Sooooo,,,, I completed the plumbing modifications to the fish tank drain and return today. What a job. What would seem to be an easy in and out kind of job turned out taking me some 5 hours and a pile of towels.
So hers the story. First I turned off the pumps and allowed the water do drain out of the tank until it stopped flowing out of the over flow. To help speed up the process I used a gallon container to displace water in the tank to push the water out faster. So when I realized the extra gallon was going to overflow the sump by at least a half gallon or so it was to late. Water under the tank all over the electrical work. Oh crap, so I immediately pick up the power strip and move it out of the base of the tank and luckily I got it Justin time before the water came pouring out the over flow on the sump. So I run and get some towels and throw them under the tank and go out and get the shop vac to clean up the mess. After that I removed some water from the sump and started removing the clamps to the plumbing on the side of the tank. I removed the return line to the bottom of the uv filters and was going to hold if up with something but it was stiff so I just left it. I started removing the upper plumbing connections and looked down to notice I was standing in a lake of water. Son of a biscuit! The return line fell to the floor and because I had a towel already on the floor I didn’t here a thing. Of course I now had the electrical strip on the floor that was covered in water. This was a major flood and I had to move the new furniture we just got on Friday to the opposite side of the room and got lots more bath towels to quickly clean up the mess. This is really turning out to be not my day for sure. So after that I just had to take a breather, I was sweating from running around like a crazy man. After taking a short brake and rethinking the plan I removed the return pump from the sump but I had an idea to reverse the hose on the shop vac and blow the water out of the line back into the sump. Another big mistake, water when flying every ware from the massive amount of air coming out of the return pump intake in the sump. Crapoly again!!! This is not my day. I’m starting to feel like an idiot at this point. What could possible happen next. So I got the pump out and put it into the sick. I cut the drain line under the tank so I could remove it. I cut the line and separated it. No more flooding. Back to the shop vac to remove any remaining water from the drain so I don’t have to clean up any other mess of water. I turned on the shop vac and put the end to the open end of the drain and no sooner does water come gushing out the end of the line. The over flow box water was gushing out the end because the small 1/8 in hole in the top of the silencer can not keep up with the vacuum volume. I feel like a complete and utter idiot at this point.
So with no more delay here is the end result of my day.
