I was chatting to a good friend of mine last night about all things marine reef related and the subject of DIY ATS came up. My friend with my help is about to make his first ATS. based on this YouTube design. The conversation turned to the slot pipe design and my friend has come up with an interesting (read novel) idea. He is no stranger to DIY I may add and is thinking of making a slot pipe with the slot at the very top of the pipe. Yes the opposite to what we tend to have, nuts you might think but there is method in his madness. He recons if the slot where at the top water would nut spray up but flow out of the slot and around the pipe more evenly than the conventional method of having the slot under the pipe. He recons the water would flow round the pipe and onto the screen as he has done something similar with a water feature on a pond. Now that is quite different of course to what we use the slot in the pipe for but iMO it's an interesting idea that may warrant further investigation. The only thing stopping him at the moment is he is rather busy with a number of projects (this guy is a mind of can do most things) So given the above what think thee?
Been done before, here is a current thread where exactly what you describe is being done Large ATS waterfall adventures - Reef Central Online Community The downside I see of this is that I would think you would need an oversized pipe especially for a longer/wider screen, because the more flow you push the more you will get water flying to the end of that pipe and piling up the flow at the end where there is a stopping point. Oversizing it will allow water to pool up and flow more evenly I know I saw someone else build one with the screen physically attached to the bottom of the pipe and the slot on top, or big holes drilled on top and I think it worked OK.