Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - carriej's 125 gallon reef

Well I have had my overflow and sump running for a few days but I was so angry with it I didn't post until now.

It was a nightmare. Don't ever do it... LOL.. Drill the (expletive) thing. I know, I know, I didn't want to put holes in my tank, either. However I will never, ever do that again. I almost, ALMOST made a hole in it anyway. With a SLEDGEHAMMER... lol

I don't know how feasible it is to drill a tank once it's set up, but if it can be done I am going to have someone do it for me. I know I can't do it myself, I don't know how to drill things nor do I have the patience.. lol

I ran into a few problems, some my fault, some my husbands fault, some design flaws.

Issue one : Not enough power from my pump - My overflow box came with two utubes, but I can only use one. I'm going to try ordering two smaller utubes (as these ones are 1 1/4" utubes) and see if that makes a difference. There are bubbles from the action of the water overflowing over the teeth and with one utube the pump is strong enough to push the bubbles through, but with both on the pump can't. One utube will stay perfectly primed but the other will develop a bubble which I am assuming would eventually break the siphon. This isn't really anyones fault other than mine as it's pumping up like 5.5 feet. I did not have my stand built when I ordered it and didn't realize I was going to have so much head loss, but oh well. I just thought it might be nice to have two utubes incase one does fail.

Issue two : Heater did not fit into my sump, so it has to remain an eyesore in the tank. It's a monster heater, I only had so much room for a sump... I guess Im pinning this one on my husband since he built my stand which could only fit a 30 gallon sump...lol

Issue three : HOSES. OMG. We literally gave up for a week. Practically have to set the darn hoses on fire to make them flexible. I used flexible hose rather than plastic pipe because I heard it was quieter and I thought it would be easier. It's definitely quiet, and it's nice that I can see in them to see if there might be something blocking them.

Issue four : Skimmer was put together incorrectly at factory. I knew something was up with this thing when I looked at it. I have never seen a skimmer up close before; but it just looked weird and things didn't line up right. The instructions were terrible, sounded like they came from google translate. It was all pictures and maybe 5-6 words under the pictures. So I took the bugger all apart and had little pieces of plastic everywhere. Anyway, I got it together after looking at reference pictures from other peoples skimmers online and on youtube. It hasn't really made any foam yet but it looks like it's starting to do something today.. I guess sometimes it takes awhile to break in. This is the factory in Chinas fault.. I could actually give you the guys (girls?) name as they signed a sheet that said it was approved.. Well they were wrong.. lol, anyway it is a very attractive looking skimmer and aside from the issues with the bottom plate being on backwards it's very quiet and I think it's kind of pretty.

Issue five : It was actually kind of funny when it happened.. My husband and I were literally downstairs until like 2am new years eve trying to figure this out. Everytime we turned the power off to test both the siphon and how much the sump would fill; the overflow would stop pumping water in and we would hear this SCREAMING noise and magically the sump would keep filling... Anyway my husband investigated and he said to me (rather loudly) "The return line is hum-sucking all the water out of the display tank!" and I said WHAT? And then laughed hysterically. We have been together over 8 years and I never heard him (or anyone else) say the word hum-sucking (if it's a word). I'm sure it's not that funny to you but at 2am when you should have gone to bed hours ago it was pretty hilarious. Anyway a friend rescued me here and said we needed to drill a hole in the return to break the siphon (makes sense). Thanks friend for rescuing me from the hum-sucking return line. I'm not sure how I missed that step in my many research escapades of sumps and returns and overflows and all that.

Issue six : Leaking bulkhead. Yep. The bulkhead that comes out of the bottom of the overflow on one side leaked. My husband was splashing a lot of water around in his manbeast ways as he is like a bull in a china shop. So we both thought the water was coming from him (some of it was) but after I kicked him out of there, it was still leaking. This is my husbands fault since he put them on.. lol. Anyway he tightened them and all is well now.

Issue seven : Priming the utube. I am too cheap to buy one of those lame aqualifter pumps. So I had my husband do it the old fashioned way and suck the air out with an air hose. That is all fine, but trying to get the air hose out of the u tube without breaking siphon is another story. Took I dont know HOW many tries. If you pull on it too hard it kinks around the edge of the utube and your doomed. Pull too easy and nothing happens. Anyway... We solved this eventually.

Issue eight : Hoses pushing against "decorative" edge on stand which caused the overflow to sit funny on the aquarium. My husband just wanted to cut notches in the wood, but I texted a friend first to make sure it could handle the "vibration" and once again to the rescue he suggested the use of a hole saw. So... Thats what my husband did. Hoses fit down through the back of the stand and no ugliness to be found.

I am sure a normal human being with an ounce of handiness would have a much easier time than I did. However - I am not handy nor am I a normal human being.. lol... It also did not help that my aquarium is as tall as I am. I couldn't SEE up where I needed to be so I was fiddling around and guessing and mussing with it. Also would have been much easier to do if the tank wasn't up and running as the full tank of water definitely created some issues.. lol ... So for those of you who are going to do this in the future, maybe you all learned a little something.. LOL

I do have to say though, that the siphon is VERY HARD to break once established. Like you can haul it out of there and it's quite impressive. It's not that I don't like the products I used or anything like that... I just don't like this part of the hobby, period. I just want to keep my pretty fishies, not mess around with all this crap..

However now that all is said and done I have a running sump, even if I am a little cranky and sensitive about it.. I also overreact (DRAMA QUEEN) so I'm sure most people would have just dealt with this stuff... Not me lol, I expect everything to always go together perfectly.. And Im sure you all know that rarely happens in this hobby.

ANYWAY.. what you're all waiting for is pics!

Overflow with one lonely Utube
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...22/photo32.jpg

Sump, need to get some stuff for it yet.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...22/photo33.jpg

Tank
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...22/photo34.jpg