would this work?

[jayguad]

let me preface this by saying this might be the stupidest questing ever asked on the board. (keep in mind i woke up at 230am to think about it)
last night i was lying in bed, and all i could hear was my skimmer in the other room (i am an extremely light sleeper).
i had an idea, i want to take an old HOB filter and manipulate it - i want to let it suck the water out, then i want to drill a hole into the bottom of it, attach a tube, and bring the water down to the bottom of the tank, into a small 10 or 20g tank. in there i will have a skimmer and my heater.
then i want to add on a powerhead in that small tank to return the water to the tank.
would this work? meaning would it "cover up" the sound of the skimmer (since it will be in the stand)?
i want to build a whole sump / refugum / etc. but in the mean time, i would like to do this. any ideas or comments?

 

[lilredwuck]

before they ask what size is your original tank?

 

[jayguad]

55G tank. right now its in a 37. but i am upgrading it to a 55G when i move into my new house this weekend.

 

[scsinet]

No it won't. This type of setup amounts to a double pump scheme... where you are pumping water out of the tank and using a pump to return it. Such a setup would flood, eventually if not immediately, because there is no way to establish equal flow. One side has to be gravity fed.
Replace that HOB filter thing with an overflow box and you should be golden.

 

[jayguad]

i just made it an overflow box? how would i start the gravity pump? any suggestions? liek could i use an older filter?

 

[jimmy40741]

Yea, it would work in that it would cover up the sound of the skimmer.
It would also work if your secondary goal is to flood the floor.
In a normal overflow system your return pump pumps water up to your tank, which then overflows the tank by means of an overflow box, stand pipes, etc, then the water returns to the sump and the return pump. The only water that enter and exits the tank is the water moved by the return pump, the pump takes out X gph from the sump and the overflow returns X gph to the sump.
Now what you are wanting to do is use two pumps, one to remove water from the tank (in the HOB filter) and one to return water to the tank (in the sump). If these two pumps are not moving EXACTLY the same amount of water then either your tank or your sump will overflow. With ball valves and such you could probably get it pretty close, but you will never get them exactly the same. And sooner than later you will have water on your floor.

 

[scsinet]

Originally Posted by jayguad
http:///forum/post/3173749
i just made it an overflow box? how would i start the gravity pump? any suggestions? liek could i use an older filter?
I suppose you could... but overflow boxes have internal baffles and such to operate. A simple "u" tube straddling an HOB filter would just be a wide open siphon, again, flooding.
By the time you finish dinking around and trying to rig in baffles, why not just spend $50 on an Eshoppes PF-300?
Small price in comparison to a flooded house and/or a dead tank.

 

[jayguad]

sorry that i keep asking, but i want to be sure...
so if i pick up the Eshoppes PF-300, would i then be able to do my idea? or would it still not be right?

 

[scsinet]

Yeah, you are basically setting up a sump at this point. The overflow box hangs on your tank and drains via gravity to the sump.
Then your return pump takes the water that drains back up.

 

[calbert0]

ever notice how you have to fill an HOB filter with water, to get it primed and pumping?
If there was a hole in the bottom of it that drained water out, it wouldnt work.