OK, back to work....After the now water tight tank dried completely...it was time to start assembling the functional sump. This involved adding the baffles I planned for the sump. Anyone who has read this far knows I used QCad to design my sump...planning makes perfect...oh wait, maybe that's practice...oh well.
Here is the side and top drawings of my sump with QCad.
And from the end. The holes will be explained in a bit, but let me just tell you they are TROUBLE! You will notice I deviated from my plan a little bit. I originally was going to have 2 x 1 1/2" overflows from the refugium draining into the sump. When I began getting things together, I realized this would be dificult to plump properly, and with a 1 inch bulkhead being estimated to drain 300gph, I felt that in a low flow refugium that a 1 1/2" bulkhead would be plenty.
Well, Let me explain a little about the design. The chamber to the far right in the diagram at the top of the page will connect to the intake of the IwakiMD70RLT by a 1 1/2" section of flex PVC. The 16" tall divider that is six inches from the right wall is the one you see drilled with holes on the end view. It is to allow placement of mechanical and chemical filter media in the 2" spaces between the 6" tall baffles next to it. The holes were my idea to keep whatever filter bags, sponges etc from being pulled over the baffles by accident and ending up in the Iwaki impeller. The tall divider spans the entire height of the sump, with the holes being the only opening at the bottom. This will serve as a second bubble trap as well as keeping my filter media in place. After some thinking, I decided that the second 6" tall baffle was not necessary, and wouldn't have anything keeping its contents from being pulled into the intake if something floated loose. I nixed the baffle after the 16" tall divider in the final construction. The First chamber to the left is the Skimmer area and overflow return from the main tank. This is seperated from the middle chamber by a set of opposing baffles, each 10" tall. These opposing baffles (one from the top and one from the bottom) are my bubble trap to keep microbubbles from the skimmer and overflow returns from making it into the return pump. The middle chamber will hold as much live rock as I can stuff into it and still keep it submerged. The overall sump is 30" long, 14" wide and 16" tall. If filled to the top it will hold an estimated 30 gallons. I plan on the water level to be around 10-11" in the entire sump. This will provide around a 10 galon space for water to empty before the sump overflows. I believe this will be enough in case of a power outage, I hope I'm right.