With the collecting season gearing up, I need to finish this thread (and the build for that matter).
A late evening once the kids were asleep and some motivational scotch, I finally finished the plumbing and turned the system on.
First is the drain line, suction and discharge to/from the pump. Pretty straight forward. I'll likely redo the pad that the pump sits on as there are some pretty good vibrations going through the whole stand and into the tank despite the rubber pad under the foot of the pump:
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Next shot is the supply. Coming directly off the pump it is 1", but is reduced to 3/4" by the time it gets to the tank. The only real reason is due to the fact that I had a 3/4" bulkhead.
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Not the greatest picture, but there is a 3/4" diameter spray bar. When the system is on and running, the water just barely covers the top of it. I believe I used a 3/16" drill bit and spaced them every half inch. The spray bar spans the width of the tank, ~18":
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The finished overflows. The fancy, blue, translucent blue piping at the bottom is called Kynar. It was leftover from a construction project. The last elbow is not glued in the event I need to change the direction of flow into the filter socks-or-replace the elbow with a 45:
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Full tank shot. Large pieces of driftwood are soaking. I found the 'max fill line' on the sump by filling the main tank until it just started flowing into the drains. Once that stopped, I filled the sump within a 1/2" from the top. Then fired the pump up. Where the water level stops in the sump is the maximum level to fill after water changes or topping off. (*Important to know max fill line in the event of a power failure and the main tank water returns back to the sump. Another important factor to consider is if your supply line has any fittings that are a few inches under the water in your fish tank, they will create a siphon and continue to fill your sump even if your drain line is above the water level. You can easily flood your tank if this happens. A siphon break is a small hole you can drill in your supply line near the water line (just below is fine) while the system is running. When power is lost, air will enter via the siphon break and prevent additional water from back-siphoning into your sump.)
Fortunately for my setup, my spray bar is higher than the overflows and all the holes in the spray bar itself act as siphon breaks as the tank drains back into the sump. Confused yet? Any way, here is the picture:
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Still need to cut and silicone in the baffles and sock plate (green sheet at the bottom of the last pic). More pictures to follow once I re-up the scotch collection.