75 gallon tank

Nice post, Blake. I have overflows from glassholes on three of my tanks. Drilling holes definitely takes a little practice. I found the key to starting holes is to try and use the lowest speed possible on the drill to help keep them from dancing around. I don't recall having a problem with my holes being uneven on the bigger overflow, but I believe there is just enough "play" with the bulkhead in the hole that there is a little room to make the box level.

Are you sure you drilled too low? The water will be 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up on the teeth. If that is not high enough, you might consider attaching a narrow strip of acrylic on the inside of the teeth to help raise the water level. I believe melev had to do that on his tank with he factory made overflow.

Another piece of advice with this brand overflow, DO NOT have your pipes go straight down... they can be quite noisy. Use 45 degree angles and zig zag down if you need to. Other than that, I like these overflows because the look good and are quite small.

-James

Thanks James. The only drill I have is a 1/2" Milwaukee Heavy Duty version. It has a variable speed trigger (the more you pull the faster it goes). Only problem is, the slowest I could get it to go was still just a little too fast to keep the hole saw from dancing around. When I say the holes are uneven, I'm talking about 1/16". The difference in the size of the bullkheads and the size of the hole in the overflow box easily covers the difference so I can make the overflow level. I was just unhappy with myself for not getting the holes level. I'm an engineer and a perfectionist. (Remember, I was going to cut the silicone seams out a second time because the egdes were sloppy when I replaced the silicone the first time.)

Part of the box placement was my fault for not thinking about how low the teeth are cut. I was trying to set the box so that I could get the top on and off without interfering with the top trim or silicone. So I set the box about a 1/2" below the silicone seam which holds the top trim on. Then I lost another 1/4"+/- because the template is larger than the hole saw and the rotation of the hole saw sucked it to the bottom of the template. Then I lost another 1/8" or so because I have to put the bulkhead as low as possible in the hole so the gasket covers the "chip out". End result is the top of the overflow is about 1/8" below the bottom of the top trim. Then I'll loose another 1/2" or so to the teeth. I may look into placing a small strip of acrylic behind the teeth to raise the level some. Have to wait and see what it looks like when it's running.

Thanks for the advice about adding a couple of 45's. I did plan to run the overflows straight down, now I'll rethink that.

Good discussion and thanks again for the advice.

I should add, all in all I think these are well made, thought out and put together kits. There was a sticker on the bottom of the overflow box and since I'm not sure what the sticker would leach into my tank (if anything) I removed the sticker and cleaned the remainder of the glue off with rubbing alcohol, but overall it's a nice kit.

My posts are mainly just my observations of the process from someone who's never cut glass (or tile for that matter) with a hole saw, and some of the things I ran into during the install. My observations are intended to provide information that I didn't come across during my research. Hopefully my observations will be helpful to others.

The water level can also be fixed by making a new overflow. Slightly larger than the original one.

I had a little trouble drilling my holes the first time around as well. I started out at an angle and slowly levelled the hole saw on the glass all at a low speed to start out. Once I was levelled I drilled through at full speed on the drill with the lowest chuck setting. Also placed a piece of wood behind the glass and that really helped to make a clean cut. Congrats on cutting the hole successfully though, its a bit nerve racking if you have never drilled glass before.

This is as high as I can raise the overflow and still cover the chip out. Hard to tell, but if the water level runs half way up the teeth, looks like the water level will still be just below the bottom of the upper trim. Oh well chalk it up as a learning experience I guess.

Midnight - I guess I could check into having Mark build me a taller overflow, but I hate to throw out a perfectly good overflow just because I drilled the holes in the wrong place.

Thanks Floggin, you're right, it was a bit nerve racking, and I don't mind saying I'm glad I decided against the close loop. I'd have turned myself into a nervous reck by the end of turning the back of the tank into swiss cheese ;-)

oh, those teeth are huge, you can definitely cover part of them up to raise the water level.

That's two votes for covering part of the teeth to raise the water level. Once I actually have the plumbing all hooked up and can tell how much I need to raise the water level, I'll glue in a piece of acrylic.

Thanks for following along and for all the help guys.

Other than loving my overflows from this company I do have the problem of it being noisy. The vendor suggested I place a piece of material normally used in skimmers to create bubbles (can't recall the name, starts with an E) to break up the water.

This works great but collects trash from the water, raises the water level, and then floods (only once, but I learned.) I am now putting up with the noise until I can do something else.

Writing because I wondered about the comment about the 45's. Could someone elaborate on how they did that? TIA

I believe what James meant about using 45's was rather than running pipes straight down into the sump from the 90's screwed into the bulkheads, use 45's to "zigzag" the overflow pipes down to the sump.

Don't know if that helps explain it any better or not, but I'll be plumbing my overflows hopefully this week or next weekend and will have pictures of my plumbing up as soon as I get the plumbing finished.