Who has a sump in the garage?

[hesstondc]

Hello all

I just moved to the area a month ago and I thought I was going to sell off all my reef stuff, well I now have permission from the wife to turn the downstairs den into tank only room. SWEET...

Has anyone ever drilled through the floor and ran PVC into the garage? I have crawlspace under my house, the garage is on a slab, and at a lower level that than the house. I would need to run the pipe about 15-20ft max under the house and attach it the floor joist. As long as I use pipe insulation it should affect the temp when it gets cold out I would think.

I also want to setup a quick waterchange setup in the garage were I could turn a few valves and do a water change in a few minutes...Does anyone have a setup like this? (I have a sink in my garage so I am setup to drain and get water pretty easy.

I am in the ag industry so I can get those rubbermaid tubs for horses, I want to use one of those as my main sump. And possibly put a 30 long against the wall above the sump to make a refugium.

Does anyone see any potential problems with this plan? Am I going to have problems having these sumps outside instead of under the tank? Oh and I would like to join the club. I was a memeber of the Atlanta reef club.


Is there a local store were I can buy F-Can halide Ballast? looking for a few 250's.....

Thanks
Clay

 

[fishdoc11]

I know of several people who have sumps in their basements and they work just fine. There was a large thread on here a while back with lots of good info and I can't seem to find it at the moment. I know mdwannabe over at the MTRC has a quite elaborate setup with his sump, fuge etc in his crawlspace. JBNY also had his sump etc... in his basement but the tank has been taken down:
http://www.cnidarianreef.com
I personally have my external pumps, ballasts and chiller in my garage but the sump is under the tank. I would have put it in the garage if I would have known what I had to work with before I built everything before our recent move.
hth, Chris

 

[ReefRacer]

I think a good way to do the water change is to extend your return line into your tank (temporarily) to the depth you want to drain to and when you turn off the return pump the water will siphon out the return line and you can valve it down the drain.
To fill you put a pump in your trash can of new salt water and just flip on a power strip switch. It should be valved into the return line also. Use pipe unions or you might regret it like I do. Thats how mine works anyway. I have RO/DI that fills a seperate trash can with a float switch. I pump it into the salt water can to make new batches or into the top off.

 

[fishdoc11]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=965706

 

[fishdoc11]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=964412

 

[fishdoc11]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=769218&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

 

[hesstondc]

Thanks fish doc....I have decided to just mount the sump under the stand. The stand is 36" high so I have plenty of room to mount it

Thanks again