Bean animal plumbing for 40b

[MysticReef]

Hey all. So I'm researching sumps for my 40b build. I have never had a sump before, so excuse me if I seem a little ignorant on the topic.

It seems like the bean animal plumbing is the most popular and more fail-safe option. I am a bit confused as to where I would want to drill the glass though. Should I drill on the side of the tank and have an external or internal box or drill the bottom of the tank and have an overflow that goes up the middle?

Any advice is very much appreciated and also if you have pictures of your bean animal plumbing I would love to see for ideas (and mostly just to get a "big picture" of how it should look).

[mcarroll]

None is better than the other...it depends what you need.

 

An internal box (eg "reef ready" tanks) is probably more fail-safe.

 

Bean animal is probably overkill, though a fun plumbing exercise. 

 

If you are triple-unsure of your plumbing skills (including accounting for plumbing failures or defects), then going (staying?) sump-less makes more sense than trying make up for it with a special design like bean animal (which is fairly complicated to plumb...see: the KISS principle).

 

That's akin to being a bad driver so you drive a Volvo "to be safe".

 

Only you have to build "volvo" yourself in our case!   What could go wrong?  🥺

 

If, on the other hand, you're basically competent at plumbing assembly, then there's nothing wrong with a traditional U-tube overflow box or any other way you'd want to pick of moving water down to a sump.  Consider your whole situation, and build accordingly.

 

I typically use two drains of whatever type I choose.  I always do a power-off test about 10x on any new plumbing job to make sure there are no surprises during a pump failure or power outage....and to make sure there are no issues with drain restarts.