Waterbox Reef 130.4 - remove plumbing without draining tank?

[Zeromus-X]

Strange question - I purchased my Waterbox 130.4 used and the LFS set everything up at my house in-place. It has been about a year and I'd like to take the sump out and make some changes to the layout (to accommodate a reef mat/roller for example) and do a good clean of all the salt that's accumulating in the stand. The easiest way to do this would be to drain the sump and remove it, but the pipes from the tank extend far into the sump and there's no way to remove it without removing the plumbing.

I'm assuming that if I power down the return pump and let the tank drain into the sump that I can take the plumbing apart and put it back together with minimal leaking. Are there any 'gotchas' I should know about before doing this? Is this a good time to replace rubber washers (and if so, where to get them)? Anything else you'd recommend while I have everything apart, maintenance-wise? Our grand plan is to have an Apex or some other dosing system in place, and there's just so little room under there.

 

[Bruttall]

When you shut your return pump off, usually from the 30% volume it runs to about 80% full. This is normal, but I am always amazed at how many people this surprises. If you have any Valves in the plumbing now would be a good time to clean them if your able. Citric Acid works really good for cleaning salt residue.

 

[vdKroon]

Strange question - I purchased my Waterbox 130.4 used and the LFS set everything up at my house in-place. It has been about a year and I'd like to take the sump out and make some changes to the layout (to accommodate a reef mat/roller for example) and do a good clean of all the salt that's accumulating in the stand. The easiest way to do this would be to drain the sump and remove it, but the pipes from the tank extend far into the sump and there's no way to remove it without removing the plumbing.

I'm assuming that if I power down the return pump and let the tank drain into the sump that I can take the plumbing apart and put it back together with minimal leaking. Are there any 'gotchas' I should know about before doing this? Is this a good time to replace rubber washers (and if so, where to get them)? Anything else you'd recommend while I have everything apart, maintenance-wise? Our grand plan is to have an Apex or some other dosing system in place, and there's just so little room under there.

I did this same operation on my WaterBox 110.4 a couple of weeks ago. What I did was the following:

1.) Stop the return pump and let all the water drain down. In the overflow box, the water level will be just below the main drain pipe.

2.) Using a hose, siphon off the remaining water from the overflow box. The pipe should be well inserted all the way to the bottom of the overflow to leave as little water as possible.

3.) Remove the emergency drain pipe without removing the top part.
4.) Remove the main drain pipe without extracting the top part.
5.) Remove the return pipe without removing the top part.

At this point, what I did was remove the top part of the emergency drain pipe and insert a paper towel from below through the hole to completely remove any remaining water residue that might have been left inside the overflow, in order to finish disassembling all the pipes without any drips.

Hope that heps!