Would love to see photos of the sump.abd plumbing. I am coming from a plug and play red sea reefer where the sump and plumbing were provided. The IM will be my first custom sump tank so I am super nervous about the plumbing. Did you pick your sump so the overflow pipes line up perfectly with the sump bulkheads?
Yes, I did pick this particular sump based on how the plumbing would line up among other things. I have it all the way to the drain side and centered front to back in the stand. This allows me to tuck my UV in the back while still having access to replace the bulb. This also gives me a nice area in front of the sump to collect junk. With this sump and stand area I still get the entire right cabinet area to store and collect more junk or add gear.
The drains are all one inch and come straight down into a sweep elbow to go under the stand, into a second sweep elbow to turn back down and straight into the sump. They are supported with clamps mounted to the stand; thought not really necessary in this particular install, why not right?
Sorry this is not the best photo but I thought it may help with some perspective. I should have taken a photo before I covered it up.
The return lines come up a single line from the return pump, into a three way valve that doubles as tee, into long sweep elbows that turn the pipe to the left and out of the stand.
I used the pipe that is between the return pump and the valve to set the height of lines. I used the pipe between the elbows and the valve to match the width of the return line bulkheads.
The returns reduce down where they meets the left side of the stand from 1-1/4 inch down to one inch, are clamped, turn up with sweep elbows, into check valves, into sweep elbows again to turn into the return bulkheads, and finally bushings reduce them down to 3/4 inch right at the bulkheads.
Here you can see that the far right drain is not like the others. This is temporary and will be where the UV ties in. I am waiting on a fitting that has been backordered.
I added some short pipes to the inside of the sump bulkheads. Keeping them under the water level eliminates any splashing noises, while still making removing filter socks easy. I usually only run one filter sock on the main drain.
Here you can see the three way valve and how I kept all of the lines clean, simple, and straight. I do not have any "extra" fittings, like couplings to connect pipes.
Yes, I really need to work on some better wire management. Right now I have a lot of "stuff" everywhere. I installed a sheet of PVC board that covers the entire back of the tank, That is why you can not see the doors that are against the back wall. I did this so that I can mount stuff basically anywhere on the ceiling or the back wall. I just need to get around to cleaning it up.
The green tape on the sump is my "The sump will overflow in a power outage" reference mark.
Let me know your thoughts or if you want different pictures/details that I may have left out. Thanks.
