After a couple of months of trying to design a sump, I finally had my "brilliant" idea of the day (especially after seeing pics of GTs setup.) I live in a townhouse condo with my own private basement. Currently I have a 75g aga that seperates my living room from my dining room, and is raised about 8" to be at the level of my couch in the living room (it's a nice effect.) I've been wanting to add a sump, but didn't want to crowd behind the tank as my dining room table is about ~6' away from the back of the tank. I want to use at least a 30g tank (if not bigger) for the sump, and it won't fit neatly under the 75g as the custom stand I inherited as the doors are to small. It dawned on me last night that I have 2 central air vents on each side of the tank; one is the actually output vent, the other is the return. The return vent duct in the basement, due to incompetence by the builders, has a 1/2" x 4" gap where it joins the ducting to the furnace where I already have been running a cable to monitor the tank temperature to my homeauto server in the basement. This gap is also almost directly below the vent as well.
I was thinking that wouldn't take much to cut a flap where this gap is in the ducting in the basement and bend it back and run some tubing thru it straight down to a sump, sealing any gaps. A flap in the ducting is easier to bend back and seal when I move rather than drilling holes in the floor/walls, and the vent convers are $9 at HD so no big deal to replace. I would probably use flexible tubing as it will have to take a couple slight bends down and then back up for the return. I would have to pump about 10' max (she thinks 6') based on estimations we did this morning without a tape measure as we discussed it. Origionally I had picked up a used Mag7 pump that I was going to do for the return that was going to be submerged in a 29g tank I had picked up, however that pump won't be able to handle that height. I am thinking now maybe a mag18 in maybe at least a 55g sump.
Any thoughts/feedback? Thanks!
-Mike
I was thinking that wouldn't take much to cut a flap where this gap is in the ducting in the basement and bend it back and run some tubing thru it straight down to a sump, sealing any gaps. A flap in the ducting is easier to bend back and seal when I move rather than drilling holes in the floor/walls, and the vent convers are $9 at HD so no big deal to replace. I would probably use flexible tubing as it will have to take a couple slight bends down and then back up for the return. I would have to pump about 10' max (she thinks 6') based on estimations we did this morning without a tape measure as we discussed it. Origionally I had picked up a used Mag7 pump that I was going to do for the return that was going to be submerged in a 29g tank I had picked up, however that pump won't be able to handle that height. I am thinking now maybe a mag18 in maybe at least a 55g sump.
Any thoughts/feedback? Thanks!
-Mike
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