Simple Overflow pics

They say that a pic is worth a thousand words. This should save me a bundle.

Hardware store for pipe and elbows and a drip irrigation elbow glued in with ABS cement for the siphon starter/bubble remover.

ABS cement at critical joints, pressure fit the others for ease of adjustment.

Screen is held in place by ABS cement to the diagonal cut at the end of the pipe. Diagonal cut allows more water flow. The screen is made from a mesh bag that holds produce in the grocery store. The holes were large enough to let everything through but fish and snails.

Yes a powerhead would constantly remove bubbles that accumulate in the "U" tube, but if I clear it every 10 days or so, there is no problem and I save adding another electrical gadget. (Note: the tubing is plugged for good reason. Do not drop the tubing down to create a siphon for the purpose of continually drawing air bubbles out of the U tube. During a long power outage this will drain the tank several inches causing a flood and will also lose the siphon in the U tube.)

I have to say, for the record, that it's better to have a tank drilled for the overflow, but if drilling is not possible or practical, this method is almost fool-proof.

I also must say that I prefer drilling tanks on the upper back rather than using all that tank space for the full corner acrylic overflow.

Sorry, no camera right now, and with the algae growing on it, I'm not sure it would be much help. The document I sent to you describes it. I take two couplers, cut a hole in the bottom to one side of the Lees box. The hole is just large enough for a pipe to go through snugly. The couplers connect to each end of a short piece of this pipe. The bottom of the Lee's box gets squeezed between the couplers. With ample cement, this makes a good seal.

A pipe leading down is cemented to the bottom coupler. A short standpipe is pressed, not cemented, into the top coupler. Because the tank water and water in the overflow box are connected via siphon in the U tube, the length of the short vertical standpipe sets the water level in the tank and overflow box.

Hi Mark,

I like what you have done here. I use a siphon tube I had hanging around in my parts box, to drain water from my main tank down to my algae tank and then I drilled a hole in the algae tank and it gravity feeds into my sump. I did take the precaution of drilling a hole just below the water line, in the siphon tube coming out of my main tank. That way if worse comes to worse, like the power going off, the siphon will break and it won't drain my main tank all over the floor and into the basement!

Jody