My move and sump pics

Well it's summer and all I've seen is Buy/Sell/Trade posts, so hopefully this will remind everyone that there's more to this site than the classifieds!




Warning, all these pics were taken from a Droid X, so don't judge the quality! /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif



Two weeks before I moved to Omaha, I brought all my livestock in my 125 into a drilled 75 that I setup at my parents house so I didn't have to try to move them with all the other stuff. A week after I moved I went back home for a class reunion and brought everything back to a RR 75 I had waiting. I had made a custom sump for everything and thought some people might like to see what I did to get ideas and even let me know of any foreseeable problems. 
Here's a pic of the 75 at my parents, my dad works at a lumber yard and built a temporary stand for it. 
The RR 75 now at my apartment in Omaha. I'm still finishing some final tweaks before it's ready. The frag racks will be moved to the sump's frag tank section soon, the fish net has all my macro algae that's getting moved to the sump tomorrow, and the sea swirl is getting outfitted with two 1" eductors! I will be putting sand in it in time, so you won't see the stand light that is going to be setup to come on when I open the door. From this pic it looks like I can fit more corals in there, but trust me, it's FULL! haha Also, if anyone has any experience with sea swirls, I bought this one used from Craig who got it from YZ's stuff and it will make one rotation and then it catches at the spot it's at in the pic. It won't move again until I move it...  
A full shot of the sump, the tank sits in front of the dining room table, so I didn't feel like moving the table to take a better pic. This picture is almost a teaser pic of what's to come!
Water enters the sump on the left front where you can see the currently doubled up 7" filter socks. Some of the water travels to the skimmer, but most of it flows through the teeth to the return/system pump. The pump is a mag-18 that powers the frag tank on the top right(which feeds the refugium underneath it), the GFO and Carbon single reactors(unseen), display, and also the custom eductor bio pellet reactor(back left chamber). There is an all plastic float valve on the return pump, but currently, when I shut the power off it will overflow, so I've got some reworking to do. 
Here's a lousy pic of the bio pellet reactor:
Something I really like about the plumbing on this tank is how I made it extremely quiet. In the overflow there are two fittings, a 1" fitting and a 3/4" fitting. The 1" fitting is the standard durso style overflow which is pretty quiet in itself. For the 3/4" I just put a threaded strainer on the inside and a ball valve on the underside. I can adjust the flow of the 3/4" fitting, which acts as a siphon in the overflow chamber, to quietly siphon out just enough to only trickle water through the standpipe. The only problem I'm having with the design right now is that there's such a high volume of water in the overflow that when I shut the power off it will easily overflow the sump with all that water siphoning down... I might have to put a riser on the 3/4" BH.
Here's a pic showing the underside of the overflow chamber, right now I have the return pump throttled back feeding the display so that with the 3/4" fitting oppened all the way water just barely trickles down the 1" durso standpipe. 
Here's a pic of the two overflow lines that are fed into the filter socks. The clear is the 3/4" siphon where you can see a ton of water coming, and the flex hose is the 1" standpipe where you can see barely any water coming. Extremely quiet!
Then we get to the pump plumbing. Without putting in any new holes into the stand, this is how it worked. I haven't ran the carbon and gfo reactor lines or the frag tank lines yet, so after the 1/2" threaded ball valve union on the right, nothing's glued. After I figure out how much flow the reactors will need, I'll direct the rest of the flow to the frag tank. The outlets on the reactors will also go to the frag tank. 
Here's a pic of some of the plumbing. The 1" piece of PVC that comes out of the 45 degree fitting on top isnt' glued into the top ball valve in case I have to rework some of the plumbing later. It leaks a couple drops a second, but it all runs into the sump with no chance of going anywhere else. The reason I have two street elbows on the right side is to divert that plumbing back further so I don't block light to the frag tank. It cuts a little flow, but I got plenty to spare!
Now we get onto the frag tank, refugium, and media reactors. 
Here's a pic of the frag tank(top) and refugium(bottom). You can also see the empty media reactors in the back. Water will enter the frag tank from the media reactors and any extra flow not needed for the display from a loc-line. Water spills over the right side of the frag tank to a refugium underneath. I thought it was a pretty genius design. /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/cool.gif haha. It saves space, requires no extra pump plumbing, and it will use the unused frag tank light(thinking green here!). The only problem with it will be accessing the macro algae to trim, etc. For this, I didn't glue the exit baffle so I can remove it when needed. The baffle is very tight fitting and it's not going anywhere, but water still leaks around the unglued seams enough that it doesn't make it up over the teeth. I'm pretty sure the leaking is small enough that pods won't be able to make it to the return pump, so I think I'm going to have to do some re-designing with it. I thought about just drilling some tiny holes in that baffle. Any ideas? 
Well the only pic left is to show you what skimmer I'm running. It's a Super Reef Octopus SRO-3000INT. The thing is a BEAST. I love the new bubble blaster pumps for the Super Reef Octopus skimmers! It's rated for a 300 gallon tank, but I like to overfeed and will be running bio pellets, plus the price difference from the 3k to the 2k or even the 1k wasn't that much, so go big or go home right!?

 

I'll be picking up the 2x4's and hinges for the canopy frame tomorrow to clean up the lights and wiring, along with picking up the last plumbing pieces to finish the reactors.

 

Yea I still have the clear check valve from you, it's on it right now. BUT, earlier today I realized I made a huge plumbing mistake, I put the check valve below the 4 way cross valve, so it's not stopping any flow from siphoning back from the display. Since the other outlets coming off the left and right of the cross are open, they'll siphon water from the display. So I think I'll have to do some re-working tomorrow to figure something out...