Help needed setting up my new sump

[FishyFish]

Hello, I have a new 75g tank set up and plumbed (bean animal) into a Trigger Sapphire 34 sump beneath the stand. This is my first time setting up a sump and although it's working and moving water, I feel like I don't have it set quite right. These are the issues I'm having:

1. The secondary drain is having a hard time purging all of the air on startup, so it's really noisy. I think this is because my sump has pipes built into it that the siphon and secondary drains feed into, but these pipes sit 6" below the water level. Is there anything I can do to make the initial startup quicker or is this okay? It seems to take around 30 minutes to finally purge all of the air.

2. My protein skimmer is supposed to sit in 6-8" of water, but if I set the water level that low, the water in my return section gets too low and the pump starts to run dry. I'm thinking I just need to raise the protein skimmer but I wanted a second opinion first. Is it normal for the return section to run that low when the skimmer section has only 6-8" in it?

3. This is probably my biggest issue. Unfortunately I screwed up the drilling a little and one of the two overflow holes is about 1/2" higher than the other. I'm using an Exotic Marine Systems overflow with horizontal slits in the internal overflow box. This means that the side which sits higher isn't having any water pour into it hardly at all but there's a waterfall in the side that sits lower, which is making a lot of noise. I can deal with the noise but I'm worried that it isn't the only problem with having a crooked overflow. Is there any way to fix this? My only idea was to trim the slots in the internal box to make them all even with the water line. Thoughts?

4. Maybe not a problem but a question, where should the water line sit in the external overflow box with a bean animal setup? Mine is sitting about half an inch from the top of the secondary drain. Is this correct?

Here's a couple of pics, but they aren't great. I will try to take better ones when I get home from work if needed. Any help would be extremely appreciated!!

 

[sbash]

Here goes:

1) Shortening the pipe, so it only sits one to two inches below the water line would be ideal. Otherwise, no it is not an issue for it to take 30 minutes to 'reset' itself.

However, the secondary drain should not be purging the air, only the full siphon should. If it purges all the air, then it will create siphon... Either way, it sounds like it is working fine, I just wanted to point that out.

2) I always raise the skimmer. You can use a plastic container, or even build a little stand out of egg crate.

3) Trimming the slots sounds like the easiest course of action. Posting some pictures of the overflow issue would be helpful.

4) Sounds fine to me, is it quiet?

The tank looks great! I like the Blue/Grey contrast

 

[FishyFish]

@sbash Thanks for the tips! I will post pics of the internal overflow when I get home.

On #1, I thought about this too but the pipes are actually part of the sump. I could cut them but I'm not even sure how to remove them to cut. I might need to contact somebody at Trigger about it. Seems like a lot of people with these sumps would have the same issue unless I'm missing something.

I drilled a hole in the top of the secondary so it's can't create a full siphon. It looked to me like air was coming from that pipe but it's probably coming from both of them really.

And thanks for the compliment!! Once I decided on this sump I knew I had to get the matching pipes!

 

[Hemmdog]

@sbash Thanks for the tips! I will post pics of the internal overflow when I get home.

On #1, I thought about this too but the pipes are actually part of the sump. I could cut them but I'm not even sure how to remove them to cut. I might need to contact somebody at Trigger about it. Seems like a lot of people with these sumps would have the same issue unless I'm missing something.

I drilled a hole in the top of the secondary so it's can't create a full siphon. It looked to me like air was coming from that pipe but it's probably coming from both of them really.

And thanks for the compliment!! Once I decided on this sump I knew I had to get the matching pipes!

The pipes on triggers come right out, just twist them. Yea raise your skimmer with egg crate. #3 sounds like a major problem to me I’m not sure what your going to do if you want it to function as intended. #4 id raise it a tiny bit so it splashes down the 2nd drain, otherwise your just using one drain. Looks good though!

 

[FishyFish]

The pipes on triggers come right out, just twist them. Yea raise your skimmer with egg crate. #3 sounds like a major problem to me I’m not sure what your going to do if you want it to function as intended. #4 id raise it a tiny bit so it splashes down the 2nd drain, otherwise your just using one drain. Looks good though!

Oh, those pipes sure do just come right out. Doh!! That's embarrassing. I think you may be right about the second pipe being too low. Unfortunately I was dumb and glued them together so I'm off to Home Depot to buy more pipe. I'm practically on a first name basis with Home Depot at this point.

The whole thing seems to be working, I'm hoping I can get away with the crooked overflow just by adjusting the flow elsewhere. Here's a pic of what it looks like when the system is off. I hope you can see it, this room has terrible lighting and I don't have a proper camera.