375 gal starting to take shape ... 3rd photo installment

[Pansy-Paws]

Here's a shot of the tank today, two types of rock curing (Fiji and Tonga) ...



I connected the tank into the sump today, so here's a summary of the challenges I had with that part of the design. Hopefully you can visualize what I'm describing, but please ask further questions if not .

The area under the bar supporting the tank had very little room (we're talking small ) The length is good (over 8 feet) but the width of the area is only 11.5 inches. There is a shelf as well, making the height of the bottom 17" and the top level at 12" (as measured through the doors). The doors, located behind the bar, also posed a problem since anything longer than 21" would not fit through. The end of the bar with the sink provided a bit more space, and a larger door, and this is where I planned my primary sump.

Plan View: note primary sump sketched in at the top, that was the largest possible dimension that could get through the door (31 gal), and as it turned out I could only find a smaller one (20 gal) ... a Tru-Vu acrylic tank that I added baffles to.



Here's a shot to provide some perspective (showing the support frame before the tank was moved).



With a 375 gal tank and a 100 gal refugium both draining into the sump, I knew that it was not going to be large enough to hold the drain-back in the event of a power outage. And, I wasn't about the rely on check valves to keep the rug dry. So, I needed more volume.

Plan A:

My first idea was to daisy-chain three 10 gal tanks along the bottom level, and have these raised up on boards a bit to ensure the tops were a bit higher than the sump.

This sketch showed the general plan, with space for a 4th 10 gal on the other side of the sump. The sump is at the top right of this diagram.



To start with, I used two 10 gal tanks, drilled them for 3/4" bulkheads, and connected them to the sump with barb-hose fittings (big mistake , really constricts the flow). I drilled the bulkhead holes with a diamond bit dremel, and each hole took about 20 minutes to complete. I got the dremel idea from this posting:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=445481

Once installed I tried it out, knowing that I still had space for two more 10 gal. With just the 100 gal refugium connected, turning the pump off resulted in a faster rate of drain-back than the flow into the 10 gal aquariums could handle, resulting in a precarious peak level in the sump before the water finally expanded into the 10 gallon daisy-chain. No way was this idea going to work with the 375 gal added

Plan B:

I toyed with the idea of putting a 150 gal Rubbermaid Stock Tank outside the window, sunk into the ground with a box structure over it, but the wife didn't like the idea (and quite frankly neither did I)

Plan C:

I finally stumbled upon using a couple long and skinny plastic tanks, each 16.5 gal (not quite sure of the plastic type, poly-something ... hope that description helps ) They had built-in 1.25 inch bulkheads, so that saved me some work. I joined them together using the built-in bulkheads, and added a 1.5" to connect to the sump. Again, they are raised on boards, making the top half of the sump probably 40 gal ... much better drain-back volume.

Here's a shot of the left door and right door along the length of the bar.





And a shot of these poly tanks connected to the sump.



And finally, a look at the primary sump ... there's still plumbing neatening to do ... had to make sure the design worked first.




Still got lots of construction to do ... talk later.