Bulkhead placement?

[joealbin]

So I have been out of the hobby for a couple of years and now I'm back. But this time building my tank. All of my other tanks had external overflows. This one I want to drill. Its a 25 gallon acrylic tank 1/8 thick acrylic. Where do I put the bulkhead is there a specific spot. Obliviously you got to put it far enough down to fit a filter screen with an elbow. Should I use a 1 inch bulkhead into the sump and 3/4 back into the main tank? and will this create alot of noise or gurgling to the refugium. I dont really want to drill the bottom because my light setup under in the cabinet for refugium. So if any help that would be great I have been looking for days now on this forum and got some insight. Ohh last thing can I use a wood hole saw to drill my holes if I tank it nice and slow and not power into it?

 

[NaClH2Okpr]

The bit I used for drilling my acrylic tank I bought at Home Depot for really cheap and it is for plastics and it is different than the ones for wood as the teeth are different. The tank making a gurgling noise or not depends on the style of drain pipe setup you use. I like to use the Durso (you can also check out Dato for comparison and ideas)style setup as they always seem to be very quiet and easy to set up, you can look at "all glass" mega flow plumbing kit for ideas or just buy one for 50$. As for the size of bulkhead it depends on the amount of water you want to run through your system.( 1" and 3/4" should be just fine for your system) I like to run as much as I can for my SPS tanks and tend to run less for softies and fish only systems. So you can check out suggested turnover rates for the type of setup you are doing. And as for the placement of the bulkheads it depends on the type of setup... If you want a full walk around tank then a center or island style overflow is the best choice here. For a 25 gallon acrylic I would put it either on a corner or center back to give as much workable space as possible and make it easier to do lighting on the system.. hope this helps..

 

[joealbin]

hey thanks for the info. I drilled it all ready but that bad part is after it was drilled. I had it on my floor and i kicked by accident and cracked the acrylic. So hate to say I dad to get a new tank. My new tank I got was glass and deeper which is nice. Because Im doing leds. Im not sure if I'm going to drill the glass or just do a overflow box. Im getting impatient. I want to set up my tank. I plan on doing sps, so if I do an overflow would I do more flow through that then ones that are recommend for my tank. Like 10x turnover. If you could help any way that would be great. Thanks Joe

 

[NaClH2Okpr]

Sorry to hear about the broken tank. Glass has its advantages, like you can use a razor blade it when the algae grows without worry of scratches.. I Love Acrylic for large tanks but glass is perfect for small tanks. I so much prefer drilled overflows versus overflow boxes and it mostly has to do with me waking up in the middle of the night because of weird draining noises or to the absence of noise..... I am not sure which is worse.. As far as turnover for SPS 10X is good, I am running a little over 10x just from my sump to display returned by a sea swirl, then I have 2 Rio 1700's connected to S.C.W.D.'s(hidden in the rock) to create chaotic motion... no sand bed for me but plenty of live rock (porous and tonga branch).. This is in a 45 gallon cube by the way... It is a lot of movement yet it is gentle inside the tank so nothing gets hammered by a jet stream of water and it keeps nutrients suspended in the water column so it can be removed by the filtration in the sump and not build up in the display.. So i see very little detritus settling anywhere but one spot in the front where the rock traps it and a turkey baster works great for blasting it.. I have had a lot of saltwater tanks from large to small, and for SPS take your time and set it up right from the get go you'll be much happier and so will your corals.. I would be happy to help in any way I can and If I can't Kevin Pockell can for sure he is very knowledgeable and runs a great shop too.
Chris