sk8r's tank move: basement sump: pix

[Sk8r]

Well, here they are, finally---not great photography: I never have got the knack of the smaller camera; but it was working, so here we are.


This is the scary bit: making holes in the living room floor, through carpet and hardwood floor. I hired this done: the plumber was able to accurately target the exact spot by doing some nice calculations and measurements from known structural points of the house. And he was dead on. It came out below, in the basement, with a short run down to the sump.



The sump is a great one: its brand I don't recognize, but it's a blue E formed of a laughing fish face. It's 30g, with ample room for a refugium in the middle, and a dual port arrangement for 2 downflows: I only have one, so #2 is the topoff entry. Our neat hose arrangement got altered at the last moment by the realization I had to have 1 1/4 inch hose for the downflow, and that meant scrounging for something that would bend: pool flex works. But it sags like crazy---hence the last moment tie-up, when I cut it on and found it hanging lower and lower by the second. The pump is an Iwaki 100; the skimmer is an Aqua C EV120 I arranged to dump back in if it overflows---when I go out of town there will be a better arrangement; and everything including the refugium light sits on eggcrate. also you'll notice I routed the outflow from the skimmer back to the entry chamber: that way the microbubbles have to go through that barrier, through the refugium with its barrier of weed, through the heater chamber, and only then to the pump chamber. This means no microbubbles reach my tank.

This is not the pretty version of my design: this is what happened when plans mutated under my hands, my rock was dying, and I had to do things in a hurry. The return line has a ball union valve to help choke it back a bit; the topoff is from autotopoff.com, a dual float switch with module. The stand I got on ding and dent from a pet shop---cost me 60.00---couldn't turn that down. And I have a 6 hour power backup down there running the Iwaki. I have the refugium light on reverse cycle, an Eheim heater in the sump, and some aragonite sand in there, too, with cheato. A Brute trashcan serves as ro/di reservoir for the autotopoff, and a second one stands by to serve as salt water mixing, with a pump to transfer the water: no buckets, no pouring, and any water changes can be done here in the sump, because of its size. Because basements are the same temperature all year---and colder---they solve the overheating problem. So does getting one of the two pumps exterior to the water flow.



And this is what appears in the living room above: a 54g bowfront with stand. That canopy is a mere shell of fiberglass, 9" high, and sits down over the original rim---light as a feather if you have to move it, because it has no top in it. My lights rest casually right on top, and it serves to shield the eyes from the 250 w 12000 Reeflux with 2 actinics [fans at either end of unit, one in, one out]. The loudest thing in the room is the cooling fans. The downflow is surprisingly quiet---I'd like to have had 1 1/2 inch on that downflow, but the piping got way stiff, so the water level stays pretty high in the downflow, and I'm using 1 1/4, as per above. The return line is simple 1 inch hose, and I have it subdivided into 2 half-inch sea swirls, which cover that tank very well. You see it here before my rockwork took a bit of a tumble, but I'm happy with it: plenty of caves and holes for my microfish...I favor blennies and gobies, and grow corals. To my delight, there is *nothing* in that stand but a towel, my ballasts and timers, a flashlight, and some fish food. It doesn't leak, and all the noise and the testing and the adding are in the basement.

So here it is---after a lot of sweat to get it here in one piece!
Thank all of you who offered tea and sympathy during the process!

[littlemannin]

Looking good Sk8r! Sure will be nice to not have to listen to the equipment eh! And the battery back up and the and the temp thing should ease the mind a bit. Good work.

[Sk8r]

Thanks!

[VegasJay]

Sk8r -- appreciate all your previous help to my questions and looks like you are in for a lot of fun on the new tank. I wish I had a basement, but no luck in Vegas - no one likes to dig in the rock!

btw, tank is set-up, plumbed, waiting on a couple of fittings and should fill with water next week.

[Sk8r]

Good luck!

I lived most of my life in Oklahoma, where basement equals swimming pool [high water table] and know well what you mean. We're rock here in Spokane, but its columnar basalt, and it can be moved or dozed, thank goodness. Took me a while of living here to figure out that every house you see is 3x what you see: the attic will be fully finished, there'll be a basement, and garages---are a total afterthought, if at all. Very peculiar way of building by all I know, but since they tax on your surface footprint, there's a crazy logic in it.

I know about the 'waiting on fittings.' That was what was driving me crazy---I wore a track to the local Ace Hardware, which was, thank goodness, well-stocked.