# Drain Without Drilling



## Guest (Jan 3, 2006)

I didn't want to take the risk of drilling my new 18 x 24 exo terra, and came up with a simple way to drain without drilling or interrupting the frogs.
:idea: 
I am attaching an air line down the back of the viv, where I have my hidden pump chamber. (you could also put it in/behind the background). I ran this along with the cord, for the pump, out of the tank. Then below the tank, I mounted a 2 way airline valve control splitter I had lying around. Then put one of the controlled lines into a collection chamber(plastic coffee can).
Once I get it up and running, I plan to start a syphon, then use the controller to adjust a drip system that matches the same amount of water being put in by the mister. I'm sure it will take a little bit of tweaking the valve to get them in time together.
I will then use the other line off the 2 way to drain the tank completely for water changes. 
This seems like a simple, cheep way to control the water level/changes inside the vivs, without the cost of bulkheads, plumbing, and drilling.It would also be an easy fix to adding to a viv that is already set up, that hasn't been drilled. 
This has not been tested yet, but I will let you know if I have any probs. or fixes with this setup.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Sounds like a very good idea... Post a picture when you get it running.


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## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

Yes, let us know how it goes. FYI, working with water and tweaking is pretty hard. I built a canister filter from scratch a couple months ago and can tell you from experience siphons can be a real pain for a whole bunch of reasons: losing siphon, losing pump and draining tank onto the floor if reservoir isn't big enough, intake filtering, etc.

I can ramble on at length about what I learned if you are interested. Executive summary is that I would drill and use bulkheads unless I had a water feature holding more than a gallon of water and then might look at that small canister filter deal that fluval or whoever makes.

Good luck,

Marcos


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## booboo (Jan 22, 2005)

Hate to say it but as Blort mentioned working with water is tricky.

I have been working with sw aquariums for about a year and a half now and can say that i have tried so many things such as this drainer. (for keeping water level stable and similar stuff)

Truthfully i dont think it will work ( it may, i will be excited if it does  ) why i say this is:
1. Humidity isnt going to say exactly the same in your tank
2. Plant roots will continue to grow and suck up more and more water or less and less.
3.drainage may change due to what is decompsing.
4. Something may easily obstruct the slow siphon.
5. Many other random things

I am looking forward to whether this works or not, good luck with water :wink:


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2006)

I agree working with water is tricky. I was thinking about using a canister filter to begin with, but I have had bad luck with them over the years with aquariums. Power heads are much cheaper to replace, plus I have a couple laying around. Drilling would be the way to go, but it really raises the price tag on the setup, unless you already have the tools needed. It also adds a lot more work to the project, especially if something goes wrong. :shock: 

I had a 75 gal reef tank set up for a few years, with a refugee sump. I've went round and round with syphon's. I know this won't be a flawless system, by any means. There will be variable's that will have a need for adjustments. Like when I use a hand sprayer to was down the plants and tank. Which is why having the extra drain line will come in handy, and being able to adjust the flow rate of the drip line. 

I plan on using this system with a normal water level of 3 in deep. And the main syphon will be 1 in. above the floor. That would probably be about a gal. or more of water before I would loose the syphon.

This will be a very small amount of water exchange per day. It usually takes over a week before my water level will rise an inch in my 29 gal. 

You brought up a good point that it can get clogged rather easily. I think I will try to use a piece of sponge or something else for a prefilter. I'm sure there will be other obstacles that I will run across, but I do see this as being an easy alternative to drilling.

Thanks for pointing out the problems that I may run into. It helps me to modify the design of this system ahead of time. Let me know if you think of any others.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

with a false bottom and a strong enough pump, you could just have a tube run up from the pump in the water below the false bottom...hidden by stuff probably then, when ever the water level got high, turn the pump on and pump out as much water as u want into a bucket. Ta da...done.


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

With a pump though you run into the problem of the intake of the pump being submersed in water, that's usually at least and inch of water. I either drill, put a piece of PVC covered by a rock to all my acces to the bottom via a siphon hose, or make a water area in my tank. 

I think it's pretty idealistic to match the input of water to the output of water. In theory it will work, but in this system there are too many variables to conisider that will make the balance very difficult.



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## rompida (Mar 15, 2004)

I used to do something similar, as far as running tubing up from the false bottom of my tanks. But, instead of siphoning, I purchased an inexpensive wet/dry vac (around $15 at HD), and rigged up one of the attachments to fit the tubing coming out of the tank. Worked quite nicely. I would just wait until there was a decent amount of standing water and then just go through and hit all the tanks in the room with the wet vac.


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