Drilling a 29. Where?

[TheRookie]

Hey all. As you can see This is my first post. I have been reading a ton on here and other places recently. My plan is this. I am going to set up a coral reef tank. I have read a ton and decided I want to add a sump. This will be a small tank (29 gallon). Where would I want to drill for the bulkhead? Please bear in mind that this will be in a bedroom so noise is an issue. I do have 3 tanks in the room right now so I am naturaly used to some noise. What I have gathered is that most drill as low as possible on the back wall. Should I put this in the center or in the corner? What size is best? I was thinking 1 inch for both intake and return. Here is my dilema. With the holes drilled as low as possible there is no way that my also small sump will be able to hold all that water in a power outage. This is why I am thinking of putting them higher.
ANY sugestions will be much appreciated. Oh I am having a local glass place do the drilling.
Thanks a bunch
Mike

 

[aliendomain]

Mike,
If you are going to drill the holes at the bottom back of the tank you may want to build in an internal overflow box. this will solve the issue of a back siphon. If you go this route the bottom of the tank is just as good if not better for drilling. But in a 29 this could take up some space. You may be better off with an overflow box. As for noise, a sponge around the intake in the overflow will help. To reduce the splashing noise in the sump you can extend the hose from the tank under the waterline, you can add a sponge or whisper filter bag to the end of the hose as well. I like the whisper bags because they catch allot of detritus that enters the sump.
Hope this helps.

 

[TheRookie]

Thanks that does help. I am leaning away from a H.O.T. overflow. I have heard several issues with them overflowing. I rent so that is a risk I need to avoid. The bottom of my tank appears to be tempered. I do not know this for sure yet as it will not be empty till tommorow. (I am setting up a larger tank for some oscars and want it to sit for a while prior to putting in the fish. Fresh water is a whole lot quicker in this area) IF it is tempered then I do know a good glass place that MAY be able to drill the bottom.

 

[texasreefer]

If the bottom is tempered it can't be drilled.

I would drill it near the top in the back corners. That way if you lose power all that will drain down into your sump is the water level to get to the bottom of the bulkhead. I have a 20 I want to drill this way but I don't want to drain it right now since it is set up already.

 

[TheRookie]

Thanks for the help. I will be having it drilled there. That will also be convienient to run my sump.

 

[aliendomain]

FYI, If you drill the tank at the top, you can get a slurping noise. I know this because I had a 26 FBH with a hole drilled at the top. It is however the easiest way to go. Allot of stores drill this way on their own tanks, if you know of one go there and see if you could live with the noise it produces.

Best of luck,

Aliendomain

 

[TheRookie]

Thanks Aliendomain. I went to a LFS that has holes there. They had 90 degree elbows into the tank. The manager explained to me that they help with the noise. So far thats the plan.