Pastey's 200DD--SPS v. 3.0

About to order my bulkheads and some other fittings. Using 1" ID piping. Does this mean I need to use 1" bulkheads and adapters?

 

yep....if you are using 1" pipe, you want 1 inch bulkheads. make sure the bulkheads are "slip" rather than threaded

 

Definitely going with slip/slip. Thanks for the quick response. Just had to make sure I was getting the right stuff. Hate to waste time getting the wrong stuff!

 

Yep, been there and done that. i have had to send several orders back in the past because I was too lazy to get on and ask

 

Noticed a big flaw in my plumbing. If I run one drain wide open into the refugium section of the sump, I might as well not have one. I'm going to have to run both drains to the skimmer and tee off one of those and add a valve so I can adjust/slow down the flow.

Visualized:

 

Bulkheads and FPT/MPT fittings will be here Friday. Still have a decision to make about the pump and stand pipe design. I'm really liking the Herbie design but I'm very unfamiliar with it.

Question 1: Can you have the main drain in one overflow and the emergency drain in the other? I'd really rather have returns on each side (1 in each corner vs. 2 in the same).

Question 2: Using a Herbie overflow means I shouldn't tee off any drains because of what it may do to the siphon. This means that to get water to the refugium, I'd need to tee off one of the return lines. This might be the best way to go about it if I oversize/dial back the pump since it will give me somewhere to "bleed off" pressure.

Question 3: I have no desire to add recators....now. That does not mean I won't in 6 months. Should I go ahead and add a tee, a valve, a union and then cap it for future (possible) use? I want to avoid having pumps hanging out of my sump, cluttering things and making it look like a disaster.

 

I have never had a drilled tank, so I am just throwing some ideas out there.

For #1, this seems like a fine plan to me as long as the main overflow/drain can handle all the flow.

#2 - I would say the best way to do this would be to have your second overflow feed the refugium. (which contradicts #1). You would just need to make sure the flow rate was sized appropriately.

#3 - I would! On mine I added two extra tees. One line is more of a recirculation through the sump in case I need it (have used it a couple times) and the other I use to do quick water changes with (I have a hose barb on it so I just attach my tubing and open the ball valve. You won't need to cap them though. Just a tee, valve and union would be fine.

 

Decided to stick with dual dursos. Going to ditch the 2 Mag9.5s in favor of a Dart/Snapper hybrid. I'm going to run an extra tee should I ever decide to hook up a manifold of reactors. I'm also going to use the return to supply my fuge with flow that I can slow down via ball valve. Ill have to open up the external pump outlet because the reeflo has a 2" inlet.

 

Thanks to some guys on a local reef forum, I'm moving ahead with plans/changes/upgrades.

Where I'm at right now....

I'm ditching the (2)Mag9.5 returns in lieu of a single Dart/Snapper hybrid. This means I can not use the current hole or bulkhead that came in/with the sump. I'm going to patch the existing hole and drill a new (larger) hole. The Reeflo has a 2" inlet that is 3.19" high. 2" bulkhead means I'll need a 2.8" hole with 3.85" of room for the bulkhead and gasket.

I also made some corrections/adjustments to my plumbing concept. I decided to stick with the dual dursos but I can't dedicate one entire drain to refugium because it would create too much flow rendering my fuge worthless. To correct this, I'll pipe both drains into the skimmer section and use a tee/ball valve on my return to supply the fuge. This allows me to adjust the flow to maximize the fuge's capability. I also decided to add a spare tee that will be unused (at first) in case I ever want to add a manifold, ATS or something else in the future. I'd rather add that now instead of having a bunch of wires and extra pumps laying around and cluttering things up.

I will have to return the cheapo ball valves I bought because they're FPT and the MPT/Slip adapters take up precious vertical room. With only 25 vertical inches to work with, every inch counts. I'll be adding ball valves and unions on each drain/return directy before the bulkheads that lead into the overflows for a few reasons. One, because I'll be doing a full wet test/tune before the tank goes in the house and that means I'll need to be able to break it completely down and reassemble. Two, because I want to be able to remove the sump without draining the tank should I ever need to. Easier to drain 20gallons than it is to drain 200.

Re-adjusted plumbing sketch:


Also cleaned the sump up last night while I had it out taking measurements:

 

Received some plumbing stuff in the mail and picked out the remainder of what I could. Ordering the Reeflo Dart/Snapper hybrid next week along with a qualitu true union valve for return flow adjustment. Bought some new hinges for the doors on the stand as they were showing signs of rust from salt creep. I am going to install some under-stand lighting bit I haven't decided exactly what yet. Going to give the tank the same cleaning treatment that was done to the sump last weekend. Also need to start getting supplies together for the saltwater mixing and freshwater storage setup. No post is complete with picture soooo here you go.