overflow for adjacent tank

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spoofsjsc

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2007
384
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Marikina, Philippines
Guys, will this work?
It's an overflow from my main tank (left) to the sump beside it (right).
It'll be rectangular (2"x10")
I just wanted to ask ur opinions before i start making it.
thanks!
 

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This is a glorified water bridge right? ie a simple U tube with both ends submerged at all times? If so then this will work. Just use your pump to return the water and with the pipe diameters indicated there will be negligible water level difference. What are you using to stop fish swimming through? Catfish and other cave dwellers love pipes and will make a surprising difference in water throughput.
 
hi spoofsjsc, I´m not the most seasoned here but, you are aware that the water level in both tanks will be the same, aren´t you? that means that your main tank (left) can´t be full but 2/3.
 
I have done very similer things to conect tanks but back wards with the small tank above the larger one. I.E. reef tank refugiums for breeding copapods to feed Manderin fish. Cave dwellers could be an issue but a sturdy plastic mesh will keep them out.
You can keep both tanks at diffrent levels as long as the return pump is in the lower tank just like a sump.

Come to think of it incorperating something like this with cherry shrimp to provide an african cichlid tank with constant live food might be worth trying.

You need to put a check valve on the top. Hook it up to your return power head ( there will be negligable head presure so a good P/H will work fine as your pump) to suck the air out to restart the siphon on power outages. USE BLACK AIR LINE TUBING so algea doesn't grow inside of it and plug it up or you will wind up with a flood
 
Mr Cracker, you mean the water level in both tanks will not be the same? maybe I´m not understanding the drawing...
 
Yup, if you look at the drawing from left to right the intake side is higher then the out put. This creates the siphon and only a few inches are needed. if they were at the same hieght you could not creat a siphon. The water in higher tank has to be able to flow over the top edge of the siphon box to get in. It then drains/siphons to the lower side. (standard configuration of an over flow box) With the U turns on both the intake and output it traps water so the siphon can be restarted with litte effort in case of a siphon break or power outage. Water then flows to the lower tank to be pumped back to the higher tank. Litteraly making it so you can only siphon out the amount of water being pumped into to the higher tank.

The draw back on this system is if the siphon breaks (I.E. air collects at the top of the inverted U thus breaking the siphon or a power outage ocurs) the lower tank will pump water to the higher tank resulting in an over flow. You can minimize this by keeping the pump as close to the surface as possible so it can only pump so much out before it starts sucking air. You can eliminate this if you set up a P/H with the normal air in take provide on most hooked up to the top of the inverted U to suck the air out before enough collects in it to break the siphon. Becaused you are not trying to pump the water up a great distance (creating head presure) like an under tank sump a large P/H as your return will take care of the both situations. Just make sure that air line stays clean and you should never need a mop.

hope that explains it.............LOL
 
duh, thanks Cracker, my bad, I thought the drawing was of the tanks themselves, not just the overflow, a previous mention of the "water bridge" mislead me, I thought it was just an upside down "U" connecting both tanks.
 
...and there was light.

thanks for all your replies guys. i do intend to position one tank higher than the other. i delayed the project though.
i transfered jobs and had barely the time to do wc. hell i havnt posted here for over 2 months. haha!
again, thanks.
 
The tanks water level will be very close to even in this type of setup... your pump will likely NOT keep the top tank much higher than the lower tank.. this is a siphon, not an overflow and the rate will be quite high.

if you get the pump rate over the max siphon rate then the upper tank will over flow..

If the pump is lower than the siphon rate then the top tank will drop to the level of the bottom tank...

My opinion, for what its worth is to keep the water lines in both tanks at or near the same level... this is a water bridge...

You might want to design it to be an overflow, that way the overflow position in the upper tank will control the water level...

Kinda like this .............
.

DIY Overflow.JPG
 
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