# DIY Overflow for Shrimp Rack



## cgjedi

I've been doing quite a bit of research after deciding to get back into the hobby. I finally have space to have a "few" aquariums. My idea is to build a rack and house 8 10g aquariums for shrimp which include low-med light plants. I love all the types of moss that are available now and will probably focus on those to begin with.

The rack itself will have 3 levels where the top 2 levels will have 4 tanks each, where the tanks are placed back to back and side to side. I'm planning to put a sump on the very bottom. The plans I've drawn up are patterned after this:
Aquarium Racks in a Fish Room | Ted's Fishroom Aquarium racks

For lighting I assumed I was going to go full on LED fixtures. But going the shop light route still makes too much sense using the T8 bulbs.
shop light

For substrate there are a lot of options. Flourite seems to have a pretty good cost/results ratio. But since I already do worm composting I have quite a bit of that available. Combining that with clay granules (oil absorbing clay) for a bottom layer will give a lot of nutrients to the roots. Then I'll add a top layer of just the clay. 
Ultrasorb - clay

Then there's the filter and plumbing. I decided to go with overflows for each tank which go into a sump. I had not heard of the *aerobic* denitrification bacteria before and am sold on this idea. However, this requires a larger volume of water for the bacteria media than individual HOB filters or cannister filters. Not only is this supposed to be a more efficient nitrogen cycle but it also is a free generator of CO2 for the plants. I will be filling the sump with Hydroton and not the tri-base carbon in order to not strip out all the nitrates for the plants.
Right Now bacteria

There are several overflow designs based on siphon principles. This fascinates me and it's hard to choose a method.
joey's diy overflow 

PVC_Overflow

DIY Mame overflow
Mame manual

Cichlid Man's DIY overflow

I think I will be going with the last link. Super simple design and pretty compact. I'm going to be bumping the diameters up to use 3/4" clear vinyl and 1-1/4" PVC tubing. The one thing that concerns me is that with this particular design people are using it for drip systems and have very small diameter pipe/tubing. I haven't found anyone using this design for high flow systems.

Does anyone have any thoughts about these plans?


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## cgjedi

It's been a great day of experimentation. I spent some time at Sheret getting pipe, fittings and vinyl hose for some tests. I put together CichlidMan's overflow but bumped up the hose to 3/4" and the pipe to 1-1/4". I was shocked that it actually works. There were no problems keeping the siphon even when disconnecting/reconnecting the power. I can tell this will move a lot of water through the tanks.









I then set up a Mame style overflow. The overflow part of this style also worked flawlessly. But as expected when the power is disconnected the siphon stops. I tried the venturi between the inflow and the overflow but on the first try, this doesn't suck the air out. So I'm going to have to do some research into how to set up the venturi properly in a pipe. All in all, I'm pretty stoked.


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## cgjedi

Success! I was able to get a venturi going for the DIY Mame style overflow. I read up on venturi systems and saw that the concept is to restrict the flow temporarily so that the air is drawn in through the lower pressure area. It was a cone shape that I'm after. So I spent some time trying to find cones that would fit within the 1/2" pipe. I saw the cap of Crest toothpaste is a cone. But it's too big to fit in the pipe. I came across a dropper bottle cap that had the top tip shaped as a cone. I dug out my Sonicrafter tool, put on a straight blade and chopped off the end of the cap. I drilled a hole through the top for the air hose and hooked it all up. After a bit of messing around, the venturi started sucking the air out of the overflow section and I had a working cycle. I tested turning off the pump and then emptying out the overflow. When I turned the pump back on, it automatically started up the siphon. Cool beans!








This shows the airline hose inside the top of the plastic cap. I've pulled the hose out from the pipe to give a better view.








This shows the hose and plastic cap inside the 1/2" pipe in the position it should be. There's very little room for the water coming up the return to get through - that's the idea.








This is the DIY Mame overflow as my first attempt. It works.

Video of how the overflow starts up. Notice how the venturi sucks all the air out of the overflow when the power comes on





I did a quick cost comparison out of curiosity.
The "loop overflow" (for lack of a better term) costs about $11
The Mame style overflow costs about $6.50


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## cgjedi

I was doing a bit of thinking about these plans. First, I kept the "loop" overflow hanging on the tank for a few days just to see what the siphon would do. It hasn't broken yet. So if the power goes out, it seems pretty safe that the overflow would start up without overflowing the tank.

Even though, the Mame style overflow is great with the venturi to start up the siphon, there needs be quite a lot of water pressure in order to suck the air out to begin with. My plans are to have 2 levels so I don't think the bottom level will have enough water pressure from the upper overflow just from gravity in order to start up the siphons. I think I'm going to go with the loop overflow design for the tanks.


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## cgjedi

I love having a conversation with myself. Does no one have any comments or suggestions?


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## Fantasticfish8

I think its awesome your trying these out and I would love to see what you come up with. Makes drilling a tank seem unnecessary. I made another overflow a bigger clunkier one with more pipes but have yet to try it.


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## cgjedi

The weekend project:


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## cgjedi

Staining it:

















Oh, and by the way, even after a week, the loop overflow has been sitting on the side of a tank with no water movement and the siphon is still active. To me, this seems to be the most compact design I've seen so far and pretty worry free not having to deal with a check valve that potentially could leak air into the siphon causing it to fail.


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## cgjedi

Second coat of mahagony stain and 1/2" insulation layer


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## Fantasticfish8

love the progress hope to see the finished project.


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## cgjedi

Putting the rack in place on a scrap piece of linoleum - gotta protect that carpet. Testing out the super reflective shop light with 2 6500k T8 bulbs.


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## cgjedi

It's a start. I was able to get 4 tanks hooked up with overflows and cycling from the sump. Lots of tuning left to do and final placement and gluing. But it works and I didn't have a flood (yet).


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## mikebike

great project I love the details and photos


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## cgjedi

Substrate: using the oil absorbing clay along with worm castings. The lower level has a 50:50 mix of worm castings from a home worm bin. Then it's a top layer of just the clay.


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## cgjedi

I'm using (and testing) out two different brands of clay.

This is the Napa brand. It's a darker color.
















This is from Princess Auto and is an even beige colour.


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## cgjedi

The sump. It's a 27 gallon bin from Home Depot. I like this one because it's harder plastic than the RubberMaid brand and it's more rectangular. (The piping isn't complete yet and the Hydroton media hasn't been added yet.)









The baffles are from egg crate light panels cut to fit inside the bin.


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## cgjedi

1-1/4" elbows are quite wide when connected. If I wanted the overflow at a certain tank height, I needed to cut some of the pipe. Even the horizontal width is quite wide when connecting two together.









The SonicCrafter has become my favorite tool. It's so easy to cut all the PVC with this.


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## cgjedi

Bought a massive bag of filter floss from Walmart. It's actually polyester stuffing for pillows and much less expensive than from the pet store.









In goes the Cocoa Pebbles. Actually, it's Hydroton and it's my media for the bacteria. It has more surface area than almost any other type of media. I'm not using the tri-base carbon because I don't want all the nitrates to be scrubbed from the water for the plants.


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## mikebike

Lots of times I buy the poliester pillows when they are on sale.
1/4 the price of pillow filling<G>


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## Captured Moments

cgjedi said:


> I was doing a bit of thinking about these plans. First, I kept the "loop" overflow hanging on the tank for a few days just to see what the siphon would do. It hasn't broken yet. So if the power goes out, it seems pretty safe that the overflow would start up without overflowing the tank.
> 
> Even though, the Mame style overflow is great with the venturi to start up the siphon, there needs be quite a lot of water pressure in order to suck the air out to begin with. My plans are to have 2 levels so I don't think the bottom level will have enough water pressure from the upper overflow just from gravity in order to start up the siphons. I think I'm going to go with the loop overflow design for the tanks.


That's very interesting about the "loop" overflow as you call it and the design. It's looks like it is a siphon all the way to the "T" in the PVC and then it becomes an overflow. If the power goes out, the siphon should retain it's prime. The only worry about it I think is air bubbles collecting slowly over time to the top of the bend where the vinyl tubing makes the U-bend. Eventually that would break your prime.

I built a PVC overflow system over a year ago for my 135 gal tank.. The link is: http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/my-journal-diy-pvc-overflow-non-drilled-tank-sump-filtration-design-24715/?highlight=diy+pvc+overflow.
Instead of a venturi, I simply used a check valve and suck out the air to prime the system. It never lost prime since it began running and I am assuming that the constant flow of water past the area is purging the air out.

Very interesting thread. Keep sharing your pictures and your progress.
Thanks


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## cgjedi

Thanks for the link to your awesome thread. That's some great information. I keep calling what I'm building a "loop overflow" because I can't find out who the originator was to give credit and to know what they called it. It is pretty much the same concept as what the drawing in your thread is except that it compacts the design. From what I read in my research the check valve design was always the achilles heel - there was the chance that it could fail. In this more compact design there is no check valve at all. Regarding having bubbles collecting, it's true that some bubbles do form as I've watched it work over a week. But once they get big enough, the water flow just carries them away. And because the vinyl is clear, I can always see what's going on in the siphon - something using regular PVC pipe doesn't let you check.


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## Captured Moments

That "loop overflow" design is quite ingenious and it makes it more compact than mine as you said it. It's true that the check valve is the weak point. The proof is in another setup of mine for my 20 gal. tank and I couldn't understand why the system would stop running after a few days, sometimes 1 day or 2 and other times 1 week..it wasn't consistent. I had drilled a small hole at the top of the PVC bend to fit the check valve and the silicone around the seal wasn't perfect and there was a small leak. Over time, the air would leak in and break the siphon. Once it's primed and depending on how you set up the design for the flow past the bend, you just reinforced the notion that the constant flow of water past the top of the bend tend to purge itself of trapped air bubbles.
Good luck with the rest of the build.


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## mikebike

if you get the threaded air livew vales you can screw them into a drilled hole
smaller than the thread diameter.
the air valve can be a bleeder

If you donlt like white pipe electiral PVC conduit is grea<G>
Happy New Year


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## cgjedi

Trying out a third clay - this one is from Lordco. It's quite dark - even darker than the Napa one.


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## cgjedi

Bought the final three 10 gallons - bringing up the total to 8 tanks. All the plumbing has been built and the tanks are all now connected and cycling from the sump. Awesome. Just a bit more glueing and fine tuning left to do.

"I love it when a plan comes together".


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## cgjedi

Now that the rack has been built, starting a tank log:
http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/tank-journals-16/8-tank-shrimp-rack-74521/


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## randylahey

Nice work, can't wait to see all those tanks loaded with life. I just redid the substrate in my 90 with the can-dry supreme and I'm quite pleased. The price can't be beat, it was just under $20 for 70 lbs. I've had more root growth in 2 weeks than a year with used ecocomplete.


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## Shiyuu

Quick question, out of 3 types of clay, which one do you like the best and why is it?
Or.... is it still too early to ask, lol~~


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## cgjedi

It's still a bit early since I haven't seen plant growth yet in all three. But just from initial impressions I'm liking Lordco's CanDry. It's the darkest of the bunch and the cheapest.


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## Captured Moments

What is that clay stuff if you don't mind me asking? Is it like that "Turface" clay stuff that they use in baseball fields? sort of granular like an aquarium gravel but it's baked clay or something like that. A while back I used something like Turface for my plants but I found it to be too light weight and it wouldn't hold the plants very well unless you planted them pretty deep because of their lightness.


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## randylahey

Yeah, you got it. It's made for soaking up oils and fluids at garages and so on. It is a little light weight but as soon roots take hold, it's just fine. There's a thread with a little bit of info:http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68761


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