75 gallon tank

Well, I planned my work and worked my plan...until my brain got in the way, then I revised my plan and made things way more complicated.
Anyway, the plumbing is done...mostly.

How we got there:

Time to plumb a pump.

I started with a 3/4" to 1 1/2" adaptor threaded to a 1 1/2" union. I screwed these 2 fittings together prior to putting them on the pump to avoid cracking the pump housing.


Then I screwed this assembly on to the pump.


Next I screwed a 1 1/2" thread to slip fit adaptor to the top of the union. Here's the finished assembly (from an earlier photo).


Next I built the manifold. This will split the flow from the Mag12 between feeding my biopellet reactor, charcoal reactor and return flow with the option to bleed off extra flow to the cheato section in the sump.

First I got all the parts laid out with short pieces of pipe cut for joining all the fittings together.


Then I glued the pieces for the 1/2" and 3/4" reactor feed sections together and glued those to the reducer tees. Then I carefully lined up the reducer tees so they would be level when glued to the 1 1/2" tee which would split the flow between the return and the manifold. I did this dry first and put marks on the fittings so that I would have a way to line them up quickly when I was glueing the pieces together.




Then I glued up the rest of the fittings. I took the double union ball valve apart prior to gluing all the fittings together to avoid getting glue in the ball valves.



Next I measured, cut and glued the upright from the top of the pump to the manifold. Then I glued a 45 degree bend to the top part of the 1 1/2" tee going up to the return and glued another union to the 45. A short piece of spa flex to keep pump vibrations from being transferred into the main tank via the return plumbing and another 45 completed the manifold. Then I measured and cut the pipe to get the return to the top of the tank. (2) 90 degree bends finished out the return. I still need to add a short piece of pipe and another 90 to direct the return.
Sorry, not alot of pictures for this process, just one of the completed return and manifold.


To finish out the second overflow pipe, I glued a wye onto the bottom of the overflow pipe, added a 45 to the bottom and finished it off with spa flex to get into the skimmer section. Then I added a 22.5 bend to the wye and glued on a slip fit to thread adaptor.


Last step was to add spa flex into the cheato section.

Here's the mostly finished product. I also still need to use some alcohol to clean up the excess glue per Midnight's previous suggestion. (Going to try that now.)



The spa flex going from the wye to the cheato section is connectd via a threaded conneciton. This was an after thought that may have been unnecessary and certainly added some extra time and complexity to the project. The idea is to make sure there's enough flow going to the cheato section. If the Mag12 isn't strong enough to provide 400 gph to the tank, 350 gph to the biopellet reactor, 200 gph to the carbon reactor and around 100 gph to the cheato section. My original design didn't include this option, but it was easier to plumb it in now and not need it, than to need it and have to plumb it in later. If I don't need it, there's too much flow to the cheato section or not enough to the skimmer section (don't know that any of these are a real posssibility) then I can unscrew the spa flex and screw in a threaded plug.

The one thing that became obvious after I got the plumbing installed is that I'll need to have the baffle closest to the skimmer cut higher in the back forming a rectangular weir in the front. This will prevent water from flowing directly between the overflows and the return pump and force it to move toward the front of the tank so it can be skimmed prior to being returned to the pump.

With my target being 400 gph through the sump and a 6" wide weir, the flow over the top of the weir will be around 1/2" high.

Maybe it'll all be clearer once I get the baffles ordered and have some pictures.

Anyway, sorry this post was short on pictures, thanks for following along, and as always all comments are welcome.