Overflow question

[Tarolisol]

I have a question, on my new tank i want to aviod as much as possible fish goinin down into the sump, so what i was thinking is if i raise the drain with a pipe about half way up the over flow and put a strainer on it will there be any ill effects. also i put egg crate around the overflow as well.

[Rikko]

I can't quite visualize what you mean there.. Can you describe the system with a little more anal detail?
Regardless - a strainer always increases the chances of failure, as it takes smaller material to plug the drain and cause the return pump to start flooding the tank. Is it likely? Not very. Unless you add lots and lots of big sheets of nori, there shouldn't be all that much that's going to plug up large section of the strainer. I would proceed - many systems use a strainer without problems.

[Tarolisol]

Ok so what i am envisioning is in my overflows where the bulkhead are attach a pipe to raise the level of water in the overflow and add a strainer onto the top of the pipe. I want to have some water in the overflow incase a fish does make it into the overflow thats why i want to raise the waterlevel in it. Also i would do a standpipe or durso or somthing but i have a return line in the overflows so theres not much room left.

[muck]

You could do a stockman pipe.
Do a search im sure you will find lots of info on them.

[Tarolisol]

Ive read about the stockman ones but could never find the right pieces to make one, also would there be a way to prevent the fish from being sucked down into the sump with the stockman one.

[mr_alberta]

If you are tight on room in your overflow, do a Stockman standpipe. Basically the system you want IS a stockman standpipe...

A stockman standpipe is simple to make. Everything you need to make one is at Rona or Home Depot.

For a 1" stockman, you need, 1"PVC, a 1.5" Couple (slipxslip), a 1" cap and a 1.5"x1" reducer bushing.