Will this work?

[Satan's Goldfish]

aaahh i see but still why not go for the nice clean surface skim? Guess im just a SW geek and thats how i do it.

Think it's a personal preference thing what level people like their water drawn from their tank to their filter. For example i prefer my intakes to be as close to the bottom as possible. With a bit of work it could be possible to have mutliple bulk head levels feeding down to the sump and have equal flow through all of them if you're that paranoid about drawing water from all levels of the tank. I was working on a design in my head, never drew it up unfortunately but was using a similar arc up design like the OP's illustrated.

The design will work as long as, as the OP says, he remembers to put a breather at the top of the arc to stop syphoning.

 

[Burko]

"I want to put the bulheads that feed the sump about 1/3 of the way down the back wall of the tank"

Yep will work fine with the air hole.

Same set up as mine. Enjoy.

 

[Burko]

"Is there a better way to accomplish this?"

Maybe add a tap to drain via a hose...like this.

 

[BadOleRoss]

I want to thank everyone for their input! It's nice to know that my design will work. I considered putting a overflow box inside the tank but I didnt really like the overflow box when I had a SW tank, got tired of fishing things out of it (fish, snails, starfish). I just wanted to go with a simple overflow. Pete, thanks for the link and for updating my drawing. Bruko, I am going to add the drain to the bottom, great idea.

 

[JAFRIAS]

yes but use a tee instead of one of the top 90s , like Burko

 

[BadOleRoss]

Yes, I saw that, saves from drilling a hole in the 90 and flow will be much better.

 

[bomber]

Your design will work and I really like it. It does not skim the surface of the water level and it will not suck up the floating pellets/flakes/food.

Just put some sort of guard so that it does not suck up your fish.

Outstanding.

 

[BadOleRoss]

Now I am on the fence! Looks like it will be a lAst minute decision that I will make with a drill in hand. I was placing the bulkhead 1/3 of the way down because of the way I built my tank, there was just no way to drill the hole at water level. Well, after giving it some thought and staring at the tank for an hour or so I figured out how to drill the bulkhead hole at water level. Now I have to decide if its better to skim the surface or pull water from midlevel. Getting the surface skum out of the tank will certianly improve gas exchange...........decisions decisions!

 

[Burko]

"I figured out how to drill the bulkhead hole at water level. "

That would make the tap very limited...

 

[turtlesrock]

itll work, just makesure your overflow tube is 2or 3 times the width of the return hose so that itll be able to keep up withe the pump. if it doesnt your tank will overflow.