kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

Earlier this year I started thinking about setting up a FOWLR tank. At first I wanted that tank to be separate from the main 150g mixed reef, but after playing around with my 104.72g lagoon for a while I decided that a separate tank of that size just isn't going to work for me. If I'm going to add another tank it HAS to be plumped into the 150 some how so that I can leverage one sump, which means one water change, one dosing location, one heating location, etc..

So speaking of sumps, that's where we begin. I took this opportunity to modify the existing sump while adding two additional sump tanks, one to be used as a connector sump to the main sump and one as a water change tank (more on this later). The 3 sump system looks some thing like this.



Both tanks will have their own return pumps. I found that this is easier to control the herbies in each tank, rather than having one massive return pump with a splitter or manifold. Plus now I can electronically cut supply to each tank individually which is handy.

The sump tanks are fairly small in comparison to the 104.72g lagoon tank that I built so again I decided to build the sump tanks myself.

First up is the primary sump. Here it is held together with just the corner brace to dry fit it.



Once I'm happy with the fit I drop down one of the side panels and apply a bead of silicone to the bottom of the pane.



Lift that pane of glass back up, hold it in place with the corner braces, and lightly push the bottom in but NOT too hard as to squish ALL the silicone out. You never want glass on glass because that's just a weak point that will likely fail!



Repeat for the other side panel. Now we drop down the back panel and apply silicone on 3 sides and push that panel into place.



Once that panel is in place secure with a piece of nylon tape on the top and bottom.





Repeat for the front panel. Now we apply a bead of silicon in all the corners and crevasses and squish in with a finger.

The other two tanks pretty much went the same way. I decided that since these were sumps and I was in a bit of a time crunch I skipped the taping and masking on these tanks. It makes for very ugly siliconing but the sumps are going to get ugly anyway. Here's the trio.



Here's the new Primary Sump back in place.



Here's my new ghetto sensor array.





Return section with the two pumps.



Full Sump Shot.