OK, time to get to the meat of the setup...under the stand. This is a view of the left side of the stand...You can see the AquaC EV-180 skimmer sitting on it's shelf in the Sump. You also see the drilled overflows coming from the tank into the sump straight down from the left side, and coming in from the right as well. The Grey piece inline with one of the overflows on the left is a UNION...this was discussed on page one, and allows me to disconnect this portion of plumbing easily. The overflow with the union goes down to a T where a 3/4" line comes off and goes to the refugium...you can see the red valve that allows me to control flow into the refugium. This 3/4" pipe is held to the side of the stand with a metal support bracket, and takes strain off the overflow. The second left sided overflow does NOT have a union, but it just goes straight down into the sump. I did place a threaded connector on it so I can remove it if I need to. The refugium is in the foreground, and the little Coralife 40 watt PC light fixture is the gold looking thing sitting on top of the refugium.
Here we see the right side of the stand. You can see the 1" return line from the Iwaki coming straight up and going between the two 1" overflows from the right side of the tank. These make a 90 degree turn (through two 45 degree angles to reduce flow restriction) and can be seen entering the sump in the picture above. You also get to see the use of an eye hook and several ZIP TIES to support the right overflows as they go to the left side of the tank. The little screweyes are a great way to make a tie point to the stand for the zipties. The clear piece on the return line is a check valve to prevent water reversing flow if the power goes out...this would be bad and could possibly overflow the sump. The check valve is a union type meaning it has a union built in so it can be replaced if it ever needs to be. Also, you begin to see the right wall mounting area for electronics...All power supplies and outlets are elevated on the right wall well above any possible water spillage line...safety first. By mounting all the outlets vertically on the wall of the stand, everything plugged into them will automatically have a drip loop when plugged in. The big black things are the remote ballasts for the main lights.
A better view of the mountings. Here you can see the 4 X-10 control modules on the powerstrip to the right, and the DIY feeding timer from my projects on the home page. In the right of the picture you can see the controller for 1 of the 2 heaters in place in the sump. I have used an eyehook and zip ties to mount the heater controls, and used a 1 foot extension cord to go from the power strip to the heaters.
