plumbing

The popularity of the live coral “reef tank” aquarium has exploded in over the past decade. Advances in aquarium keeping technology have made this notoriously difficult division of the aquarium-keeping hobby affordable and accessible to an increasingly large number of people. Overflow boxes can transform your simple marine aquarium into a super-powered living reef system.

As a maintenance professional, one of the common issues that I have to address is under-filtered aquariums. I often see small aquariums with a live coral setup, with a filtration system that lacks a protein skimmer. Because this is not an ideal situation, my recommendation is always to add a skimmer to the display. While hang-on-the-back skimmer options are available, my preference is to add an “overflow box” and “sump” to the aquarium. The sump is a tank located underneath the main display aquarium, the overflow box is the device that safely (without floods) delivers the water to the sump tank below. In most instances, adding sump to existing tank is as easy as a few simple steps.