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Pixel's 65 Gallon

I wanted to get the skimmer into the closet because it's kind of noisy. I could have gone with no sump under the aquarium, but the wall is 8" thick brick and stone. I wasn't able to drill anything large than 1" holes though it, which means 3/4" tubing. That's not nearly big enough for the overflow pipes. So instead, I just went with the two sumps connected at a relatively low flow. It isolates all the noisy equipment and the added water volume doesn't hurt either.
 
Oh I didn't answer your other questions.

No explicit fuge. I could do one in the sump under the main tank, though.

The float switches are not super reliable. To mitigate the risk, I'm making the top-off reservoir require manual filling and putting a failsafe drain on the RO/DI reservoir.
 
Ok looking at your picture there's a few comments/suggestions/warnings

1: Looks your your tank drains into "sump1" on the right side, how does that "dirty water" get to the skimmer compartment in "sump2" on the left?

-- I would probably advise you simply drain directly to your skimmer compartment.

2: Why is there a pump in "sump2" that pumps to "sump1" ??

-- I would very much advise against trying to use a two tier pumping system without some sort of bulkhead in place in the 2nd tier to drain excess water back to the first tier. Because there is no way you can match both of those pumps flow even with the same pump and you will drain one faster and either run a pump dry or overflow one of the sumps. It looks like you do have a connection between the two, but I don't see why you want to pump water there at all, just to add more circulation in the sump?

-- My advice, have your tank drain to the skimmer compartment, ditch pump2 keeping your sumps connected. Now you can go two directions, put bulkheads and connection on the closet sump high, connected to stand sump effectively making 3 compartments of your multi-part-sump (I did this myself), however you'd need to move your float switch to the sump under the stand. Or keep it the way it is without the pump2 of course with the bulkhead low to the ground, effectively making a larger compartment and your float switch can stay. I prefer the former idea because that third sump chamber gives you the option for a refugium or something.
 
Heh. These are all the parts that are done and working! I think you misunderstand a couple of things. Let me explain...

[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=4551.msg66495#msg66495 date=1228060340]
Ok looking at your picture there's a few comments/suggestions/warnings

1: Looks your your tank drains into "sump1" on the right side, how does that "dirty water" get to the skimmer compartment in "sump2" on the left?

-- I would probably advise you simply drain directly to your skimmer compartment.
[/quote]

There's a baffle perpendicular to the other baffle that splits what looks like one section into two. Water flows into the second sump though a bulkhead below the water level. It overflows into the skimmer section, then that overflows into the return section where's it's pumped back to the first sump.

[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=4551.msg66495#msg66495 date=1228060340]
2: Why is there a pump in "sump2" that pumps to "sump1" ??
[/quote]

There would be no water exchange between the sumps if there weren't a pump. That second pump just circulates water from the sump in the closet back to the sump in the stand. Water then freely flows from the sump in the stand back to the sump in the closet. They're at the same height so it's important that the return between them be below the water level. This also makes the return section in the closet sump be the top-off section, which is convenient.

[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=4551.msg66495#msg66495 date=1228060340]
-- I would very much advise against trying to use a two tier pumping system without some sort of bulkhead in place in the 2nd tier to drain excess water back to the first tier. Because there is no way you can match both of those pumps flow even with the same pump and you will drain one faster and either run a pump dry or overflow one of the sumps. It looks like you do have a connection between the two, but I don't see why you want to pump water there at all, just to add more circulation in the sump?
[/quote]

There is a bulkhead that drains excess water from the sump under the stand to the sump in the closet.
There's no attempt to match flow rate. In fact, they have significantly different flow rates because the connection between the sumps can only handle a couple hundred GPH.

[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=4551.msg66495#msg66495 date=1228060340]
-- My advice, have your tank drain to the skimmer compartment, ditch pump2 keeping your sumps connected. Now you can go two directions, put bulkheads and connection on the closet sump high, connected to stand sump effectively making 3 compartments of your multi-part-sump (I did this myself), however you'd need to move your float switch to the sump under the stand. Or keep it the way it is without the pump2 of course with the bulkhead low to the ground, effectively making a larger compartment and your float switch can stay. I prefer the former idea because that third sump chamber gives you the option for a refugium or something.
[/quote]

As I mentioned in reply to Phong's post, it's not possible to have the tank drain directly into the skimmer compartment because I'm not set up to drill a 2" hole though 8" thick brick and stone.

The only way I could do one pump would be to have it in the closet sump pumping back to the display tank. As I mentioned, though, I'm limited by the flow rate between the two sumps. I want more flow than that between the sump in the stand and the display tank. Hence two pumps.
 
I finally got some aquascaping done!

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I'm not totally happy with it yet. In particular, I'm not sure if I want to keep the big tower in the middle. I might just remove it for a more open look and possibly do a ledge coming off the back wall (supported from above) instead. I'm not sure yet.

Here are a few more photos:

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Thanks for re-inspiring me about my tank Saturday (Jan. 09). Especially for telling me about this site. It's pretty cool to get to see pictures of what we talked about.
 
[quote author=Akyu link=topic=4551.msg73981#msg73981 date=1231783022]

Thanks for re-inspiring me about my tank Saturday (Jan. 09). Especially for telling me about this site. It's pretty cool to get to see pictures of what we talked about.
[/quote]

Haha. I saw your post here early last week. Then I got really busy and didn't get around to replying for a few days. I had your message logged in my brain, though, so a couple days later I went to reply....

...and couldn't remember where I had received your message. I thought it was an email. Or a private message. Or an email to some other account. I searched everywhere, then decided I must be going crazy and moved on. Only today when I was about to post a few photos to this thread did I see it again. Hahahaha I'm a dork.

HI!
 
Here are some photos I took today.

This frogspawn is almost never closed up, but I epoxied it in place today and it didn't like that. I figured I'd take a photo of it closed up so I can compare growth down the road.

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I just like how the background looks -black- in this photo:

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A new A. Horrida I picked up at Ocean's Treasures (on the same day I met Akyu). It already had some tissue recession at that appeared to be getting worse in my less than ideally maintained QT Tank, so I cut the quarantine period short. I hope it's not due to a pest!

This coral has some really fierce green fluorescence under actinics.

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Rainbow Yuma goin' strong.

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Crocea clam. She's normally extended more, but I snapped this one when she was annoyed with my light messing and flash photograph taking.

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A few more random shots:

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Equipment room. I have room for one more shelf, which I'll probably install and use for either storage or the QT tank.

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Honestly, it's a little much all at once. I'd rather do 15 seconds 8 times a day, but the timer only supports 1 minute increments. I used to use peristaltic pumps but they were too noisy.

Anyway, I'll be getting my calcium reactor up and running soon and then it won't matter!
 
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