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Old 08/02/2007, 08:37 PM
Dudester Dudester is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 1,522
I got a few more things done last night. Brian at Kingfish finished baffling the sump, and it turned out just great! Thanks a ton, Brian! Here it is, with the bottom covered by the adhesive material to protect the acrylic. Man this thing is solid, and heavy! For anyone who was worried before, I have no concerns for this thing ever bowing.



You'll notice that there are 2 bulkheads. They've been placed for possible future expansion in the event that I plumb in a frag tank or something. Anyway, the rear right chamber receives water from dual 1.5" overflow drains. It then passes to the front which is the skimmer chamber. Moving to the left it crosses some teeth to an equipment chamber which will house the calcium reactor (PF601S), carbon reactor, and kalk stirrer. It then passes across the over-under-over baffles to reach the return chamber. This is where I'll keep the Zeovit reactor, the sump return pump, and the chiller feed pump. Here's another view.



Here's how it looked when I put it inside the cabinet. It sits on top of 1 layer of the drawer liner material I used beneath the CL pump, just in case any of the pumps inside the sump would cause some vibration. Probably not necessary but oh well.



Here I got lucky! Notice how close the sump is to the Barracuda pump . When I planned the size I didn't account for the fact that I'd have a bulkhead on both ends of the sump, and it actually hangs off the starboard just a little and over the drip pan. The sump is literally 2 or 3 mm from the pump!

Lucky move #2: I almost couldn't get the equipment into the sump when it was inside the cabinet, and due to the CL plumbing I wouldn't have been able to slide the equipped sump into the stand. When planning out the sump, each chamber size was determined based on the equipment. The measurements were spot on, but in retrospect it may have been wiser to go with equipment that wasn't so large, as it will be tight when working in the sump. There's about 1/2" of clearance to get the skimmer collection cup off, and there's no way I'll be able to remove the entire skimmer unless I first take the calcium reactor out. While I'm discussing the skimmer, that brings up Lucky move #3: Look how close the 4-way plumbing comes to the skimmer's collection cup. The photo makes it look like they're right on top of one another, but there's actually a couple of inches to play with (which isn't a lot). On the bright side, I have very reliable equipment so those sorts of maintenance items shouldn't come up very often. Anyway, look how crowded it looks now! This just goes to show you, it's better to be lucky than good .



Here it is from the side, and you can see the FR509 that I'll use for carbon. The kalk reactor isn't in there yet (it's a Deltec KM500).



Here's how the entire system is as of last night.



The chiller, a 1/3hp Arctica, is sitting to the side, and I'll plumb it in tomorrow. This will serve as the temporary sole return from the sump, as my primary sump return pump hasn't arrived yet. Hope you enjoy!
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