Overflow
 

I am going to do an internal coast to coast overflow. I had 2 pieces of glass cut to the length of the side of the tank. Glued them in. Fit perfectly.


http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../overflow2.jpg

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../overflow1.jpg

Looking good so far!

Skimmer
 

I am still building the plumbing. At the mean time, my skimmer arrived. It's a Reef Octopus SRO-3000I (aka RO-PS-3000I). It's rated for 300g. I spent a lot of time researching skimmer because I believe a good skimmer and one that is properly size for your tank is very important.
I heard a lot of good things about reef octopus skimmers. The pump they use on most of their skimmers, the bubble blaster pump, claims to be the first of its kind that is specifically designed for skimmer usage.
I didn't go for a cone version because of a couple reasons. 1. The cone one is insanely more epensive than the non-cone one. 2. I still don't believe that a cone can outperform a non-cone one with the same pump.
Here are some pictures of the skimmer.

It came in a nice box.
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/Skimmer1.jpg

Packaging
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer2.jpg

Skimmer cup cover. Nice logo
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer5.jpg

Bubble blaster 3000...
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer3.jpg

Assembly is easy and quick. Took me less than 10 minutes to assemble the whole thing (including 5 minutes to find out where is the screw hole for the air hose holder)
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer4.jpg

Sit in the sump nicely.
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/skimmer6.jpg

How loud do you find that bubble blaster pump?

That logo is such an orko/he-man rip lol.

It's very quiet. If you are the person that rates a pump by its noise then you will definitely love this pump.

Plumbing
 

Finally finished the plumbing. Not sure I mentioned it before but the buckhead is 1". Therefore I use all 1" pipes and fittings. Let's see some pictures...

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing7.jpg
I decided to have only 2 holes drilled because I wanted to implement a herbie style overflow. I knew all about beananimal and its variants. For simplicity and less risk of breaking the glass, I chose herbie. After filled the tank with water and ran it for a week, I am convinced that my decision was correct. Herbie is quiet and doesn't need constant tweaking like some people say. At least I don't have to tweak the valve in 2 weeks that I run it. I will post my running herbie in a later post.
Return is from the top. 2 reasons for that, 1. coast to coast overflow. 2. didn't want to risk breaking the tank by drilling an extra hole.
Talking about the C2C, it's running better than I anticipated. I will have another post later.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing2.jpg
From far to near are emergency drain, main drain and return pipe.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing3.jpg
Bottom of the pipes. Since they are on the side, I built some support structure to support them.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing4.jpg
You can see the section of the plumbing inside the stand. This picture was taken from the top trough the bottom tank glass. From left to right are return pipe, main drain and emergency drain. Main drain and return pipe are controlled by gate valves. You can also see refugium feed below those 3 pipes. For the "last mile" (last piece of a plumping section), I use spa-flex to have a more nature bend.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing5.jpg
Return pump is a eheim 1262. It's quite. The only way I can hear it is to turn off all fans and pump from my other tank in the same room. Even that, it is only a slight hum.

http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/.../Plumbing6.jpg
Return is split to feed refugium section of the sump. Flow is set by a ball valve.

That is all for the plumbing. Let me know if you have any questions.

Auto Top Off (ATO)
 

My ATO has the following components: A 29 Gallon glass tank, an aqua lifter pump, a Digital Aquatics ReefKeeper Lite (RKL) and two float switches. So far it's working great.

29 Gallon glass tank
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO1.jpg

Aqua lifter pump
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO2.jpg

Double float switches.
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO3.jpg

RKL system lab
http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/...d/ATO/ATO4.jpg

How is this tank coming along? Any updates?