Help needed. No Failover in overflow box.

[TheWhiteFang]

Hello,

I am very new to the hobby and got a 40 gallon tank from my LFS that is a bit older. I have had a few instances where a snail blocks my overflow and my tank starts to fill. I haven't had it yet, but I am very concerned/anxious about the overflow not having a failover. Is there a newbie-friendly way to fix this?

Overflow goes into sump. I believe the pipe is 3/4", not sure what the size of the hole the bulkhead goes into is.

 

[TX_REEF]

Is there only one drain from the overflow? That's a huge risk of tank overflow, if I were you I'd drain the tank just enough to drill and add an emergency drain. not super newbie friendly, but no rocket science. Otherwise it really is a ticking time bomb...

 

[TheWhiteFang]

Is there only one drain from the overflow? That's a huge risk of tank overflow, if I were you I'd drain the tank just enough to drill and add an emergency drain. not super newbie friendly, but no rocket science. Otherwise it really is a ticking time bomb...

I thought about doing that and adding an external overflow, just didn't know the dangers/risks of drilling while the tank still has water/coral

 

[TX_REEF]

I thought about doing that and adding an external overflow, just didn't know the dangers/risks of drilling while the tank still has water/coral

very limited risk if you just go slow, watch a couple vids on youtube about tank drilling for some confidence and make sure you have the proper drill bit.

 

[TacticalBacon]

Wild guess. Can you put mesh netting and make a screen so nothing smaller than the little squares can pass?

 

[TheWhiteFang]

Wild guess. Can you put mesh netting and make a screen so nothing smaller than the little squares can pass?

I tried this but the snails will sit on it and cause the flow to drop. I have a 3d printed protector on it at the moment which has helped, but it happened again today.

 

[TheWhiteFang]

I created a diagram that will hopefully help a bit with understanding how it is currently set up.

 

[KStatefan]

I would not want a gate valve on a single drain setup.

 

[TheWhiteFang]

Update: I ended up going with an external overflow. I had to drill out the hole that existed (which was terrifying), but all went really well. Thank you everyone for the advice. I appreciate it :)