Suction screen vs overflow box

[Snodgers]

Has anyone had experience with using a suction screen for the outlet taking water to a sump filter in a freshwater tank? I'm upgrading my tank and the upgrade is drilled, but the overflow box for my old tank is a HOB style, and the top of the new tank is such it won't accommodate the HOB overflow even if I plugged the holes. 

Pros and cons of both?

Thanks in advance!

[nabokovfan87]

Very confused! My apologies about that. Can you show where you're trying to install the screen?

In pretty much any case, you'd want something like that for the sake of having a prefilter and easier maintenance week to week.

[Snodgers]

So the screen is going straight into a bulkhead instead of attaching an overflow box to the hole in the side of the aquarium via a bulkhead.

Does that help?

[TOtrees]

All my tanks have this type of bulkhead screen. I don't use any overflow boxes. In my case, the bulkhead drain to a reservoir that gets pumped out as waste water (or reused if possible, I'm not a monster 😛 ), and not recirculated via sump filter.

I don't have any pics, but the screens attach to a pvc elbow that comes up from the bulkhead itself. So the filter screen points up, if you will. In some cases, I have to snip the top few levels or rungs/rings off the screens so they fit under the lid/cover (bc I keep fairly high water levels).

Recently I modded the setup to allow the water level to be adjusted more easily, by adding a second elbow. Now the first pvc elbow (the one connecting to the bulkhead) turns to the side, then a short pvc tube, then another elbow turns up which holds the screen. By rotating the pvc in the bulkhead, like manually turning the hands of a clock, I can easily adjust the level where the water drains. 

For tanks with small fry, I include a ring of sponge around the screen.