140 gallon build - Updated 09/30

I picked up my overflow box from Elite Aquatics (tcfab) and got that drilled and installed. The overflow turned out so awesome. It is only as deep as the eurobracing and 5.5 inches tall so it doesn't take up a ton of real estate. It does extend across 41" of the available 47" though so I should be getting excellent surface skimming.

First my bulkheads were leaking... No matter what I did, I continued to have leaks from my primary and secondary bulkheads. I finally realized that I needed an additional gasket between the inside wall of the overflow box and the bulkhead. Without this second bulkhead, water would wick along the threads of the bulkhead and create a slow leak.

Second, I realized that my return wasn't going to work so I switched to a Reeflo Dart (thank you Brad@ The Aquarium for hooking me up). While I am very happy with the Dart, this means I had to redo all of my plumbing other than my return lines.

Finally, I had slow leaks from almost all of the threaded joints in my return lines. I tried redoing my teflon tape and tightening the fittings as much as possible. However, I still had leaks! After researching this online, it looks like teflon tape works well for with smaller pvc pipes but you can have issues with teflon tape and pvc of 1.5" and larger. Today I switched to teflon paste and didn't have a single leak! (Additionally, teflon tape doesn't work well between the pvc fittings and the fiberglass of the Reeflo Dart)

So I've now got everything running without any issues. The bean animal overflow is completely silent and is handling an insane amount of flow. You seriously can't even hear the overflows. I'll post a video tomorrow and try to capture how silent the system is.

Thanks! I took me forever to come up with a design that I liked but I'm really happy with how it turned out.