New basement sump (on the cheap)

[Shannon_Hill]

I recently decided to move my sump and other aquarium items to the basement laundry room, which is directly beneath the tank. I soon discovered I couldn’t get my nice custom sump from out beneath the tank, within the stand, without some serious work.

For now, I decided to just go the ole route and just use some plastic containers from the hardware store. I used the work desk space that no one used in the laundry room as an easy way to set up 2 containers. One for the refugium and the other for the sump / skimmer.

Got most everything moved down and set up, except the reactors, so I just used an old canister filter for now.

Next step is to hook up the reactors and then the dreaded task of cleaning up the wiring and mounting the controllers, etc.

Any how, it was very cheap and so far works pretty good!

 

[Shannon_Hill]

Still have to do a few more plumbing items. I ran out of 1.5” so I came up short when plumbing the overflow from the refugium to the sump. It is a bit noisy, but will be an easy fix once the weather gets better.

For now I’ve just put a cheap float switch directly tied to the RO/DI to top off the water, but it’s a temporary solution for now.

 

[Shannon_Hill]

One issue I had, of course, is that this is an enclosed room, so PH took a dive. I did a quick airline job, up and out to where I had it plumbed to the outside in the tank room. May have to figure out something a little cleaner for that, but for now it’s working.

Still debating if I should hook up the CW algae scrubber as well. So far everything has been very steady, even with the changes.

 

[speedstar]

Man I wish my sump was back in the basement so nice having the mess all down there and a lot of room instead of this under the tank stuff. Oh well the next build I suppose. If you have not heard I think a GR frag swap is in the works for April / May

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Awesome, thanks for sharing.