Sump Expansion

Welcome back children. Last we talked I was having a tough time deciding what to do with my tank. My sump was full and I wasn't really doing much more than skimming the water (which could had easily been achieved with a hang on skimmer instead of an in-sump skimmer). I decided I've been having enough success thus far, why not step it up a notch? I had a very nice introductory sump but I simply needed more room. I decided I'm going to build a second sump to assist the first! But where to put it?

I decided if I moved the tank about 10'' off the wall I could sneak a longer rectangular sump in behind the tank without being highly visible. This would provide me with more volume and further ability to filter my tank. It'd also give me extra space to add on if I ever decided I wanted to annex my sump with extra equipment. So let me draw this out for you.

I am truly an artist.

I'd say this is perhaps a bit unorthodox, but given the shape of my tank I really have no other choice but to place a sump along the back wall in order to get enough space to filter how I would like. This will free up the entire "L" shaped sump to be converted into the refugium. I can simply connect the refugium to the other sump via some pipes and voila! It'll run like one larger tank but it's simply two smaller ones! Or such is the hope. I guess we'll find out if time if it works in practice.

So now what? Well I suppose I need a proper design. I sat down for a while and came up with this plan...

Okay so, what are we looking at here? Well, the yellow tube is the drainage tube. From there the water fills the input chamber. The red is a raised platform for my protein skimmer to stand on. There's a reason for this. When I recieved my skimmer it said the skimmer's pump should be submerged no further than 6'' below the surface of the water. That being the case I simply raised the skimmer higher as compared to lowering the water level (therefore keeping a maximal volume in the sump)! Next I placed a bubble trap to keep the microbubbles down and finally the output chamber where the return pump will sit. I've made an extra chamber for the return pump for reasons I will explain in the future. Ultimately it's to ensure I dont flood my house. Bare with me we'll get to all that in time.

I was low on acrylic so I took another trip to my friendly neighborhood plastics store. The guys hooked me up again, this time providing me with 1/4'' pieces (I didn't want to risk my sides bowing like on the first piece I made). In total these pieces ran me 60 bucks. I spent the majority of the day sawing pieces and welding them together and here's the finished product.

Voila! It came out much nicer than the first tank.

I left that to cure a couple days. I also tried out it's positioning and frankly, I think it turned out just right. This tank ended up being 22'' long which was just as long as the tank stand and 10'' wide which is just enough for the skimmer and return pumps length. Like the other sump it is also 16'' tall.

A few days later I took the tank outside and performed it's initial water test. As you can clearly see, it did not pass. So now I need to reseal the tank, get those holes patched up. I'm surprised this tank failed where the other did not but I don't foresee it being a big issue.

Day 3

Cost- 60$ acrylic

Total cost of supplies- 360$
Total cost of tools- 80$