I'm almost done with the replumbing of the tanks.
When I was tearing the sumps down I realized that I could get a little bit more water volume by going with a bigger sump.
The original sump set up was two 29 gal tanks plumbed together (top of diagram).
Using a 29 gal and a 50 gal tank plumbed together as shown in the bottom of the diagram gives me more water volume along with taking out the bend in the pipe prior to the pump.
So I made the new 50 gal sump.
I'm not sure why I went back to the old style baffle set up and I already need to change this. I think I'm simply going to knock out the closet baffle to the pump and it will fix things. The problem with it now is that the water comes "over" at the very last stage. Any more than about a 1/4" drop will create bubbles in the last section that will get caught up by the pump and enter the main tank.
When I tore things down and pulled out the main pump I got a little bit of a surprise as well. My dart on my closed loop had a small leak but that is nothing compared to what I found when I pulled this pump (which was pretty well hidden from sight).
I still hadn't used the seal kit that Reeflo had sent me for the other dart so I used it on this one. It was real easy to do and the pump is back up and running with no leaks. I called Reeflo and this pump was still under warranty so they sent me out yet another seal kit.
Old sumps removed.
New ones put in place.
I mentioned previously that I cracked one of the new sumps connecting them together. I had to cut a 4" hole in each tank and then use 3" uniseals and 3" PVC pipe to connect them. One cracked but I was able to silicone things up and it seems to be holding.
The 20 gal tank that was under the frag tank was removed. I had accidentally cracked it as well. I leaned up against one of the bulkheads while I was working on something and it cracked. So I had to make a new one. I made a very low baffle because this is going to be the home for my in sump ETSS skimmer. I also made the overflow using the 3 pipe dead silent fail safe method.
As I stated earlier, this is going to be the home for a skimmer. I had to make a new manifold for the skimmer. It original came with the inlet pipe going straight down. I needed it to come out at an angle to allow me to fit it into the tank.
Put it in place.
And then I realized that the overflow is almost a dead horizontal run to the other sump and so the 3 pipe overflow system really didn't work out too well. I removed all the excess piping and will simply run 3 full siphon pipes as this overflow. Believe it or not, it is still silent.
Then I connected the skimmer and cranked things up. It appears to be running fine and VERY VERY quiet.
Now I just need to clean out the carbon, GFO and calcium reactors (been sitting for weeks without circulation) so I can get those hooked back up.
I came VERY close to miscalculating the baffle height this time around. I wanted to maximize my water volume ------ and I did.
On power failure or pump shut down, I come within an inch (or less) of overflowing the sumps.
