OK, for those of you who have read this far...I congratulate and thank you. Now, I have to play a little trick on you. In this photo I am leaktesting the sump...however, those with keen observation skills will notice this isn't the sump. This is a picture of my refugium. I used a powerhead to pump the refugium full of water...here it is about half full.
Those of you even more astute...will notice the powerhead is IN the refugium. Well, this may or may not count as MISTAKE #2, but I did learn something. I had filled the refugium, and let it sit for 24hours...WOOHOO!!!! NO LEAKS!!! I was in the process of emptying it when the photo was taken. OK,OK, I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but I moved the powerhead into the refugium to empty it...when all I needed to do was start a siphon to empty it. Like I said, no biggy, but I no longer have to try to get the little suction cups off the acrylic when emptying my tanks after testing...lol. Oh, and off topic, but if I had had these suction cups on my little suction cup dart gun when I was a kid, I would have been the envy of the neighborhood. I really think I could pick up the tank with the suction cups on the powerhead...those things are strong...I had to break the suction with my fingernail on each of the three suction cups to get it out. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming....
The refugium was completely watertight...very refreshing for my first attempt at acrylic tank assembly. Now, I tested the sump that you saw put together. Hmmm...It doesn't photograph well, but here is what I saw...
Like I said, it didnt photograph well, and I tried every photoshop trick to make the edges of the water BENEATH the acrylic show up. The thing I was trying to demonstrate is that by looking down through the water, any leaks will show up with water wicking UNDER the tank at that location...it spills down the side, and wicks under the tank. I know it didn't show up well, but it is VERY easy to see in real life. Also, in the leak photo you can just make out the capped bulkhead.
Learning point #1... The refugium wasn't a problem to leak test...the bulkhead was at the very top as you can see in the picture at the top of the page. This meant that the entire refugium was full before the bulkhead came into play. Well, as you noticed in the sump building, I had a bulkhead at the BOTTOM of the sump. Being the Genius I am, I didn't think about how to leak test the sump until after I had the bulkheads installed. I was VERY lucky in that the bulkhaeds I obtained from MarineDepot actually had female threads on the inside of one end of the bulkhead. Yes, like I said I got lucky. I ran out to the local hardware store and got 2 1 1/2" male threaded caps and some teflon tape. These worked very well to cap the bulkheads during leak testing, and will be easily removed when it is time to use the sump.
The leak was easy to find...I wiped the entire seam that was over the spot where water was under the tank with a paper towel. I then observed the seam closely and saw where a small pinhole leak was coming through at the very base of the seam. This is one of the areas where I had some microbubbles, and on closer inspection, one spanned the seam completely. To repair this, I first tried to wick some cement in from both sides of the seam. I don't know if it still had some water in it, or if there is some other reason, but the cement would NOT go into the seam there. I have a feeling that the gap is so small that without the pressure of the full water column it is actually watertight. Only when the tank is full is there enough pressure to squeeze a drop out every 5 minutes or so. Fixing the leak deserves a full page..so: