Overflow Plumbing (1 Viewer)

[guy9smiley2]

I have a 120g fatboy that hasnt been ran in 10 years. i was pretty inexperienced when i plumbed this and now im looking at setting it back up but id like to do everything slow and right this time. this is how it is currently setup. apologize for my awesome paint drawing skills lol but i how it makes sense. the dual overflow is throwing me off a little every other tank i had was a single.

my questions are
A- is this ok? if so should my regular drain be a little lower than 1" only. it is running with just water right now and it works now that i have the valve adjusted just right on the drain.
b- the left overflow doesnt have any movement or water drains so its just sitting stagnent. Could i make a drain on both overflows equal distance under the water line? ( the grey and yellow ) and turn the pink into the emergency?

 

[spsick]

That looks fine to me. Effectively a bean animal drain if you have a gate valve in the grey drain.

 

[asifiqbal2]

Why is the pink capped ?

 

[guy9smiley2]

That looks fine to me. Effectively a bean animal drain if you have a gate valve in the grey drain.

would you recommend lowering it a little? no concern ont he left overflow having no movement? ( has a lid on it so no light gets in )

 

[guy9smiley2]

Why is the pink capped ?

honestly have no idea or what i went off of. it was 10+ years ago. im sure someone said do it like this at one point so i just did it

 

[spsick]

So the grey would be your primary and the yellow would be your secondary, thus having flow going through there (just less)

 

[guy9smiley2]

So the grey would be your primary and the yellow would be your secondary, thus having flow going through there (just less)

right now the yellow is above the water line. the grey is only like 1" below. should i cut the grey down to 2" below water line and the yellow to 1 " below? thats mor emy largest question is how far down each one should be cut.

 

[zoolan70]

I would make the gray one about half the height of the overflow or less, so that you can get good water depth over the open drain. You want to make sure no air gets in there once it is in full siphon. Use a high-quality gate valve that you can take apart and clean out. I always put large screen cones on my drains just to keep snails and other stuff out of them. Leave the emergency drain as tall as you can. Ideally, you want a very small drop for the water as it flows into the overflow, so the water level in there (which should be right at the emergency pipe height) barely below the tank level when running. I also aim for a tiny amount of flow into the emergency drain at all times, typically slow enough to just coat the inside of the pipe walls.

Are the holes all 1", or is it a standard setup with one 1" and one 3/4" in each overflow? If the holes are all 1", then I would use the pink as your emergency drain and just let the water sit in the other overflow. If you have the 1"x3/4" setup in each overflow, use the other 1" as your emergency drain, and keep the pink one plugged.

Even if you don't have a drain in an overflow, you will still get some water movement just from temperature. If you are worried about it, you could put a small fountain pump in the bottom of the overflow, with a tube just flowing over the top to keep the water going.

 

[asifiqbal2]

honestly have no idea or what i went off of. it was 10+ years ago. im sure someone said do it like this at one point so i just did it

Got it… so in that case you can do what you were suggesting make pink the emergency and add a gate valve to yellow. At least that’s how a continuous siphon overflow is configured

Also Zoolan has a good suggestion of having a strainer of sorts to cover the drains if possible