Oh I see, I thought you were talking about closed loop plumbing. What you are looking at in the photo is the sump and sump return pump. Luckily the closed loop and sump return plumbing to the display tank is each about 4' in length, plastic, and full of fluid (great qualities if you want to isolate vibes!). Unfortunately though I am cramped for space with the sump return pump. As you can see in the photo, the pump is on the very edge, almost hanging off of the stand - and that is after I cut down each of the PVC fittings by half with a hacksaw! There is no room for any tubing from the elbow to the pump (unless I took out the quick release union... I guess I could). Even if I put flex tubing from the bulkhead to the elbow there is so little free space that direction that the flex tubing would have to be so short there wouldn't be enough there to 'flex', the fittings would almost be touching each other.
Great ideas guys, and if there was another way of doing it, I would have. On past tanks I have even used a hosebarb on the sump bulkhead, and hosebarb on the pump, and 6" of hose between the two. It might be a little tough to visualize from the photo, but I don't have any extra room.
On the bright side, there isn't any unsprung weight on the bulkhead. I connected the pump to the bulkhead first and then siliconed and tightened the bulkhead down so that it set in the neutral position without any weight on it....
- Chad
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Returning to the hobby after an eight year absence.
Last edited by Fish; 02-25-2007 at 10:29 PM.
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