Sump/Fuge Experts....Advice needed Siphon Vs. Pump

drilling a 1/4 inch hole about half an inch below the water line in your return port will also break the siphon, better yet 2 in case something is blocking one... redundancy=lower chance of floods

 

thanks for all your input guys...this is helping me out quite a bit and putting me at ease. Now I will be able to explain to my dad about the overflow so he doesn't have to worry about it spilling out onto the basement carpet cause that is what he is worried about the most lol and not me losing all my fish and corals in the even of that happening...figures. If anyone wants to chime in on this I was thinking about getting the Eshopps 800 Overflow rated for up to 125 gallons at 800gph. I think that would be plenty for my 90 gallon but does anyone have any suggestions on a good reliable pump? I think i was once told a Mag 7 would be plenty and would be enough for about 5x turn of the water

 

Have you looked at CPR overflows ? They use an aqualifter pump to draw a vacume it's pretty nice

 

the Mag 7 will do fine. I run a Mag 12 on mine, but it's split out to feed my skimmer as well as the return to the tank.

 

I recently built my first sump and fuge with the Eshopps's overflow and it is great!!!! The trick is peeking and tweeking everything until the water being returned matches the water being siphoned. The pump I bought was way too strong, so I placed one of those 'whiffle' golf balls on the pump intake to damper the flow rate and everything works harmoniously!

 

There ya go!

90% of this hobby is problem solving.

Just stay on it closely at first. This is your 'insurance'. Watch and modify things work until you're satisfied that all is ok and safe. Plug in the power and see what happens. Unplug the power and see what happens. Try to anticipate something that can go wrong, like a big piece of algae getting into it, and make sure that something in the overflow design prevents that from plugging up the works.

It can all be done safely or this hobby wouldn't be so popular! Don't accept anything that doesn't seem right. You've obviously taken the first steps by asking questions here.

The next step is to get your hands wet! Fill up an aquarium with fresh water, start the filter, and work on that until you're happy. Keep asking those questions as you go!

Good luck!

 

thanks guys...i'm doing what I can as I go and getting all the info...I got the 20 gal. sump yesterday....my nest step is to purchase the skimmer and glass or acrylic to design the baffles and hopefully I will be doing that soon as long as my budget allows me