to test it turn off the pump in your sump and see if the buckets overflow (mind you i would stop it before they did just so i didn't have to clean up)

 

[grem89]

i moved the intake from the sump to close to the surface of the water for now so that in the event that the pump does turn off, the sump will loose its siphon as soon as the water drops just below in the intake. Im going to just go ahead and build an overflow. After looking at a bunch of designs i think i can make one with some extra tubing and plastic containers.