Plumbing

2/20/04
Finally ready to start plumbing the new tank—quite a complex process. I’ve spent many hours in research and believe I’ve come up with a reasonable approach.

2/28/04
My hands are sore this morning—actually, everything is sore—from the labor of setting up the tank yesterday. There was a huge quantity of sand to wash, each a 50 lb bag. So much hauling heavy things is never easy on this arthritic body! Anyway, we finished and turned the water on, but discovered we couldn’t get the overflow to come back fast enough for the capacity of the pump, so had to turn that down by half. If we ever lost power (when, actually, not if), the overflow also would return more water than the sump can hold—need a bigger sump, and there isn’t room for that, so need to make our own to match the dimensions we have. The picture inside the tank cabinet shows our crude plumbing attempts.

In short, lots more work to do. But I’ve ordered the live rock so the plan is in motion, regardless. Today I have to figure out how much salt is needed to create 80 gallons from fresh. The container had no directions, and putting it in a little at a time—then measuring salinity, then adding more—is pretty tedious when you don’t know if you need one cup or 80. I posted the question on the internet, and it turns out a cup of salt makes about 2 gallons of salt water, more or less.