Time for an update as the hubby is off snowmobiling and I'm not in Canada!
Here's some updates for you plumbing junkies!
So I was lucky enough to have the "King of H&S" in town to help with plumbing the tank! I told Brian (Fins Reef) I must have signed up for the "Buy 3, Plumb Free" program he ran on H&S Skimmers! It actually just took some home cooking of dinners for a few evening and a homemade Cranberry Pecan pie! Lucky for me he was in town for almost a week in Chicago for business!
I asked Brian for a mermaid shot, but he wouldn't get in the tank for me ... so this is what I got instead!
The first night we hit the local Ace and Lowes to get some additional plumbing parts and I also placed an order online with Savko for items I could not locate. We then drilled the Tamco Sump with 2 holes for return pumps ... one for the new tank being plumbed and the 2nd one for adding my other system online early next year. It made sense adding a 2nd bulkhead and ball valve so that a combined system could be done later on.
Brian then came back a couple nights later and completed the closed loop part of the set-up and ran the return lines to the tank for the 2 surges located above the system. Brian was giving me that look of "put that camera away and get to work"!
The next evening we worked from 5PM until 2AM on the system. Here's some shots showing the overflow lines being done as well and the external skimmer set-up. There are four 2" overflow holes on the back of the external overflow box. The 2 center holes are drilled slightly higher than the end ones and they are for "emergency" usage. I had these added to handle the flow from the surges if the all fire at once as well as having the ability of an alternative flow route if one becomes plugged.
Here's the skimmer being placed. We actually drilled the sump with 2 additional bulkheads on the top area ... one for the Skimmer slop sink to be plumbed into and the other for the refugium to be plumbed into.
Here it is just about completed with the overflow lines. The far left line feeds the skimmer and the rest of the flow goes to the refugium. The line all the way on the right has a scissor valve so that I can adjust the amount of flow going though that line and shut it down to keep more on the far left line if needed. I accidently ordered too many scissor vs. gate valves, so that's why it's being used there ... hopefully it works well! There's another one that controls the flow going to the Fuge vs. the Skimmer as well.
So, at 2AM when we started on the lines for the return pump, we realized that we didn't have all the plumbing parts needed, so we had to stop at that point. Brian was really excited to help me complete the system, but his plane left for home the next morning. He provided me with a parts list and a drawing of what he envisioned for the return set-up and I picked up the parts the next day.
