Has anyone heard of a DIY turning a aquaclear filter into an overflow box? I am thinking this is possible but was hoping to find a thread on it first. It seems you could glue a piece of acrylic off to the side closest to the pump section but lower than the waterfall part (this would allow the pump to keep it prime) then drill a whole in the bottom for a bulkhead and that would work for a gravity feed.

Never heard of it, but I like the idea

I did this with a small HOB filter. I had to put in a standpipe so that it wouln't break the siphon, but it works.

Do you have any pics? That would be great.

I don't, unfortunately. I meant to take some, but I was in such a hurry when I built the thing I didn't get around to taking any.

Things have been crazy busy, but when they settle down a bit I plan on disassembling the thing and doing a full write up in the DIY section.

if you do you will have to adjust each pump so that they match up with each other, because one pump has to match the other and it cant go over or the tank overflows. so i really wouldnt recommend this because chances are your tank is going to overflow with very little flow through the sump. just get an HOB overflow.

I think they mean set it up to work like a hob overflow and not use the pump. It seems like it would work.

i thought of this a few years back when i was a n0ob but there's cheaper designs and if you think about the flow rates would be ridiculously low.

thoughts: no doubt that it would work but you have to think about the restrictions of the intake unless you are just using it for holding your tubes. it would still be too much of a hassle.

you still need a pump to pump it up into the AQ and then it would go down the hole and then a pump to pump it back into the main tank. its very hard to align to pumps and if one clogs or pumps slower, flooding will happen.

Ok so I decided against this due to advice, thanks all. I think I am going to try for a gravity fed system but I will have to build something higher than the display to hold the refugium since I have a solana and there really is no sump.

I'm plan on doing/trying this has any one made it work? my plan is to make the filter a "tank" drilled with the return going back into the filter, making one loop, from filter to sump. then turn the filter on making a loop between the filter and tank , am i making sense? lol?

sorry, you confused the hell outa me

as already said. i think this would work, but i would probably not use the pump on the aquaclear. (maybe just to start the siphon) it would just be too easy for your return pump to fail and have the aquaclear drain too much water into the sump causing a flood. easiest way seems to be to use the method where you have two "lee's specimen containers". I plan on using this method in the next week or two. there's a great little thread on this method here:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?...=35200&st=0

I think you'd be better off just making a diff. overflow and either ditching the aquaclear or using it for like a mini fuge for chaeto.

You could probably use the AC as the first section of a non-breaking siphon type overflow, but it will have insanely low flow rates. I built one for my 10 gallon and it works great, but I doubt it would handle more than 300 gph (though this is with really short vertical runs and I understand that these work better with longer verticals [below the tank water level]), and this is with 1.5" pipe.

Now that I think about it, you'd be better off doing it with a reasonably large diameter pipe, to ensure good flow rates (unless you don't need a lot of flow through it, then it would be alright).

If you're interested, this page has some ideas... I modified the design a little (and used some different plumbing pieces since I worked in 1.5" ABS, cleanout fittings work really nicely and have a much nicer curve than elbows) but the basic idea is very simple and could be modified to any tank.