We filled the tank up to test the sump, I was really worried that the pump would push water back into the tank faster than the tank and sump could feed the pump (a Newjet 3000 ordered from the fish tank supplier). I shouldn't have worried though as it all seemed effortless and I think it would handle twice the flow it has with no problems. The noise however was horrendous, the sound of the water crashing down the weir and then the sound of the water entering the sump then the pump itself sounded like a 1976 Japanese moped. This needed sorting before we even thought about running it as my wife was all for beating me around the head with a large stick!
I made a Durso pipe for the weir
This was still noisy but a heck of a lot quieter than the bare weir. Next after some research I extended the return pipe into the sump so that it was just under the surface at its lowest working level. This significantly reduced the noise. After the best part of half a day messing around with the Durso pipe it eventually silenced, I'm not totally sure what I did to achieve this as I was only retrying stuff I'd already been through; anyway it's fine now and my wife has put the stick down. The pump no mater what I tried would not shut up so a new one was ordered, an Eheim Compact+ 3000. When this arrived and fitted the noise was greatly reduced but there was still a loud hum when you stood at the side of the cabinet. Unfortunately this pointed directly at our bedroom door but it was a lot better than the old one. Eventually I stopped this by adjusting the position of the power wire of all things, it seems that was vibrating against the cabinet and the cabinet was amplifying the noise. Finally the noise levels were more than acceptable!
One of the things I wanted to fit more than anything else was some way of automating the water changes as mentioned before. The sump overflow had already been fitted and tested and a HMA filter for providing clean water for the tank purchased and fitted just above the sump. I had also pre fitted a cold water supply to the back of the cabinet. In order to turn the water on and off on a timer I purchased a washing machine solenoid from ebay for a few pence and fitted that to a in line tap. When the solenoid is connected to a plug fitted in a timer it opens and shuts reliably, it's a bit Heath Robinson but it works
The water flow is regulated to about 1/2 a litre per minute through the HMA filter. This at the moment at least doesn't drop the tank temperature by more than 0.2C during the change, that will need monitoring when winter creeps up on us. The timer is now set for 10 hours during the night to make use of the cheaper electricity to heat the cooler water.
Temperature control caused a bit of a problem surprisingly. I bought an ATC 300 external controller from TGM in Wrexham, on fitting with the sender in the tank it seemed to work perfectly. Just after fitting that I started fitting the T5 lighting, when one set had been fitted we decided to go out for a curry rather than cook as it had been a long day. Now for whatever reason I left the lights on when we went out. When we came back we noticed the temperature had dropped a startling 15C. It turned out that when the lighting was switched on the temperature controlled reading dropped by 15C hence switching on the heaters and overheating the water. I called TGM and they had no idea and called both ATC and Arcadia and eventually offered to exchange or refund or whatever else was needed to sort something out. Again it turns out that EMI from the T5 tubes was causing the problem and moving the Temperature sender to the sump cured the problem; strange eh?
Finally the tank was drained and planted, refilled then after a week some livestock added along with a healthy dose of gunk from our existing filters into the sump. 2 weeks down the line this is how it looks
All this is now in quarantine awaiting the day I can move in the Discus
