290G Peninsula Tank

mseepman · #1 03-08-2010, 03:21 AM

Okay so I have a question for those of you with external overflows. I rarely see any lower support on the overflow (like triangular supports), but it strikes me that the overflow holds a lot of water...sometimes 7-12 gallons and when I do the math on the weight of that...I get nervous.
Has anyone had issues with this? Have you seen some that have been built with supports?
When I got my first tank quote from Aquarium Obsessed they found humour in my worry about the overflows but they included the supports in the price because I asked for it.

kien · #2 03-08-2010, 03:23 AM

ooh sexy.. and your plot of land ain't bad either.

kien · #3 03-08-2010, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mseepman

Okay so I have a question for those of you with external overflows. I rarely see any lower support on the overflow (like triangular supports), but it strikes me that the overflow holds a lot of water...sometimes 7-12 gallons and when I do the math on the weight of that...I get nervous.
Has anyone had issues with this? Have you seen some that have been built with supports?
When I got my first tank quote from Aquarium Obsessed they found humour in my worry about the overflows but they included the supports in the price because I asked for it.

i don't think my external overflow holds more than 2 gallons :-)

xtreme · #4 03-08-2010, 03:58 AM

I have a 280 as well and I just calculated my overflow to be about 4.7 gallons. No issues so far.

mseepman · #5 03-08-2010, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xtreme

I have a 280 as well and I just calculated my overflow to be about 4.7 gallons. No issues so far.

The part that scares me is that your 4.7 gallons is not far from 50 pounds...along with the weight of the glass...hanging off of some silicone.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. My overflow would be about 6.5 gallons.

Kryptic4L · #6 03-08-2010, 04:20 AM

does the fact that your tank will be held together with the same stuff which will undergo far greater stress then 50 lbs pushing outward concern you ?

either way, if you really want to support it, a 2x4 or 2 should be easy enough to use for your purpose.

mseepman · #7 03-08-2010, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kryptic4L

does the fact that your tank will be held together with the same stuff which will undergo far greater stress then 50 lbs pushing outward concern you ?

either way, if you really want to support it, a 2x4 or 2 should be easy enough to use for your purpose.

Well put! I guess that really is the way to look at it.

mseepman · #8 03-24-2010, 08:30 PM

Okay...so I'm in need of some opinions on something for this tank.

I'm not a fan of holes in a tank. I've never felt that there was a need to drill a tank like swiss cheese and so I shy away from this.

In my new tank I will be having an external overflow and I will be utilizing the "bean animal" system which uses three pipes rather than the tradition two in a herbie overflow.

My question revolves around why people tend to "return" their water back through their overflow rather than via pipes up and over the top of the tank? I realize that looks have a lot to do with it, but this just strikes me as another point where my tank could "fail" or leak. My fish room will be in the basement and so my current plan was to return the water via a 2" pipe which would split at some point into smaller 1" pipes and then go over the top (which you can't see in my plan) and come down through the eurobrace in the tank at the far end to push water towards my overflow.

Does anyone see issues with this plan?