I need help fellow MFK'ers. I never used a sump system before and have used fx5 and AC110s in the past for my fresh water hobby.
Background:
I spent my whole sunday-monday (sun:9:30a - mon:430a) picking up my 180 tank, stand through U-Haul 45mins away, going to two fish stores in the area to find what I wasn't really sure about for return pumps, cleaning up the tank, trying to set up the two rio 12HF rated for 750gph default with the 36 x 12 x 20 three container 38 gallon sump to work with the 1" and 1/2 size bulk heads.
Goal:
I don't want to spend another day before work doing this. I need serious consultation to get this running so I can prep the tank for next week before i put my fish in.
Time and cost vested so far:
I spent 19 hours sunday morning to monday early morning and $188 for two rio12HF pumps, 10ft hose/clamps, and $250 on u-haul and gas.
Problem:
As you can see from the pictures, there are 1.5" drain pipes from each side that go down to the 38 gallon sump with two return lines in the center. From my experience with planted tanks, I think I need some kind of check valve for the hoses that connect from the rio12HF return pumps inside the third bay of the sump that leads to the top of the tank 52" inches off the ground. The tank measures on the stand 54.5" high. Also, I thought two 750gph's that actually becomes 630gph at 4 feet would be perfect (one for each return valve up top), but it's looking like it is sucking too fast and the third bay is becoming almost empty so i tried running only one but do not want this direction nor Y out the two return valve hoses into one rio12HF for only one single 630gph if not less since I'm actually at 4ft and 4 inches with a height of 52" from the sump return pump. Plus I noticed the large bio balls on bay 1 is full but the 2nd bay is 1/2 full. Should I even out the amount of bio balls for bay 1 and 2?
I am in SoCal Irvine and will be glad to pick anyone up who can provide some consultation because I don't have time for this mon-fri and would hate to have something go wrong when Im not home ie. water spills, return pump running dry, etc.
Please help, I can be reached at
iwagumikun@gmail.com that is on my phone and I can call you right away if I can fix this today. I just want to get a estimate in how much time and corrections I need to make this possibly work today to stage for a week before fish go in. If not I have no choice but to walk away and deal with this next weekend and deal with the water I already mixed with API water conditioner.