Sump'n's up!
Posted 09/17/2011 at 11:18 PM by Spaced Cowboy
Tags build
So, a bit of work on the sump-side of things. Glad I'm not crawling around on my belly under the house any more! I painted the inside of the sump (including the doors) with several coats of gloss exterior wood paint. Spilling some water onto the surface resulted in a gratifying beading of the water The white colour will help with seeing what's going on in the sump when the only light down there is a refugium light, as well...
One of the design principles of the tank is for it to be as quiet as possible, so we're running a bean-animal overflow, the skimmer is the quietest good skimmer I could afford, the pump is a quiet one etc..
[CENTER][IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/k2-skimmer.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/dart-pump.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]
This is the Warner Marine K2 skimmer I bought a while ago. It fits neatly into the skimmer-section I'll be linking up the nog-drain valve to a suitable closed container which will go over by the pump ... which is the other photo: a reeflo super dart gold. At 5' head, it ought to provide ~3200gph, but given the losses due to plumbing, I'd expect more like ~2000gph being returned to the display. Soon, I'll bolt the pump to the wooden support platform, which rests on top of four sound-dampening pads.
There are true-union ball-valves immediately before and after the pump for easy maintenance, and in fact there are probably too many unions all over the plumbing. I tend to use them in order to make fitting the plumbing easier... If you put an union on a pipe, and then an elbow after it, you can make the other side of the elbow point at any angle - it just means you don't have to get everything spot-on perfect the first time when you're joining the slip-joints with cement.
The pump doesn't just do the return - I've built the below manifold ...
[CENTER][IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/manifold.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/water-lines.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]
... to give me some flexibility in the future with respect to how the water flows. The nearest and farthest lines are the returns - still got to plumb in the near one. The middle set of valves are for "everything else" The middle set are positioned so that two are above the skimmer section, two are above the return section, and one is above the refugium section, for flexibility in which section to dump water back into. The manifold is supported in the middle at the moment, but I still have to add some more plumbing supports ...
Finally, there's a photo showing how the water-lines from the storage tanks at the other end of the house emerge from the floor. I'll be linking those up to a peristaltic pump (the Litermeter III) and doing both ATO and water-changes with them. I've heard great things about the LM3, so I'm hoping the distance and head-pressure won't be a problem.
One other thing: I was walking back from the garage with the manifold / straight-pipe section under my arm (the mitre saw and cement are in the garage - my 3-months pregnant wife didn't want any "nasty chemicals" in the house. Fair enough ). Picture the above manifold, upside-down for ease of carrying, being held by one of the middle-ish valves, the others resting in the crook of my elbow, and the section of straight pipe sticking out ahead of me. Bear in mind that's about 3.5' long... My wife took one look and labelled it a "terminator-gun"
One of the design principles of the tank is for it to be as quiet as possible, so we're running a bean-animal overflow, the skimmer is the quietest good skimmer I could afford, the pump is a quiet one etc..
[CENTER][IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/k2-skimmer.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/dart-pump.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]
This is the Warner Marine K2 skimmer I bought a while ago. It fits neatly into the skimmer-section I'll be linking up the nog-drain valve to a suitable closed container which will go over by the pump ... which is the other photo: a reeflo super dart gold. At 5' head, it ought to provide ~3200gph, but given the losses due to plumbing, I'd expect more like ~2000gph being returned to the display. Soon, I'll bolt the pump to the wooden support platform, which rests on top of four sound-dampening pads.
There are true-union ball-valves immediately before and after the pump for easy maintenance, and in fact there are probably too many unions all over the plumbing. I tend to use them in order to make fitting the plumbing easier... If you put an union on a pipe, and then an elbow after it, you can make the other side of the elbow point at any angle - it just means you don't have to get everything spot-on perfect the first time when you're joining the slip-joints with cement.
The pump doesn't just do the return - I've built the below manifold ...
[CENTER][IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/manifold.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.0x0000ff.com/imgs/fishtank/water-lines.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]
... to give me some flexibility in the future with respect to how the water flows. The nearest and farthest lines are the returns - still got to plumb in the near one. The middle set of valves are for "everything else" The middle set are positioned so that two are above the skimmer section, two are above the return section, and one is above the refugium section, for flexibility in which section to dump water back into. The manifold is supported in the middle at the moment, but I still have to add some more plumbing supports ...
Finally, there's a photo showing how the water-lines from the storage tanks at the other end of the house emerge from the floor. I'll be linking those up to a peristaltic pump (the Litermeter III) and doing both ATO and water-changes with them. I've heard great things about the LM3, so I'm hoping the distance and head-pressure won't be a problem.
One other thing: I was walking back from the garage with the manifold / straight-pipe section under my arm (the mitre saw and cement are in the garage - my 3-months pregnant wife didn't want any "nasty chemicals" in the house. Fair enough ). Picture the above manifold, upside-down for ease of carrying, being held by one of the middle-ish valves, the others resting in the crook of my elbow, and the section of straight pipe sticking out ahead of me. Bear in mind that's about 3.5' long... My wife took one look and labelled it a "terminator-gun"
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