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 State of the Tank: (cont.) |
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I got in touch with Andy at MyReef Creations and explained my situation. I also told him that as a fan of overfeeding, I am also a fan of overskimming so I needed something that would…make an impression. Here is what I got  . It’s called the MRC-MR7, a dual Beckett model that, when driven by the Sequence 4300, is rated at 1500 gallons; nearly three times the volume of water in my entire system!
In other words, “THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about”!
Of course, it was hard leaving it offline through the rest of the winter while spending several days a week unclogging venturis but we decided we’d install everything together because…well, we’re just stupid that way. Anyhow, spring finally came and with it so did the sump. Here it is in my garage being water tested and this is a shot of the 4 intakes from which the socks will hang . Underneath is the sock drawer itself. It moves back and forth on a runner for easy access.
Oh, and if you’ll look on the back of the sump, lying on top there, you’ll notice a sponge block. This option was included to place between the baffles if the socks didn’t remove all the microbubbles. I’m really hoping they aren’t necessary for any number of reasons.
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The next shot here shows the drilling of the bulkheads . The first two, moving left to right, are for the returns to the tank. The third is for the UV and the forth is for the skimmer. For those who have never done this, this is considered the point of no return. If you’ve screwed up your measurements now, you are what polite society would call f***ed. You’d be f***ed to impolite society too, except being impolite, they wouldn’t call you the next day either.
Next is a shot of the new skimmer being dry fitted
. Call me paranoid but for my money, you can’t measure and re-measure this stuff too much. Heck, I even measure it with two different tapes in case one of them disagrees. Why? Because the last thing you want to hear at this point is the word ‘Oops’, that’s why. In fact, I think the three worst places to hear the word ‘oops’ is in the cockpit of an airplane, anywhere in a delivery room, and while dry fitting an aquarium sump…of course, that’s just me. Anyway, this next shot shows a couple of the pumps being dry fitted . Clearly, the one nearest the camera needs to be raised a little. This is not an ‘oops’. Due to the configuration of the intakes, it HAS to be raised like this. The image here, then, shows both the raised pump and the skimmer dry fitted .
As the day of the swap approached, another task was the making up of extra water due to the extra volume of the new sump. Between that and saving the water |
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