I bought my tank set up used and the sump was broken. The way the tank was plumbed it had a hole in one end (but it had been capped off) any way that tank was broken and when the club met at my house we could not use it and therefore had to discontinue setting the tank up. I now have a new tank that I am going to use to build a new sump and need a hole drilled in it. Does your sump not have a hole in the end?
Nope, no holes in my sump. What does the hole do...what goes in thru it or leaves thru it? Pictures? There might be an alternative way to plumb the sump to avoid drilling it.
Unless you have an external return pump or an additional refugium/sump section your connecting your current sump to, you don't need a hole in your sump.
Usually the bulkhead is in the refugium and the refugium is higher than the sump. It can then drain by gravity into the sump.
The refugium is elevated by about 4 inches. I mentioned that I thought we could plumb it over the top (using gravity) but for some reason the guys didn't agree with me. I was just trying to build the sump the same way the original one was built since I am not a plumber and don't know how to do it differently. I'll talk to David Petit about it. He was helping me until we discovered the sump was broken.
It will depend on how much water is coming in to the refugium (usually you want pretty low flow there), the size of the bulk head/drain and the water levels in the refugium and sump. You might want to build a small stand to elevate the refugium a little more. I bet it can be done without drilling the sump.
Just a thought... Instead of drilling, couldn't we pump water out of the fuge with a small power head. As long as it was mounted high enough wouldn't that prevent overflow the return pump was out? Just a thought.
In the picture it looks like the refugium has two holes near the top? One has a bulkhead in it and the other doesn't? If so that could easily be plumbed to flow by gravity back in the sump and the sump would get the same amount of flow from the tank with a power failure as it would without the refugium in place. If the sump is properly sized we would be golden wouldn't we?
If I remember correctly, the tank used for the sump was taller than the old sump. So I don't know if gravity will work unless elevated more. I don't know if it can be elevated much more because the fuge will need room for a light.
Gotcha. If you pump water out of the refugium how do you balance with flow in? Does the refugium get supplied with a tee off of the return pump or from the drain system?
That might work but could get pretty tricky. My valves on my reactors are sooooo ticky. Just a millimeter move and it makes a big change in flow. Drives me crazy. If the refugium is supplied with a drain this would not work though...unless the refugium had enough space to absorb the flow from the DT with a power outage/return pump failure. Is the sump taller than the refugium? As long as we can come out horizontal from the bulkhead in the refugium and still be above the water line in the sump it should be fine (and get over the sump rim).
In the original stand the refugium sat about 5" to 6" higher than the sump. The refugium has two drilled holes/overflows near the top that plumbed over the top of the sump then down. The sump had a large 3" drilled hole at the bottom that i wasn't sure what it was for. It would have been a low point in the system and maybe the intent was a drain for water changes or an external return pump. If Lynda is going to use an external pump then the sump needs to be drilled but if an internal pump is used then drilling the sump in my opinion is not needed. A branch off the return line or a seperate smaller pump can feed the refugium (see attached PDF). I think the easiest path to success is an internal pump and not to drill the sump. View attachment 4 x 6 intank.pdf
The engineer has spoken! We agree Chris, just trying to figure out if there was enough room to plumb the drain out of the refugium that way. As far as supplying water to the refugium, with a Herbie or Bean Animal drain I would just let the slight flow in the open standpipe supply the refugium (unskimmed, unfiltered water). With a standard Durso set up I would probably just Tee off the return pump and maybe put a gate valve to get the flow a little lower. What do you think?
Thank you for all the great minds working on this problem for me. I feel like I'm back in grad school! Please continue to think about it. I am having surgery on Tuesday and will be out of commission for a while so when I start feeling better we'll all have to get together on this. BTW the platform that the refuge sat on is 4 inches high but I would be happy to build another one higher if we need it. Alan came by yesterday and looked at it. We are considering changing to one tank that will house both sump/fuge. And I am even considering an internal pump to decrease the sound/vibrations. I appreciate all of your help and will definitely need your continued help on this. Won't be able to make it to the March meeting and I am really going to miss it.
We will miss you Sat! Let me know when you feel up to putting up with us and some of us will try to get together and come look at it again! Will be remembering you this week. Praying for a successful procedure, a good report and a rapid recovery!
