A little update.
Still waiting on my skimmer and gyres. They were originally tentatively scheduled to be in the country earlier this week. Unfortunately, the scheduled day of arrival I was updated that the distributor said the items would be roughly another week before they came in. Fingers crossed, we shall see.
I'm definitely continuing to learn more and more about patience. However, I am starting to accumulate some of the bigger $$$ items. Not only does my own impatience make me want to get going on things but I would like to have the peace of mind of warranty for this items while they are covered. Not a huge factor but the last thing I want is to have a couple hundred dollar item break premature after being stowed away for a year.
That said, I am amassing some of these items so I could plan out my sump build. I wanted to have the items in hand so I could accurately design the sump to work properly with the equipment. Unfortunately, I have some other projects around the house that are really taking up a lot of my time. I'm a big DIY person when/where its appropriate but with so much on the honey-do list, I reconsidered the DIY sump. Looking into it, I priced acrylic out and some tooling and it doesn't seem to be a big savings to DIY vs retail. A few hundred, maybe as high as $500 but considering the time it'll take me away from other projects, the $500 savings seems less worth it. That and some of the retail sumps are really looking nice. They definitely have a more sophisticated design to them being able to utilize CNC's and all.
So... I've placed an order for the Synergy Reef CL-44 sump and the CL series 10gal ATO. If I were to DIY a sump, I'm sure it'd take me a few weeks to really get it all together and made. That paired with having to wait on back ordered items, putting water in my tank seemed pretty far off. So now all I have to focus on is installing the plumbing and puting the equipment in place. I may have to do some electrical however I can run on the available outlets in the meantime.
I am having them modify the sump to have the rear return bulkhead hole cut to fit a 1-1/4" bulkhead instead of the 1" originally included. I wanted to keep the head pressure to a minimum as to allow me to run the VarioS-8 at the lowest power setting for the target flow rate. This should in theory keep the pump noise down as much as possible.
I also got the options for the probe holders and the refugium baffle. I got the sump in the Red/White color. This should match the skimmer and return pump pretty nicely. I ordered mine with the flow direction right-to-left so the overflows and equipment will be closer to the corner of my room, away from the living area as to minimize the noise pollution but below is what it should look like.
Looks great, I've got a cl-44 just like yours but black and white coming in a few weeks. Take lots of plumbing pics
The sump I ordered is white and black I meant. Picture below. I'm very curious how you plumb it, as I'm wrestling with the distance I have to make the returns (about 30" horizontally).
For the water changing, I don't even bother heating my 32 gallons and it doesn't drop the temp that much,maybe a degree or two at max, so it may not matter?
I'm curious how you attach the panels. I'm also getting a steel stand and I have to mount doors and panels.
I know oil is a good choice for wet surfaces, but today's water based catalytic finishes are just as durable as the older oil based ones. This is the brand of finishes that I've used for years on cabinets, stairs, closets etc... The finish is extremely hard and durable. You can paint it on, but I usually spray with a cheap hvlp gun we bought to make all the kitchen and bath cabinets for the two houses we've owned.
When we refinished the wood floors, we also used a catalytic water based finish which has held up really well. When you add the catalysts, it's different than the normal evaporative finishes.
https://www.targetcoatings.com/
Here's the sump color scheme I ordered.
) I'm feeding small portions of what they'll eat more often. I only accidentally bought the frozen brine in the LFS on my way out. At home I realized I meant to get MYSIS shrimp, not BRINE shrimp. know brine shrimp is not nutritious but they are eating it well. I did get some frozen mysis the next day. They eay that somewhat but not as well as the brine. I alternate nontheless.
