Need tips/help for installing diy c2c overflow

Measure your bulkheads. Remember, the bulkhead overlaps the hole by a fair bit, too close together and you may not get all of your bulkheads on without touching eachother.

I like the idea of the returns entering from above, simply because I don't believe in check valves in a saltwater tank because they always end up failing ... and by going over the tank you have less chance of a siphon draining your tank in a power outage.

Definitely make sure you have room to remove your street elbows, which means the gap between the back of the glass and the front pane of glass needs to allow for that room.

And install the overflow before the tank is in its final home so that you can lay it on its back while the silicone cures.

I have a build myself where I did the beananimal and a coast to coast, all of which were DIY ... check it out, I have pics of the overflow build.

 

under what circumstance would I ever need to remove the street Elbows? Why is it important to leave room to remove them?

 

Bump

 

I haven't come across any yet, to be honest. But the inlet of the street elbow is about 1/4" off the glass so if you need to get in there for any reason you're SOL if they're glued in. IMO, it's more of a piece of mind deal. There's no good reason (AFAIK) to glue them in.

Another thing to do is to build in a strainer to minimize the chances of a snail or other critter getting stuck in there. ExactlyOBP has an example using zip ties in his build thread. I was uber bored one day and made mine out of fishing line.

 

That looks elegant!

 

Definitely not going to glue it down. But I may decide to make the overflow too narrow to actually be able to remove them. I would still be able to turn them around to service them though.

I remember seeing that, it's a very elegant solution. I'm definitely going to use it! Thanks for posting it.

 

I saw this on a thread that looks like a great idea too

 

I'm telling you ... You'll have to remove them for something at some point. I've had to remove mine a few times now, and you'll really pray that there is room when the circumstance arises for you lol.

I get air trapped in the elbow upon start up, so I remove the full siphon one to purge the air from the setup, otherwise it takes a long time to naturally purge the system after the full siphon breaks during a power outage, or during maintenance. The ability to pop that 90 out, and just let all the air escape is helpful.

Also, its always recommended that any plumbing inside the tank thats submerged, remain unglued for maintenance and cleaning purposes. There is no real reason to glue them. If its not water tight, the leak stays in the overflow, its absolutely no risk not to glue them in place.

 

Thanks guys!

I totally understand wanting to keep the overflow as narrow as possible.... Cutting them down like BoBo mentioned above might be the best of both worlds. There's like an inch or so of material on the elbow to insert into the bulkhead and I'm sure 1/2" inch or so would work just fine.

It would just suck if you had to get 'em out for some reason and couldn't.

 

I'm keeping an eye on this thread as I'm planning on doing the EXACT same thing soon!

Smoked glass piece for the vertical overflow that is drilled for a locline, or two returns.

Then a CLEAR piece on the bottom so light can get thru down to the back of the tank better.

I saw the screw on sanity top cap thread too, that's the plan.

Didn't plan on using the sch 80 elbows, I was just going to Krylon fusion spray paint the sch 40 them.



I have been wondering if the ABS bulkheads even fit the sch 80 slip elbows? I thought the sch 80 stuff was slightly different dimensions and the white 40 stuff.
Does it just not matter in this case since it's a slip???