Almost There...

[rickm]

I now have my sump and refugium built. I had Glasscages.com build and glue together the outside walls(34" long x 15" tall x 10" wide and 1/4" thick) to fit in the narrow cabinet of my 55 gl tank. It is very well built, a lot more reinforcement than I expected. Almost to much, as you can see by the arrows in the photo I had a hard time sealing the bottom of my baffles in, as I glued the baffles in myself. The bottom of the sump has reinforcements running along both sides and I had to cut 1/4" strips to slide under the baffle in order to build the center up even with the side reinforcements. The refugium baffle is completely sealed now, but the skimmer side bubble traps still leak a little on the bottom. I'm not sure how critical the seal has to be on these baffles. Like I said just a little bit of water leaks under the first and last baffle there. I wanted to make sure the refugium baffle didn't leak at all because I didn't want any sand leaking out.I also have all the plumbing put together, from the overflow box it goes down into a 1" tee, one side goes to the skimmer chamber the other side gets reduced to a 1/2" ball valve continuing to a bar in the refugium. The return pump is a Mag 9, from there it's 3/4" pvc going into a tee where I have a ball valve to control flow back to the sump. Coming off the tee to the tank it goes into a 3/4" check valve, from there it's 3/4" tubing going into a SCWD which tee's off to both side's of the tank. And yes I've heard the mix review's on the SCWD but am willing to take a chance as there not that expensive.So hopefully by next week I can start adding water if I can find some sand and LR.
Rick

[dakar]

Looks really nice! If you are concerned about the bottom edges leaking at all just fill in the gaps with a liberal amount of silicone and let it cure for a couple of days and you should be all set.

Going under a 55 is always tricky as they are so dang narrow from front to rear, but it looks like you've got it licked here.

[Reptoreef]

Agreed... silicone the sh#@% out of them and let 'em cure for a couple of days.

[davejnz]

That looks great,its very similiar to my sump.Same skimmer,same dedicated skimmer chamber.My baffles are a bit different though.If i could make one suggestion,I would make the output to the skimmer chamber closer to the intake of the skimmer's pump.You might need to drill holes at thetop of the PVC elbow leading to your skimmer.This will help the air escape so that the submerged PVC plumbing won't bubble back up.Try it out first though,if your flow rate isn't that high you might not have to do it.

[rickm]

Thanks everyone ...I put some silicone along the bottom joint even though it's acrylic. I won't be putting any water in till this coming weekend.davejnz...do you mean putting in a longer 1"pipe at the elbow to bring it further down into the sump?Also another question, my ER CS5 came apart here (see pic.) when I picked it up. Is this normal for it to come apart here?Rick

[davejnz]

Thanks everyone ...I put some silicone along the bottom joint even though it's acrylic. I won't be putting any water in till this coming weekend.davejnz...do you mean putting in a longer 1"pipe at the elbow to bring it further down into the sump?Also another question, my ER CS5 came apart here (see pic.) when I picked it up. Is this normal for it to come apart here?Rick

yeah,a longer pipe.My ER doesn't come apart like that,i know the ASM's do.Is there a locking mechanism that holds the two parts together,similiar to powerheads with their little tabs

[davejnz]

The return pump is a Mag 9, from there it's 3/4" pvc going into a tee where I have a ball valve to control flow back to the sump. Coming off the tee to the tank it goes into a 3/4" check valve, from there it's 3/4" tubing going into a SCWD which tee's off to both side's of the tank

Can i make a suggestion to you?Mag pumps are rated with 1.5" PVC.Obviously,the Mag9 only has a 3/4" output.I also use a Mag pump(mag12)ad it has the same3/4" output.If you want to drastically improve your flow rate,do this.First,take the threaded 3/4" PVC coupling that will attach to the pump and add a 3/4 to 1" coupling to that.From there use 1" THINWALL PVC to the T,continue your plumbing all the way throughout with 1" and reduce back to 3/4" at the squid(With squids,expect at least 15% more backpressure resulting in less flow)From the squids outputs,increase the plumbing back to 1".If you are using an over the top return,continue with the 1" until the last PVC elbow where you can reduce it back down to 3/4".If your returns are drilled,you will reduce them at the bulkheads.
BTW,How many feet will your pump have to flow to reach the top?I will run your numbers through the head-loss calc and show you the differences between the 2 sixes of plumbing

[davejnz]

With my plumbing,I ended up with a 24% increase in the flow rate compared to if i would have used 3/4".

[rickm]

dave...I have about 4 ft of straight up head to over come.But it's about 2 ft from the pump to the SCWD. Then it's about 3 ft of 3/4 tubing on each side of the SCWD going to the return U pipes.My skimmer has a dimple pressed into the plastic were it seperated, almost melted together there. That seems to be all that held it from easily coming apart there.Also the owner at the LFS told me my Mag 9 was to big for my 55gl, so go figure.

[zoo-a-holic]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#wow! everything looks awsome!!! i need to get on building mine for my 90. everything looks great!#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#