Closed Loop and Plumbing

[Jlefave1]

Hello Everyone, a little help please!
I just picked up this decent size believe 240 acrylic tank from a school science room with 3 bottom drilled 3/4 pipes, and 2 overfill 1 inch. I'm fixing it up and building a new stand and doing some polishing. I was going to run a closed loop on the bottom drilled. How should I do this to ensure enough water in the intake, and not loosing fish and anemones all the time getting sucked up. I was thinking about drilling a 4 1.5 inch bulkhead about 3/4 the way up in the back of the tank to use as the intake but its ugly, or add another whole to the bottom and possibly do 2 small closed loop systems. Most concerned about the intakes sucking things in, any suggestions with pics would be great!

 

[Formulator]

Strainer? These low profile ones might be up your alley. Careful with your plan though. Holes in the bottom of a tank outside of an overflow box are a recipe for disaster. One leak and your tank is fried. Just because they are there, doesn’t mean you need to use them. If it was me, I would be plugging them and moving on. Just my two cents…

 

[MrGisonni]

I had to close loop system on a 300 gallon aquarium in the past. I had this perfect piece of live rock that had a circular opening that fit right over top of my strainer. There should be no problem with them leaking, they're bulkheads just like any other bulkheads.

 

[MrGisonni]

Don't drill anymore. You've got your overflow for your sump, then put a strainer on one of those fittings in the bottom and the other will be your flow and call it a day.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

Strainer? These low profile ones might be up your alley. Careful with your plan though. Holes in the bottom of a tank outside of an overflow box are a recipe for disaster. One leak and your tank is fried. Just because they are there, doesn’t mean you need to use them. If it was me, I would be plugging them and moving on. Just my two cents…

I use this on my 55 works great

 

[Jlefave1]

I was looking at these strainers thinking i could put it at the far end of the tank. It is 1.5 inch, was thinking it could possibly feed 3-3/4 return lines if dropped it down into a siphon. the mesh is pretty small and spread out. Anyone ever use one?

 

[lagatbezan]

I’m using a closed loop on my 300 and drilled the bottom for both intake and return. If you use just a strainer you will have snails/starfish that will tend to get stuck to it. What I did was to wrap it with those plastic gutter guard meshes and it works great. See bad pic attached.
Also make sure not to glue or screw the straighter on. You will want to be able to take it out easily to clean them. They will start to clog up over time so don’t burry it under all your rock work.