We had a contractor that the fish store recommended (he used to also run the Puget Sound Aquarium Society) come in to reinforce the floors so that we’d see less water movement when people walked by. He took care of all of the wood work, cement donuts, and pipes, and now everything feels much more stable. We also got new vibration-dampening feet for the washing machine and dryer which are amazing little things even if they were a bit of a pain to get in place. So, vibration and floors taken care of, the next big issue was the flow through the sump and refugium. With the new, reduced-flow pump in place, we tried the plumbing one more time before my mom’s visit. Pouring water into the back compartment (at left) in the main tank, and watching it filter into the front compartment through the grate.
The initial tank filling went well, but even with the lower-flow pump, the flow through the bottom tank is too slow. Major bummer. This means redoing a bunch of the plumbing, holes through the walls and stands, and ordering larger bulkheads so that we can expand those pipes from 1.5” to 2”.
