I need somebody to give me the pro's and Con's of the hang on over flow vs the built in's.Do the hang on sypons break in power outages causing the tank to over flow when the pump starts again. :?: :?: :?
If you have not bought the tank yet then get a reef ready with built in overflows. If you already own the tank and it can not be drilled then get a lifereef overflow sized to suit your flow needs. I used one of lifereefs overflows for 9 years with out problems. Restarts everytime. You do have to manitain the siphen tubes with a good cleaning from time to time and keep an eye on them and the water level in the skimmer cup. I used black electrical tape on mine and only had to clean them once per year. I had MH lighting right over them also.
The reason is: if you lose your siphon for whatever reason (e.g clog, airbubbles, evaporation during powere outage...) and the pumps are going; you will pump from sump to tank, it won't drain, you overflow tank, you get wet floor, you get wife really mad at you etc.
A built in overflow doesn't have this problem as it just uses gravity, and does not use a siphon to lift the water over the edge of the tank.
