Okay time for a very big update...
We sold the tank, stand and sump for one simple reason: the noise. The dual dursos were obnoxiously loud and as this tank is on the main floor of the house and next to the TV, it wasn't something we could look over.
We did buy this unit to learn how to care of a reef without investing in all new equipment. I didn't want to be one of those people who bought everything brand new only to have to turn around and sell it all for a fraction of the cost because I wasn't really into the hobby. Turns out this hobby is going to be around for awhile and both of us really like it so now we aren't afraid of making investments into newer or better equipment.
So we bought a new tank and sump from a well known tank builder in Calgary and my BF decided to make the stand himself (with help from his welder friend). Everything turned out beautifully. We decided to go dual Herbie-style overflows for the new tank due to the noise reduction which was this style's claim to fame. For those of you who care to look it up, Herbie is a reefcentral member who designed the plumbing for his tank to be silent. I'm sure there are a few posts here on canreef about this style of drain and I will try to include some pics of it when I remember to take them however here is a link to the original herbie thread in the meantime:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=344892
Transfering everything over was difficult because it took much more time than I thought it would but here's how we did it:
We set up the new sump in our living room and filled it up with water from the DT, then moved all the LR into a brute rubbermaid with a heater and a powerhead. It barely fit. The livestock and the few corals we had moved into the sump and spent the next three days in there with a couple of powerheads and a heater. We set up the light over the sump for the corals and didn't have a single loss. Actually, that's not true - we found a fireworm (most likely species) living under the brain coral's base and BF killed him by stabbing him in his hole. Then we flushed out his severed remains with a turkey baster. Ever since fireworm died brain coral has been much happier.
We also saved about 60% of the water from the DT in rubbermaid containers but we ended up throwing out about 20% of it because it went stagnant as I didn't have enough powerheads for the number of containers we had the water in. So we ended up doing a massive waterchange in the process of transferring over tanks.
We set up the new stand on the platform, placed the one sheet of 3/4 in plywood on it, with a 1/2" piece of foam on top of that (foam was glued to underside of new tank courtesy of the tank builder). BF started to work on the plumbing and I began transferring everything into its new home.
That's when we decided to complicate things further and move the sump to the basement. Four major reasons why we did this:
1) Get the 80 gallon sump and its weight off of the main floor
2) Move the cords and mess out of the stand and clean it up.
3) Move the majority of the equipment to a new room which would be easier to access everything in.
4) We like to do everything the hard way
Anyways.. enough talk. Pics to follow shortly!