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Good work on the sump. That job is a lot more difficult than one would think before you start doing it.Please remember I threw this sump together fast, so the silicone work is horrible looking. It also wasn’t filtered well so there is debris in here.
Here is a pic of the current sump.
Water enters from the right and leaves from the left. There are 4 chambers (from R to L): overflow, bio blocks, skimmer, return.
Chamber 1: The water enters via a Beananimal overflow. The gate valve is almost closed. That’s how powerful the siphon is. There are also 2 heaters in here. The ATO fills into this chamber to get max mixing before it goes back to the tank.
Chamber 2 (reversed pic): This was supposed to be a reactor chamber but now it has some bio blocks. I was concerned there wasn’t enough rock. Now I’m concerned about aluminum in the water from the blocks. I can’t win. I made a little stand so I can put 2 heaters in this chamber as well. You can also see the ATO sensors here and the probes. Those are in here because this is the only chamber with a constant water level and no bubbles.
Chamber 3: As expected, a lot of the decisions I made were based on the limited space available under the tank. For this reason I chose the Nyos 300 for my skimmer. It’s decent I guess. No complaints but the tank has only been running a few months. It needs a low water level but I also don’t have much height to raise the skimmer so this chamber is only 8” water level. Yeah, I could have cleaned the skimmer before taking pics ...
Chamber 4: there are 2 return pumps here (Jebao 12000?). Also in here is a turf scrubber. It is undersized for this tank and belongs on the 220 but since I can’t fit a refugium here, I put it on to help. I’ll remove it when I move the sump. It’s fed via a tunze pump of some sort.
And finally, the new sump area. This is where everything is going to go. It needs to be cleaned up and there’s a toilet in the way. And also vent pipes. I can’t move those but I’ll cut away the copper pipes. It used to be a bathroom here but this tank isn’t going anywhere for many, many years so I’ll just use the space. It has a few limitations but it’s better than under the tank. The drains come in through that hole on the right.
Certain anthias in there are mean while others seem more tolerant. The red bar male is mean and has caused two females to jump. The rest are okay. Thankfully the most expensive ones seem to be nice. That’s the borbonius and the cherry. There’s a ventralis in there but she’s just shy. I have a couple other species but I have no clue what they are. One is super pretty, though. It’s supposed to be P. hypselosoma but it’s not.Must be nice having such a great tank builder close by! Love the aquascape and the big group of anthias. I'm curious to see how they do with all that space - hopefully they don't pick each other off one by one...
And I really hope the Jebao pumps work out long term - but suggest having one spare on hand.