Brian Howell:
Hey guys this is Brian Howell from Saltwater Ambitions. Today I wanted to talk to you a bit about this H2 overflows that I got from Custom Aquariums. When I started designing this tank I sort of started with things that I knew I didn't want and in my mind I immediately went toward the traditional overflow. I've just never been a fan of them.
The corner overflows that are out there, the center box overflows or even some of the tanks that you see that have an overflow that runs the entire length of the tank.
For me, they've always just taken up too much room, too much real estate. They sort of look unnatural and often times you have to aquascape around them with your rock and other things. So, when I saw these H2 overflows from Custom Aquariums I immediately fell in love with them. Some of the features that I found to just be great are, number one, they don't displace hardly any water. These guys sit really high on the water table, they're pretty thin and for the amount of water that they take on and allow to filter through your system, they really don't take up a lot of real estate at all. They're completely adjustable so you can pivot them laterally, basically to spin all the way around.
The way that I have these three in the tank right now you can see the left is to a 45 degree left, the centre one is pointing straight ahead and the right is to a 45 degree to the right and I simply did that just because I thought that that provided me with the best flow and the best skimming, but if I needed to I could adjust these however I wanted. Cool feature of that is-- I don't really have this problem, but if my lighting ever created shadows because of the overflows the way I aquascape, I could just simply turn these things and move them out of the way to eliminate the shadowing. The fact that they're adjustable is great.
Another thing that I really like about them, the way that the teeth on these guys are tapered, it allows all the water in but it really prevents anything else from getting in there, you don't have to worry about those snails that sometimes will creep up into your overflow or any small fish that might eventually get sucked into these guys, really nothing is getting through this but water and some of the finer things that you would really want to be captured in the overflow.
The other thing I like, these tops are removable. Sometimes with these types of products, they're a one-piece mould and it really makes it difficult when you're trying to do a thorough cleaning. With these guys you just pop the tops right off and you can get everything cleaned out. If they didn't come off, you would have to have some sort of a specialized brush to really get in between all the teeth there and in all the nooks and crannies. I like the fact that they come off.
You can see there are holes there where if I wanted to I could put some stainless steel screws in there but I just use a rubber band to hold mine in place, but to be completely honest with you, you don't even really need that. I was able to sort of snap mine down and they stay there pretty well. I have the rubber band on there just to prevent any possible issue where it would come off.
I really love these guys. Again, they sit really high up in the water table. From the front side, any aquarium that you have with the frame, from the regular viewing angle you're never even going to see these things. There's no water line that you wouldn't want and really it allows your tank, your display tank to be just that. It's a display tank and it's not filled up with overflow equipment. There's a lot of skimming area involved in these for how small they are, as you can see they take on water all the way around. Both sides, the front and back take in water and if any water were to splash over the top, obviously it would get in there as well.
I'm getting 3,600 gallons an hour out of these three. Obviously for the size of your tank you could have more or less but these really work for me and I'm really happy with them. The the other thing is they work perfectly with the stealth box external overflow that Custom Aquariums also makes and I'll feature this separately later, but these two things for me sort of go hand-in-hand and so far I'm in love with them. If you guys have any questions let me know, thanks.
