sump pluming?

I have never heard of anyone drilling a slate bottom tank, not sure its possible?
Even if you could that tank has to be 40 years old or older since they have not been common since the 60's. Why take a chance on someting that old? If you must do an overflow use an hang on back like an Eshopps and keep it simple.

We all understand what you are trying to do but are hesitant to offer advice since its an unusual and risky situation at best.

You need to adjust you attitude a little too, no one likes to be talked down to, especially when they are offering advice which was solicited by yourself.

 

Yes it does help a bit more.

It seems like you are taking a bean animal/calfo hybrid and removing crucial components.

Will what you are showing work? In a nutshell, yes, it will probably work.

Would I recommend doing it that way? NO.

You have no safeguard built in against biological invasions(aka snail, fish, coral, nem, mat of cyano), they can clog your open overflow or else you have to cover it and restrict flow and or add another thing to maintain on your system.

Next you will have to have your primary overflow at the perfect elevation at the surface or else be adjustable to get an ideal mix of air/water without a waterfall sound.

Your next challenge is obtaining effective surface skimming. A 1" or even 1.5" PVC pipe will have very little skimming capacity compared to any overflow box design. Also, if you drill the bottom of the tank and you start to have a bulkhead leak, you have very few options to repair it without taking the entire tank apart.

Using a HOB overflow you would avoid all of those problems and gain excellent surface skimming while not coprimising the integrity of the glass.

Using a corner overflor or calfo/bean overflow will also give you these strengths and eliminate weaknesses.

The design as you are drawing it is cutting too many corners IMHO.

 

+1 to this!

If you are going to invest all of this money in a reef - a brand new tank would be a pittance of an expense compared to the overall capital needed to start even a small reef tank.

 

thanks for the help