How to – Aquarium overflow / sump / refugium. Some tips
My 55gallon SW tank with 10gallon sump/refugium tank. This movie is to show the equipment and how it works.
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Yes. You could have up to 220gph flow so your pump could even be larger.
I will buy the same overflow you have. When the power fail…some hours later is back on the pump will star pumping water; do the overflow will star again sending water to the filter by it self???
also how many gph is ur pump
could i have a 220 gph overflow with a 160 gph pump will this work
Thanks for the vid
Shame about the drunkvision camerawork
The thing I like about your sump is that it is quiet! And the “chambers” are seperated by a screan and not walls (bubble traps) that the water has to fall over and splash into the next chamber. I am going to be using a screan to seperate the chambers and not bubble traps. I hate the sound of constant splashing water with my reef! Good job.
Yes, I noticed they were quite expensive, I think I will make one since I’m quite goo at PVC work an not much can go wrong. I’m not spending that amount of money for something that I can build for $10. IT won’t look bad either since over time, algae will cover the white PVC and make it look really natural and it kind of suits in much better than if it was cleaned all the time. Other than that thank you for explaining it’s much easier no, thanks.
well I do have a video up of one I made. They can be made for a lot less(like $10 rather than like $100+)… but of course buying one is fine to. If you feel confident you can make one, but you may just want to buy one, see if you can find a used one.
Should I make one or should I buy one?
thats awesome
all the overflow box does is drain water from the main tank, when the water rises. The whole thing goes at the speed of the pump.
How do you get the flow between the siphon and the pump pumping the water out of the tank correct? I’m having major troubles with this!
maybe you could have inserted a dummy tube INSIDE the biger one to cut down on the amount of space available – thus the water would flow quicker through it. The dummy tube would need to be blocked at both ends (peice of syphon tube?)
I show this in video; everything keeps working as it should.
How about when the powers on again how would the syphon suck water without air will it still suck water from the tank to the refugium when the water rises to the over flow or the U tube…
Finally some one who can explain it, thanks!
the pump in canister filters isn’t particularly strong so it does need the head pressure coming down the siphon input to be able to generate decent flow to the tank through the output, if the filter is getting water from the same level, it wont be able to push that water up to the tank
you aren’t looking for even. you want the overflow box to be able to handle greater flow than the pump can produce, that way no matter how much water the pump is pushing it is all going to drain to the sump, if you get it “even” then over time debris buildup or other types of buildup may reduce the flow from your overflow box, then the pump may overpower it and you have a mess on your hands
The output(from main tank to sump tank) only drains water. It is just draining the water that the pump(from the sump to the main tank) puts up to the main tank. Basically the overflow box just drains water and keeps the main tank at the same level, it just drains the water the pump sends up, it runs at whatever speed the pump is running at.
I don’t understand how the return and output water speeds are perfectly even.
How do you make it where the pump isn’t out putting more water than can return or vise versa ?
I currently have the cump running with a fluval u4 in the sump, as well as a fluval u4 in the main tank. So my tank has a crazy amount of chemical and biological and mechanical filtration.
once the water level on each side is level the siphon stops.
Awesome instructional you actually went over the parts that no one else does like power outages thank you
intersting idea, but no you can’t. The reason is the water goes through the U tube at the speed that the return pump(from sump to main tank) sends the water. So it drains water at the same speed that the pump is pumping up water. If you disrupt that equal speed by putting a pump on, then the speed wouldn’t match up, and one of the two tanks would overflow.