Plumbing/ Bulkhead Woes

WilRams

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So I'm trying to do the plumbing on my new tank. Its a Cadlights 100g. I love the tank so far but the fact that it has metric drilled holes and fittings is very frustrating. The tank comes with all the plumbing needed but the drain has a ball valve which id rather switch to a gate valve and has no unions to help servicing later. The emergency and return lines are just hose that I would rather hard plumb for aesthetic reasons. Yeah I know its just the sump but hey. So for all those reasons I want to redo the plumbing.

So to start with the drain. Whatever solution I find for this will apply to my other two lines. They use bulkheads unlike I have ever used before. It has a gasket on either side of the glass. The pipe coming out of it is glued into the fitting and it is OD 40mm and ID 35mm. Don't mind the blue tape.





Option 1: I was able to find a union that from flex pvc that would slip onto the 40mm and get me to 1 1/14 on the other side. The only problem is I'm not too confident on the 40mm side. The pipe doesn't fit snug like normal fittings. It has a little bit more play then I would like. Would priming and glueing be enough to make up for a small amount of difference?





Option 2: I realized the bulkhead had stamped 1 1/4 - 32 on it. I tried a 1 1/4 fitting and sure enough thats the size. Now I'm confused. I messed with it and figured out it is just a 1 1/4 nipple threaded into one side and then the other bulkhead threads onto it. With that I went to the plumbing aisle. I figured on the sump side instead of using their fitting I could use a 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 adapter. That's the fitting that would give me the most surface area onto the glass. After that I could do whatever I please in 1 1/2 pipe and fittings. Would this work?









Option 3: Am I missing something? Is there a regular ole regular bulkhead that will work? I tried a 1in bulkhead and it fit perfect. I feel like that would be restricting it way too much though. I don't have a 1 1/4 bulkhead otherwise I would try that to see if I'm lucky. By what I read in my research though that would be a no go. I haven't found a solution looking online at other builds so I'm kind of stumped. Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks!



Side question. They shipped their bulkheads with a gasket on ether side. Is that necessary? When I have used traditional bulkheads they only came with a gasket to use on the inside glass.
 
Correct. That's the supplied bulkhead for the drain. I have ditched the other ideas and am almost positive I found the adapter that will take me from 40mm to either 1 1/4 or a 1 1/2. I'll update what I come up with since I know a lot of people who have wanted to do their own plumbing on these tanks have run into similar issues.
 
Correct. That's the supplied bulkhead for the drain. I have ditched the other ideas and am almost positive I found the adapter that will take me from 40mm to either 1 1/4 or a 1 1/2. I'll update what I come up with since I know a lot of people who have wanted to do their own plumbing on these tanks have run into similar issues.

It seems really odd that they would use a standard size thread on a metric slip bulk head?
 

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