I designed this tank together with my
LFS owner, who is a great partner. Most of the resources I have are North American, he uses European ones, especially German. It makes for great discussions, especially where the sources disagree. For example, I finally decided on acrylic, he said "that's ridiculous". After a long discussion and more research, we learned that glass is way more popular here than acrylic whereas it seems to be the reverse across the ocean (is that right?), and there are very few sources for working with acrylic here. So, glass it is.
I didn't have time to make every decision, so when necessary he went ahead. I kept track of all the big ones (equipment, dimensions, basic design) and we mostly agreed, so on some small details I let him take the lead. One of the few surprises to me when I got the tank was the overflow design. My last tank had no
sump, just pumps going from the overflow to the
skimmer then going back into the tank. So in designing this one, I made sure there was a good overflow area with bulkheads going into the
sump. I didn't realize that the overflow design was double-walled.
The overflow is a rectangular "box" in the corner of the aquarium (picture below). The "outer" wall, the one closest to the main part of the tank, is mostly glass, but the 3" or so closest to the aquarium wall on either end is a metal "screen" (very small holes), from top to bottom. The water flows through this screen into a layer of water between two glass walls. Then there is a full glass wall creating a second rectangle inside. The top is slightly lower than the first one, so the water flows over into the main part of the overflow, then goes into the bulkheads and down itno the
sump. The design works, but I think it looks more complicated than it needs to be. But I didn't have a
sump on my last tank, and I guess haven't looked as closely as I thought at many other tanks, so maybe it's just me not knowing about overflow design. Now I guess I'll look more closely at others.
Making progress,
Martha
