New Build Questions....

[Waterlife]

Hello everyone. I have some questions that I am hoping to have answered here. I have a 420 gallon acrylic tank that I am trying to set up. I recently purchased two of the 20" overflows from Synergy Reef. I am building a fluidized bed out of a 90 gallon glass tank. Any ideas on how to run all of the drains coming from the overflows? This is where I am getting hung up. Thanks in advance.

 

[DLHDesign]

Both Shadow Boxes have three 1.5" drains on them - set up to run as a bean animal system. With two of them, you could either run them independent of each other or you can tie the primary drains together.

To run them independently, just hook up each set of drains as if the other were not there. When it comes time to adjust the flow of the primary drains, you would want to keep the two drains reasonably close to each other, but they wouldn't need to be exactly the same.

To tie them together, you would bring both primary drains into a t-fitting. The "T" would take in two 1.5" pipes (from the drains) while the third would need to be larger (I think 2" would do it). The piece you would use to make this connection is a "bullhead tee". On the larger end of the tee is where you would put the gate or ball valve that would allow you to control the return rate on both of the primary drains at the same time.

In either case, the other two drains from each box get plumbed in directly to the sump. You wouldn't need (or want, really) to join these drains since they are meant to free-flow anyways.