Benjamin's 75g Garage Build (FOWLR to Reef)

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My sump split!!!!

So my wife is hanging out this evening on the front porch and comes in and says there is water in the garage. Great I think.... the overflow is busted. I go check it out. There is about 10g of water on the floor. The overflows are working fine.... hhhmmmm.

I noticed there is water around the sump.... plumbing is good. WTH? Then I see it.... a huge crack along the back of the sump. WHAT THE HECK???? The base is square and level, there is only about 3" of sand and it's only about 2/3 full. What did I do wrong?!?!?!!?

What a feaking mess. I spent an hour cleaning up. I was lucky that I just got my QT tank ready for some more fish soon. I quickly put all the LR in the display and moved the cheato into a net. I then scooped all the sand into the 15g and filled it with water and dropped in the extra heater and a power head. I saved another 5g in a bucket as well. :(

Any thoughts for the rebuild this weekend? I think I'm going to get some of that foam board for the bottom just in case it's off a hair. I don't know what else could have done it.

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I think I'm going to keep the sump mostly the same when I redo it. The only thing I think I'm going to redo is trim the exiting baffle on the refugium and remove the last baffle.

This is going to lower the sump water level 1" in 2/3 of the sump and cause a little current/disturbance by the small drop off the baffle to the left that will be 1" higher then. I'll move all the baffles over toward the return 1" giving me a tad more room for the skimmer.

I'm also going to put my ATO in the 1st chamber. In the event my overflow dies or clogs, the return chamber will drop dramatically. The ATO will kick in and basically I would have an infinite flood on my hands if I'm out of town or something.
 
i may be wrong but i don't think the ato will work very well in the first chamber because all of your evap will still be coming out of the return chamber.
 
I've been thinking about this since I got up and it's very perplexing!!! How can one avoid a flood??? You're right about the water levels... the sump will be the same in the other chambers because of the baffles. The only way to truly have a fail safe is with a pump and 2 floats I think. You need 1 float to turn the pump on and off to control the level and a second if it gets too low somewhere else to shut it off entirely I think. I don't think it's possible with a gravity system like I have setup.
 
If I let myself imagine an ideal setup it includes a hard surface floor and floor drain for the tank area. Even if it were in a living room for example, a catch area with a drain would be great disaster insurance. Because stuff happens. Oh to dream.

- D
 
Little update. I grabbed the 29g I was using for my RO water storage and made a quick sump out of it. No baffles so if my overflow fails... let's just say it will be ugly.

I also found a brand new (with stickers on it) 75g Marineland aquarium drilled for $135! I have that at the house now. I hope to sell the current one for around $40/$50. Right now the 75g is drilled in the corners. I'm not sure if I'm going to drill another hole for an emergency overflow or not. Also, if I only use the 1 return I'll have to drop the SCWD and right now it appears everything in the tank is happy with the flow. We'll see.
 
I took the drive today and it is well worth it. His lagoon is something to awe over. He has a fantastic selection of corals in all shapes, sizes and prices and Jeff is a fantastic man to talk to and ask any question you have.
 
Well everything is still alive but it's getting nasty in the tank with the lower flow and such. I ordered a new 40g breeder through a friend for a nice little discount. It's not a Marineland like before but a Depp Blue. The bottom isn't tempered in case I want to use it for something else later and drill it. However... it has a center brace where the Marineland didn't.

I'm not sure about this. Do you think I could cut it out? The other tank cracked because one of my baffles was too tight. My fear is that the refugium was dead center in the deign and the brace is going to cause maintenance headaches down the road.


  • Should I not worry about it and just redo it like before?
  • Should I cut the brace?
  • Should I leave the brace and redo the layout so the refugium is on the right and the return is in the middle possibly making maintenance easier? I don't see working on the pump as much as cleaning the refugium but I'd need to divert some flow off the return to the refugium like my FW setup.
I've also decided I want to do a herbie type setup on the overflow so I'm drilling a 3rd hole (right now there is 1 hole in each corner) so that I have 1 overflow, 1 emergency overflow and 1 return. I'm going to drill a few in the broken 40g but it shouldn't be too difficult.
 
I wouldn't cut the brace it's there for a reason . My sump has a brace right in the middle of the fuge. It's not a big deal maintenance wise unless you keep rock in yours . I just keep cheato with no rock and the brace hasn't bothered me at all.
 
That may be a problem then. I don't think it would be too bad to work around it though.different manufactures do things differently I guess/
 
Another thought was the fact it's only going to have 10" of water in it at most and I'm dropping 6 baffles into it for cross support. I might call the company today and see if I can get a hold of someone.
 
is this going under a stand? will there be support surrounding the tank? what I mean is will there be a piece of wood wedged up against the tank around where that brace is? if so, go for it & cut the brace. if not, I wouldn't cut it IMO even with the 10" of water, I doubt you want to go through doing this all over again..
 
I just don't see how removing a center brace and replacing it with 6 is going to be a compromise on structure. I have seen custom euro bracing done on glass, rimless tanks all over. Then again, I didn't think that 1/32" on a baffle would eventually cause a crack :)
 
mrbee2828 said:
I just don't see how removing a center brace and replacing it with 6 is going to be a compromise on structure. I have seen custom euro bracing done on glass, rimless tanks all over. Then again, I didn't think that 1/32" on a baffle would eventually cause a crack :)
Click to expand...

nevermind reread & im slow lol.

I dunno, if you have those baffles siliconed in there REALLY well I would THINK it would hold. Now I see where you're at in your head. I thought it was just going to be cut with nothing bracing & I didn't think about the baffles
 
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