New Overflow

Just made a new overflow box, took some pics along the way.

We currently have a 55 gal tank setup in the living room plumbed to a 10 gallon fuge and sump below. The only overflow box my LFS had in stock was a tiny white overflow box (5x3.5x8.5) with a 1" drain pipe offset to the side a bit. It works well as an overflow box, but the stock pipe stood straight up with a sponge. As said before, the setup is in the living room and made a horrible slurping sound 24x7. This annyoed the crap out of me.

A quick search on this forum showed two possible solutions. The first was the Hoffman Gurgle Buster which I tried originally, yet slowed my flow down to the sump and only marginally quited the slurping sound. I spent about a week trying different ways to make this setup work with no real results.

The next plan of attack was a durso style stand pipe. There were however 2 problems with this solution and my current box. The first was, I could in now way get a 1 1/4" standpipe to fit in my box without bowing the box considerably. I tried anyway, started a siphon and realized my second problem. The height of the box was too small so the top of the pipe was almost at the same level of the DT waterline. No bueno. I also put together a 1" durso standpipe as well, but this was a waste of $3 in parts and time as the flow through it was terrible.

I managed to use an extra piece of acrylic from building sump baffles to build my new box. Originally I had tried a 2 part epoxy with terrible results. I then tried some weld-on #4 from rplastics.com and Bingo!. This stuff works awesome. Lastnight I sealed all the seams (inside and out) with silicone and will be testing the box for leaks tomorrow.

This was my first attempt at working with acrylic, so it's ugly as hell. Hopefully functionaly though, we'll see!

originaly box with HGB:


Piecing new one together: Dimensions (8"x4"x11")

 

sweet man is it quite?

 

Not sure yet.. The silicone is still setting.. I'll leak test it tomorrow, and hopefully get it running tomorrow night.. I'll let ya know!;D

 

cool, i love when people build stuff themself, plus i also use a hob overflow but mine isnt noisey. but im still very interested in this build.

 

looks cool, but you didn't like the HGB's? I have/made them and with one having no tube in it, just a hole and the other adjusted perfectly, I get no gurgle! what size hole did you drill in the top? mine is a little bigger than what they said to put and it worked great.

 

Don't get me wrong, the slurping was subdued a bit, overall it didn't fix the problem for me, just helped a bit. I had a 1/4 inch hole with 8-10" worth of tubing stuck out the top at different heights. I re-drilled the drain holes larger a few times as well, in hopes of getting better flow. At the end of the day though, I couldn't get the kind of results I was after. Even though I've read numerous success stories!. It seems the Durso style stand pipes are a pretty fail safe way of eliminating the noise. Let's just hope my building skills are too:

 

I gotcha and it's cool, even though I love my hgb's I'm going to be making the durso's too. Give them a shot.

 

And we're up and running..

So far so good, zero leeks and a completely quiet overflow!

Hallelujah!

 

awesome!! thats sweet man!!!! K+

 

Very nice diy I wish I hadn't bought mine now....lol